Sadly, more of the same. The city of Los Angeles is the third-largest GDP metropolitan area in the world, and yet Skid Row remains one of the most notorious epicenters of homelessness, substance use, and severe mental illness globally. While innovative evidence-based public health interventions have had decades of proven success around the world, low-barrier services in Skid Row remain stagnant due to political cowardice and abandonment by both the City and County of Los Angeles.
Annually, hundreds of millions of dollars are funneled into programs in Skid Row that exclude people who use drugs and those living with complex behavioral health challenges, thus failing to address the homelessness, overdose, and mental health crisis that continues to wreak havoc in the community. To minimally address this, in 2023 the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors passed a motion, creating the Skid Row Action Plan (SRAP) that was supposed to give Skid Row community members a voice in the programs and services being designed for them. The Skid Row community asked for a low-barrier Harm Reduction Health Hub that provided advanced overdose response and a judgement free welcoming space for people to get off the street, receive basic services, get connections to housing and treatment, and low-barrier job opportunities.
The Skid Row Care Campus was a push in the right direction, providing the community with vital resources, low-barrier job opportunities, and advanced overdose response contracted through Homeless Health Care Los Angeles (HHCLA). Since opening, HHCLA has distributed 85,269 doses of naloxone to community members, collected 275,489 units of hazardous waste, and saved 426 lives through advanced overdose response with supplemental oxygen.
Homeless health care los angeles has the most advanced overdose response in the city. their staff HAVE REVERSED 426 OVERDOSES SINCE 2025 ALONE.
Since opening in 2025, the Skid Row Care Campus has been under constant attack from Estella Lopez, the Executive Director of the Business Industrial District (BID). In May 2026, she was featured on a deceptive FOX News segment about the Skid Row Care Campus (watch here) filled with baseless nonsense. There has also been campaign videos and social media posts with the same false rhetoric by both Spencer Pratt (formerly running for Mayor) and Steve Hilton (running for Governor).
Attacks on harm reduction are nothing new. Too often, public health and homelessness is politicized during elections, serving as a dog whistle for the same "tough-on-crime" fear-mongering and punitive policies that has failed for over a century. Instead of responding to counter false narratives, share hard data, and educate the public on the important work of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, Supervisor Hilda Solis and LA County chose to cowardly abandon the recommendations of public health experts and the Skid Row community.
In September 2026, LA County canceled Homeless Health Care Los Angeles’ contract, forcing them to lay off over full-time 130 staff, end harm reduction services and advanced overdose response at the campus, as well as a client work program that provided up to 2000 hours per month of low-barrier job opportunities and transitional employment for community members with no other means.
— Laura, HHCLA WDP Participant“The WORK PROGRAM IS A SAFE WAY OF EARNING MONEY. CLIENTS WHO ARE TRADITIONALLY UNEMPLOYABLE CAN CHECK IN DAILY FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO EARN MUCH NEEDED CASH RESOURCES. THIS KEEPS ALTERNATIVE AND POTENTIALLY HARMFUL WAYS OF OBTAINING CASH OFF THE TABLE.”