SIMON OSTROVSKY:

Nationally, homelessness has been mostly on the decline since 2010, though it ticked upward slightly in 2017, to nearly 554 thousand people without their own roof over their heads in a so-called point-in-time count. The Los Angeles area meanwhile, has trended in the opposite direction as the cost of living here soared over the last decade forcing thousands onto the street in what has amounted to a nearly 50 percent increase in homelessness since 2012 to almost 53,000 people. The sheer size of Skid Row makes it look like a refugee camp. But according to a 2017 report by several homelessness advocacy groups, the availability of toilets here is worse than in a UN-run Syrian refugee camp.