Federal raids affirm it LA gets an F on homelessness

Finally: Some meaningful progress on cleaning up Skid Row.LA’s filthiest, most fetid concentration of homelessness spans an astonishing 50 square blocks and contains up to 6,000 homeless people. It also harbors gigantic drug operations.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story A coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, DEA and LAPD, brought a welcome crackdown on Thursday.As the California Post reported, “Operation Free Skid Row” nabbed 28 dealers of meth, fentanyl, cocaine and PCP, authorities said — with agents seizing drugs, guns, luxury cars and cash. Agents first descended on alleged dealers’ homes, then swept through Skid Row to target street pushers.Good.Skid Row is a deep embarrassment to Los Angeles. It’s a sprawling, squalid swath of DTLA replete with rodents and human waste.It’s an epicenter of serious violence, especially homicide.

And it should be cleaned up and eliminated — not abided and managed.That means treating Skid Row’s misery at its source. It means channeling those on the street into rehab and mental-health treatment — not handing them taxpayer-funded needles through misbegotten “harm-reduction” initiatives and chasing “housing first” fantasies that do nothing to curb substance abuse.It also means impeding the free flow of drugs — in Skid Row and in LA’s other homeless hotbeds — as the Trump administration and local law-enforcement partners have begun to do. LA’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, called Thursday’s crackdown a start.“We’re going after the dealers who prey on the homeless,” he said.

“This is just the first salvo.”That salvo follows a similar operation at LA’s MacArthur Park: another hub of crime, waste and homeless misery.Authorities on Thursday added that...