I spent most of Christmas Eve Day downtown in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. I wrote a blog post about the day with some photos of the activities at Union Rescue Mission.
All of the missions were having celebrations and there were a lot of terrific activities and meals being served.
Last year I spent the same period walking the streets of the area. I thought that it might be interesting to pick a specific area where there was no street activity last Christmas and see what has changed in the last year if anything.
There was one factor which would slant the observation. Last year it was not raining. This year record rain had fallen in Los Angeles over the last week. It had been dry on Christmas but Christmas night the rain started once again. I have decent rain gear so I headed downtown about the time the rain started coming down heavy.
Even if there had been no rain I was ready to find people in the area this year where there were none last year. The economy has not improved, many folks have lost what unemployment benefits they were receiving as their 99 week clock ran out. I had walked the same grid less than six weeks ago and found that there were folks on the street in the evenings.
In any case, perhaps folks had found shelter for Christmas night.
In 1984 and 1985 I was a reserve Sheriff. I wrote the database software for the Sheriff Department at the time. Dbase II to Dbase III to Oracle and beyond. I learned a bit about reporting and districts, patrol areas and having friends in LAPD Central Division gave me some additional insight to their procedures. I utilize their grids and areas for my own outings.
I finished up my conversations that I was having with some folks on facebook via computer. Many times before I head downtown I let folks know where I am going to be. There are times when some folks meet up with me. There are also folks that follow the night in real time once I go mobile via texts, cell photo and cell video.
I headed for car area 1A29. This area has boundaries to the freeway on the North, 7th street to the South, San Pedro St. to the West and the river wash to the East. This area is broken down into maybe a dozen areas the LAPD refers to as basic car areas.
It is easy to get to this area via the Metro Gold Line and get off at Little Tokyo Station. It is a short walk to Alameda and 1st. I headed to reporting district 139, one of the areas within 1A29.