LOS ANGELES – A hearing in a lawsuit seeking solutions for the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles was held Thursday not in a courthouse or via webcam, but at a shelter in the heart of the city's Skid Row, the notorious section of downtown where thousands of people live on the streets in perilous conditions.
U.S. District Judge David Carter presided from a folding table under a large tent in the parking lot outside Downtown Women’s Center, where encampments line the surrounding sidewalks.
The hearing was occasionally interrupted by loud music, honking car horns or shouts from people listening just outside the center's gate. “This is an extraordinary hearing,” Carter said, acknowledging the setting but also the scope of the problem facing