The Trump Administration Wants to Relocate Skid Row to This Federal Building

This week, senior Trump administration officials are making their way to Los Angeles as part of the president’s high-profile promise to intervene in California’s homelessness crisis. Federal officials are discussing the possibility of razing encampments and relocating hundreds or thousands of unhoused people—tactics that homeless advocates insist have no legal grounds under federal law.

One option under discussion is to use a former government building just outside Los Angeles to house (or detain) people now living in Skid Row in downtown L.A., where some 8,000 to 11,000 people are typically living on the streets. Federal officials have already reportedly toured the facility, the former West Coast headquarters of the Federal Aviation Administration, located 20 miles away in Hawthorne, California.