Skid Row’s Addiction Epidemic

City Journal Audio

Manhattan Institute

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.8 • 615 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2020

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Christopher Rufo joins Brian Anderson to discuss drug addiction and homelessness in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Skid Row, the subject of Rufo's story from the Winter 2020 Issue of City Journal, "The Moral Crisis of Skid Row."

"They call Los Angeles the City of Angels," writes Rufo, "but it seems that even here, within the five-by-ten-block area of Skid Row, the city contains an entire cosmology—angels and demons, sinners and saints, plagues and treatments." To address the growing public-health crisis, progressive activists and political leaders have relied on two major policies: "harm reduction" and "housing first." But despite nearly $1 billion in new spending, more people are on the streets than ever—and the crime and addiction are getting worse.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello again, everyone. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. Joining me on the show today is Christopher Rufo.
0:07.2	Chris is a City Journal contributing editor and a documentary filmmaker based in Seattle. He's also a fellow at the Discovery Institute.
0:14.7	He's here to talk about his latest feature essay for City Journal. It appeared in the winter 2020 issue, and it was released
0:22.1	online over the weekend. It's called The Moral Crisis of Skid Row. You can check it out on our
0:28.4	website, and we'll link to it in the description. Embedded in the article is a three-and-a-half-minute
0:33.8	film that was shot by Chris on location on Skid Row, and you want to see that for
0:39.5	yourself. That's it for the introduction. We'll take a quick break and be back with Christopher Rufo. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.
1:01.3	Joining us from his home in Seattle today is Chris Rufo.
1:05.2	Chris is a documentary filmmaker, a research fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth and Poverty, and a
1:12.2	Citigernel contributing editor. You can follow them on Twitter at Real Chris Rufo.
1:18.3	Chris is here to talk about his latest essay for City Journal. It's on Los Angeles's
1:23.9	addiction epidemic, which is feeding a very significant homelessness problem, the essay is called
1:30.2	The Moral Crisis of Skid Row. Chris, thanks for joining us.
1:34.2	It's great to be with you.
1:35.0	You note in your essay that the firehouse near L.A. Skid Row is one of America's busiest.
1:43.3	It's responding to something like 35,000 calls for service a year.
1:49.3	And, you know, you're also confronting on Skid Row record numbers of overdoses and mental health, you know, cases.
1:57.5	So obviously, it's a kind of out-of-control neighborhood in some ways. Can you describe what you
2:04.0	witnessed when you went down there to do some reporting? How much time did you spend there,
2:08.0	and whom did you meet? Yeah, I spent about a week down there, and I met with a wide range of people.
2:13.8	I tagged along with the police sergeant of the LAPD. I went to the harm reduction clinic
2:20.9	and talked to people who were serving in a medical capacity. And then I hit the streets with addicts
	...

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