Date Founded: May 2018
Community served: Koreatown
Mission: “Ktown for All is a grassroots volunteer-run neighborhood organization that does weekly outreach formed in response to the anti-shelter protests in May of 2018. A lot of our activities include political advocacy and outreach.”
Key areas of work: Housing, anti-gentrification
NOlympicsLA coalition member since: 2019
In May 2018, hundreds of Koreatown residents gathered weekly to protest the City’s plan to build a homeless shelter on a parking lot off Wilshire. The public display and coverage were fractured and chaotic amongst Korean-speaking news outlets and public radio stations. The shelter protests also drew the attention of a handful of residents who were physically closer to the issue. The question they found troubling: how could it be that Koreatown was fighting against housing the homeless? Ktown for All emerged from the stinging flames.
Ktown for All first began as eight counter-protestors: Jane Nguyen, Mike Dickerson, Johnny Lee, Yongho Kim, Jean Choi, Christine Johnson, William Jackson, and Sherin Varghese. They began to organize at the turn of the spring season; with the sun beating down on Koreatown’s vulnerable streets, people without roofs over their heads were headed into situations that could escalate into a dire public health issue. The least Ktown for All could do was provide water and have conversations with these individuals. Still, they realized the need for a bigger response to the anti-homeless sentiment within their community.
Ktown for All simultaneously began to educate the public about the homelessness crisis. The ongoing #ShelterKtown hashtag was an effective way to broadcast updates on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to those who felt mired in the nuances of City Council’s housing initiatives. After every protest and council meeting, Ktown for All took to social media to summarize and navigate the fray of an entangling issue between city and anti-shelter groups. Within months after May’s protests, the locals of Koreatown were witnessing the sluggish crawl towards supportive housing. By the end of the fiscal year, the City’s motion to house at least 1,500 individuals through programs such as A Bridge Home Initiative were revealed to be hollow promises. Proposed sites for housing in Lafayette Park and 682 Vermont Avenue remained untouched. It became clear that Ktown for All’s work as educators could not stop.
Of the original Ktown for All members, only a few of them had previous experience community building and organizing. Many others who followed are residents and business owners who are passionate about housing their neighbors. In a concentrated 2.7 square mileage, homelessness is visible to Koreatown residents who step outside their doors. Looking for ways to help, many members heard about the group through word-of-mouth or social media. As a result, Ktown for All membership grows weekly. Organizing with Ktown for All feels accessible; the group’s grassroots mentality invites a low barrier of entry for anyone who simply wants to help. Collectively, they educate each other and help spot the ways that Los Angeles has failed its people through policy.
Ktown for All meets weekly to do outreach and get to know the people who are represented in the latest homeless count run by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). Currently there are a total of 582 unsheltered residents in Koreatown, up almost 79% from 326 in 2018. 208 of these residents live on the streets, 122 live in vehicles, and 93 of them live in tents. Thus, there are a lot of neighbors to assist and get to know.
Outreach happens every Saturday afternoon, beginning just outside of Immanuel Presbyterian Church. Members bring supplies such as nonperishable foods, hygiene kits, and clothes. Others come ready to share local resources and information about the rights of the unhoused. Breaking out into groups, they head into known encampments such as Lafayette Park or the oft-busy 6th Street and Wilshire. Over time, as rapport and trust get built between volunteers and unhoused residents, weekly outreach is an opportunity to check in and catch up.
Many Ktown for All members have bore witness to the reality of the dehumanizing ordinances within the Los Angeles Municipal Code. LAMC 56.11 in particular aims to regulate storage of property on the City’s public right-of-way (e.g. sidewalks, alleys, and streets). The rhetoric behind this ordinance – and its actual practice – criminalizes those who find solace on the streets after sudden evictions or loss of income.
In compliance with 56.11, the city’s sanitation department (LASAN) has been conducting three types of sweeps: Clean Streets LA, Operation Healthy Streets, and the Homeless Outreach Proactive Engagement (HOPE) program. When left decoded, they act as public services to remove trash, hazardous material, and bulky items from sidewalks. However, in practice these sweeps target areas with particularly influential communities or streets that have become homes for people. Often, the two overlap.
Ktown for All is vocal about the topsy-turvy way that 56.11 has prioritized the erasure of unhoused residents over the proper removal of abandoned items and trash. The ordinance is pocked with hypocrisy; trash is not an issue when dumped by a private property, yet things that belong to unhoused people are. For example, LASAN is slower to pick up trash left on the streets when it’s been jettisoned by a private property or a business. But as soon as unidentifiable materials or items accumulate near an encampment, it becomes LASAN’s issue. 56.11 insists that it exists to make public streets ADA compliant and pedestrian friendly, but it antagonizes and harrasses people who need the sidewalks just as much for survival.
Sweeps of the city’s unhoused residents’ property happen regularly. In fact, Nguyen estimates that there are about 1-2 sweeps in the neighborhood per week. Collectively, Ktown for All’s members have seen hundreds over the past year. They are also expensive; the so-called “Service Days” (coined by Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell) cost the city about $1,000 per hour. To further exacerbate such a damaging operation, LASAN’s sweeps are often done in conjunction with the LAPD. Unsheltered Angelenos are already vulnerable as is, but during sweeps, they risk run-ins with police officers and are threatened by unregulated surveillance. Every single sweep – week after week – is emotional, dangerous, and costly.
If outreach is an act of human compassion, Ktown for All’s documentation and broadcasting is an act of strategy. The group takes pages from the Street Watch program, organized by DSA-LA and LA CAN to teach the public how to monitor the city’s cleanups. Ktown for All’s most effective tactic has been to broadcast what is happening on the ground when the city’s sweep teams are out. Alongside video and photo documentation, Nguyen and Dickerson take turns directly addressing council members and leaders on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to answer for their negligence, hypocrisy, and inaction.
At other times, social media has been an effective means of seeking emergency help. One recent assistance came from a fellow Koreatown neighbor after Ktown for All recounted the plight of a man who was living out of his vehicle with a dead car battery. In search of a spare battery, Ktown for All tweeted about the situation: a fellow neighbor faces banishment in the midst of LA City Council voting to extend 85.02, which criminalizes vehicle dwelling. Within hours, the group found him a battery and helped start his car, which would ensure that he could get into the SafeParking program. Ktown for All uses mediums like Twitter to connect with others leading from the outside when the city’s electeds huddle to perpetuate the hardships of vulnerable residents.
In June, the City presented a new plan to transform the existing Clean Streets and Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement (HOPE) teams into Comprehensive Cleaning and Rapid Engagement (CARE) teams that would respond to neighborhood concerns and implement an “improved” public health approach to encampments. The Bureau of Sanitation also proposed increased mobile hygiene services and workforce training, services that Ktown for All have been working tirelessly to provide in lieu of the City not offering them.
The new CARE plan is simply a name change. The program still invites surveillance, LAPD presence, and no due process within complaint-driven sweeps. This is an abject failure to see the mistrust between encamped Angelenos and LASAN due to several years of unchecked policing and apprehension that are accompanied by sweeps. The lives of our unhoused residents are deeply intertwined with trauma; the city’s enforcement strategy would aggravate this tension. Instead of the LAPD, volunteers and outreach workers are most equipped to work alongside LASAN to provide care to those without homes. Ktown for All is palpable proof.
One year later, supportive housing once proposed in Koreatown remains unbuilt. Our electeds, blind to the big picture, cower when internal momentum towards their proposals are met with dissent or obstacles. In a neighborhood that is still processing its shock and anger over shelter debates, Ktown for All is providing quick aid to Koreatown’s most vulnerable community members. Within a year, they have been able to adapt and become one of the most vocal organizations holding the City’s feet to the fire.
