MacArthur Park has erupted into LA’s fentanyl ground zero — a collapsing, chaos-soaked war zone where overdoses hit by the hour, people die daily, crime crews corner the market — and what used to be a neighborhood park now teeters on the brink of total collapse.
The park, the largest green space in the district, now hosts an unknown number of unhoused people, though on most days it’s fair to estimate the population in the hundreds.
MacArthur’s unofficial “residents” are made comfortable by groups handing out food and even free crack pipes as part of “safe smoking” kits — with tens of millions of dollars coming from the city to support the park’s inhabitants.
Along a narrow chute residents call “Fentanyl Alley,” dead rats lie underfoot and people are passed out in the open, fentanyl-fueled and dangerous, a notorious stretch locals say is among the park’s most perilous.
The area surrounding MacArthur Park is a dense, working-class neighborhood where most residents are low-income Spanish-speaking tenants.
Few people have watched the collapse of the area more closely than John Alle, who owns the entire block adjacent to the park and multiple buildings stretching through Koreatown, Pico-Union and Westlake.
“For the last 10 years this area declined, but in the last three years it dropped off a cliff,” Alle told The Post. “This has become a drug den and the city’s de facto shelter.”
Across the street from his buildings, Alle pointed to warehouses and storefronts used to stash and sell stolen goods from big-box retailers.
On his own rooftop, he showed newly installed barbed wire to stop “roof jumping,” just one of several safety upgrades costing him tens of thousands of dollars.
“We had to put up serpentine wire. That’s like the stuff they can’t break.”
Alle points to a city-funded nonprofit that hands out syringes and “safer smoking kits,” including foil and crack or meth pipes. He says the operation has turned the park into a magnet.
“When you hand out free meth pipes and needles, no questions asked, they will come,” Alle said.
Several people waiting in line for services told The Post they live with relatives elsewhere but show up at MacArthur Park daily for the free gear.
Now, as the park lands under growing scrutiny, Raul Claros — the 45-year-old community organizer running to unseat Democratic Socialist Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the district — says he’ll do what he argues City Hall hasn’t: clean it up.
“When you just sustain and enable, and make everybody comfortable, you get the reverse effect,” said Claros. “These [homeless] folks have come from all across the world, all across the country, from Skid Row, because they have a better place here.”
His plan is blunt: if elected, he’ll live in a trailer inside the park, sleep there every night, hold meetings there every day, and refuse to return home until the neighborhood is “cleared out and cleaned up.”
“Elect me and I’ll live right here,” Claros said pointing to the Park’s ground zero. “Fog lights, my dog Sheba, LAPD protecting the perimeter. No more excuses.”
In late October, Hernandez pushed a motion to funnel another $160,000 to the group to expand “street-based harm reduction” and “overdose prevention” around the park.
A contract reviewed by The Post shows the nonprofit distributed 25,000 safer-smoking kits, 125,000 syringes, 10,000 fentanyl test strips and other supplies over a single year — while collecting only 50,000 of the 125,000 syringes handed out. The group also dispensed 35,000 doses of Narcan during that period.
The price tag isn’t astronomical on paper — but it’s piling up fast. Along with the latest spending, city officials have already funneled $27 million into efforts to stabilize MacArthur Park.
And it’s still not enough. Also in October, the Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners, citing “public safety” and “quality-of-life challenges,” unanimously approved a $2.3 million fence to ring the park.
The Post reached out to Hernandez multiple times for comment but did not hear back. In earlier statements to the Los Angeles Times, her office said it is “focused on delivering results, not exploiting low-income neighborhoods for publicity stunts,” citing cleaning crews, intervention workers, and the $27 million investment in the area.
Claros isn’t buying it.
“The city spent nearly $30 million and this is what we have — fires, overdoses, organized crime, and TikTokers filming fentanyl videos? If it takes a publicity stunt to get results, then fine. This is a disaster zone.”
As for Alle, he says the fallout is crushing families along with businesses, and continues to create a dangerous environment.
“40,000 renters live in the immediate area, many packed into cramped one- and two-bedroom apartments. Without cars, they must walk through drug use and street fires just to reach the soccer field.”
Retailers are also paying the price.
“The surrounding retail community consisting of retail stores, dress shops and convenience stores are becoming Meth and Fentanyl vendors for the transients in the Park.”
A church Alle rents one of his buildings for outreach gets broken into on a regular basis. And one key tenant — L.A.’s iconic Langer’s Deli — has threatened to leave over safety fears and sinking business.
“We’re losing renters,” Alle said. “People are terrified. If this [Langer’s] closes, all of L.A. suffers.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement stormed the 35-acre park last July in a high-octane raid that pushed the area into the national spotlight as conditions deteriorated in plain view.
At the time ICE and Border Patrol sources told The Post that they were there to try and help clean up the park, which has long been plagued by gang activity, homelessness and drug addicts overdosing on fentanyl and animal tranquilizers.
MacArthur isn’t the only park that’s gotten the attention of federal agents in the last few months, they also swept through Washington Square Park in New York City to push out junkies and make arrests.
Mayor Karen Bass has also said she is aware of businesses in the area having to “essentially pay gang members” in order to stay open.
“I’m not an attorney, but it sounds like extortion to me, and it needs to be addressed immediately,” she said at the time.
Claros criticized Hernandez for skipping two in-person candidate forums and only agreeing to a virtual one, which he and seven other candidates rejected.
“She won’t even show up to face the community,” he said.
He also blasted her DSA-aligned record, calling her a police abolitionist whose votes have weakened basic safety. “How can you fix a disaster zone when you don’t think LAPD should exist?” he said.
Hernendez voted against the city budget in both 2023 and 2024, arguing the LAPD receives too much money. During The Post’s visit, two separate incidents in under an hour that required police intervention
“This is an international embarrassment,” Carlos said “We’re going to fix it, or I’m not going home.”
Read the full article here
