[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]here were no official voting centers in Skid Row during the 2020 general election. There were voting centers in neighboring Arts District, Little Tokyo, and then a big void in Skid Row, leaving thousands of housed and unhoused residents without access to the polls leading up to election day.
Enter the 2021 recall election where candidates have declared California Governor Gavin Newsom unfit to respond to the homelessness crisis. In Skid Row, often decried as “ground zero” for the crisis, residents finally received their official voting center on September 11.
Within minutes of the site opening, residents trickled in to cast their ballot in a recall election where businessman and candidate John Cox wants to have the courts “force homeless people to receive mental health treatment.”
Candidates want to talk all about houseless people but also seem to talk past them altogether.