Judge calls for meeting at LA shelter on crisis

munity leaders.

Representatives for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Kevin de Leon, whose district includes Skid Row, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

During a visit to Skid Row on Friday, Carter witnessed the impact of the wet, cold weather on homeless residents, “particularly elderly women and victims of mental illness, at least one of whom was naked and suffering from hypothermia,” he wrote.

Andy Bales, the CEO of Union Rescue Mission who was with the judge during the tour, said what they saw was “despicable.”

“These ladies were suffering out there in the rain, in the cold. Some didn’t have shoes,” Bales said Monday.

Combined with the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring mental health and substance abuse issues among those living on the streets, the judge compared homelessness in the region to “a significant natural disaster in Southern California with no end in sight.”

A January 2020 count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported that there were more than 66,400 homeless people living in Los Angeles County — by far the largest single concentration in the state.