Rosten Woo is an artist, designer, and writer living in Los Angeles. His projects aim to help people understand complex systems, re-orient themselves to places, and participate in group decision-making. He acts as a collaborator and consultant to a variety of grassroots organizations including Little Tokyo Service Center, the Black Workers Center, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and Esperanza Community Housing Corporation, as well as the city of Los Angeles, and the California State Parks. His work has been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial, the Venice Architecture Biennale, and various piers, public housing developments, shopping malls, and parks. He is co-founder and former executive director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), winner of the 2016 National Design Award for institutional achievement. His book “Street Value” about race and retail urban development was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2009.

By day, Anna Kobara works in non-profit affordable housing development and finance. By night, she works with the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP) on data visualization and mapping projects. Her work aims to support community organizations heading housing justice campaigns such as rent control, tenant rights, anti-displacement, anti-dispossession, and anti-gentrification. Her recent work includes supporting Tenants Together with their Rent Control for All campaign by creating an online, interactive database of rent control and renter protection policies throughout California.

John Malpede directs, performs, and engineers multi-event projects that have theatrical, installation, public art, and education components. In 1985, he founded Los Angeles Poverty Development (LAPD), a performance group comprised primarily of homeless and formerly homeless people who make art, live, and work on Skid Row. He has produced projects working with communities throughout the US, as well as in the UK, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Bolivia. His 2004 work RFK in EKY sought to recreate Robert Kennedy’s 1968 “war on poverty” tour in the course of a four-day, 200-mile series of events focused on historic and current issues and social policy. As a 2008-2009 fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Malpede developed Bright Futures in response to the worldwide financial crisis. In 2013, John Malpede received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In 2014, the Queens Museum of Art in New York City mounted the first retrospective gallery exhibition on the work of the LAPD, which traveled to the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena in 2016.  “How to House 7,000 People in Skid Row” is the continuation of Woo and LAPD’s 2017 project “The Back 9”.

Henriëtte Brouwers is the Associate Director of the Los Angeles Poverty Department. Since 2000 she co-directs, produces and performs in many LAPD performances and she worked with John Malpede on the creation of RFK in EKY (2004) a community-based re-enactment of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 trip to investigate poverty in Appalachia. Born in the Netherlands, Brouwers performs, directs and has taught throughout the US, the Netherlands and France. She was a member of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed group and studied corporeal mime with Etiènne Décroux in Paris, France.  In Amsterdam she founded movement theater ACTA and performed with Shusaku & Dormu Dance Theatre, Grif Theater, Nationaal Fonds, a.o. The Theatre Project in Baltimore, Highways in Santa Monica and UT Knoxville, TN presented her work in America. Henriëtte performed with Touchstone Theatre, PA and 7 Stages Theater in Atlanta and was the movement director for Blue Monk by Robert Earl Price, for the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival. She devised a series of performances based on the Mexican legend of La Malinche and La Llorona: The Weeping Woman.  Brouwers is featured in Bill Viola’s renowned ‘The Passions’ series.

1. Thanks to the Department of City Planning for creating a special zone where only affordable housing with extremely low and deeply low-income levels, can be build:the Ix1 zone. But the zone doesn’t cover all of Skid Row, it squeezes affordable housing into the blocks East of San Pedro: between Alameda and 5th and 7th street. Skid Row residents want the expansion of the I X 1 zone to the existing, legal Skid Row neighborhood boundaries: from Main to Alameda, and from 3rd to 7th street.
2. We want the “Preservation and maintenance of existing housing stock at the foundation of the community’s affordable housing supply,” applied to the existing Skid Row neighborhood boundaries to avoid displacement of current residents (3rd to 7th, Main to Alameda).
3. The draft’s focus on “Accessible, healthy, and safe housing opportunities affordable to low-income households” should include extremely low and deeply low-income households.
4. We want the plan’s commitment to “Facilitate the integration of locally produced and community oriented public art projects and cultural programming into public spaces to reinforce community character” to include consistent maintenance and additional amenities like hygiene stations, cooling stations, trees, shade structures and seating to occur at the Skid Row parks including San Julian Park and Gladys Park, and we want the creation of new Skid Row parks where possible. We also want this street safety and comfort investment on primary corridors in Skid Row (San Pedro, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th streets).
5. Poor communities/ communities of color bear the brunt of climate change and so special attention must be paid to the vulnerabilities of folks in Skid Row and the Urban Heat Island effect. It is crucial to “Identify areas and buildings as resiliency centers for public use during future climate events and other emergencies,” but these resiliency centers need to be available 24/7 in Skid Row where residents are often living in a stage of emergency.
6. The draft’s intention to “Foster opportunities for individuals facing barriers to employment” is best achieved in Skid Row by offering Skid Row residents work opportunities in their neighborhood related to parks, hygiene stations, resiliency centers, art projects, cultural programming and other facility and engagement work identified in this plan.
7. We stress the importance of the draft’s claim to “Facilitate access to affordable, healthy, and fresh food for all Downtown residents and support community serving small businesses that sell affordable, fresh, and culturally relevant foods” for Skid Row residents.
8. Skid Row has a high number of artists and culture bearers that live and work in the neighborhood, in order to make sure Skid Row residents benefit we ask that specific measures be included such as a property owners fee for the arts, contracts with local artists, Firehouse 23 renovation with extensive and accessible programming for adults and youth, dedicated cultural space in new construction and street vending support for local merchants.
9. Skid Row believes that promoting community participation and partnering with community organizations and local residents for cultural and historic preservation efforts, should be expanded to develop a process and dedicate resources to support a neighborhood council/representative body for the Skid Row community. Residents and workers should have a direct channel to express their voices on all City decisions related to Skid Row, not just cultural and historic preservation efforts.