- Skid Row is an area of downtown Los Angeles that had a large homeless population and high rates of crime.
- In 2006, the City of Los Angeles launched the Safer Cities Initiative, which aimed to clean up Skid Row and surrounding areas through increased policing and enforcement of anti-camping laws.
- The goal of the initiative was to make the downtown area safer and reduce crime, though critics argued it criminalized homelessness and simply displaced people without providing real solutions to housing and poverty.