The Street Where I Live: Hollywood’s Homeless Crisis and the Cost of Looking Away

By Allan R. Ellenberger

It was the weekend before Christmas 2023 — a crisp December morning, barely 9 a.m., the kind of hour when the city is just shaking itself awake — when I walked along Santa Monica Boulevard after dropping off my car at the garage. Between Seward and Las Palmas, a shirtless, incoherent man stepped into my path. His face contorted into rage, his voice rising into a scream. Before I could react, he was on me — shoving me into a wire fence again and again, then pushing me into the open street. I stumbled into traffic, catching myself only inches before disaster. And then, in the kind of moment that keeps you believing in humanity despite everything, three strangers — three guardian angels — came running. They chased the man off and stood with me until I could breathe again. I wasn’t physically injured. But emotionally, something shifted. A line crossed. A place I knew and trusted had turned on me.

Since then, Hollywood has only become more unrecognizable.

A few weeks later, about a half a block from my home, an encampment had taken root. Not a temporary gathering, not the ebb and flow we once saw on sidewalks — but a permanent, expanding settlement. Men arrived almost daily. Some kept to themselves. Others did not. One man in particular would erupt into violence without warning: screaming at pedestrians, throwing objects into the street, dragging scooters into the traffic lanes. I watched a car strike a scooter he had shoved into the street. Later, when I pulled another one back onto the sidewalk, he saw me and hurled curses, then returned it defiantly to the roadway. This is the rhythm now — provocation, response, retreat, repeat.

Another time, a man and woman stretched out across our driveway. Their belongings were scattered like a blockade; my landlord couldn’t get his car out. The woman wore a long orange wig, half-dressed, spinning theatrically in the street and forcing cars to swerve around her. My landlord called the police. No one came.

I have lived here for more than two decades. I pay my taxes, I vote, I participate in civic life. But my neighborhood — once quiet, even charming, despite its proximity to a major Hollywood thoroughfare — no longer feels like a place where rules apply. People fight and scream in the middle of the night. Cars have been vandalized. Garbage and discarded clothing collect in corners. I walk, but I do so scanning ahead, hoping today won’t be the day when someone snaps.

And I am not alone. Neighbors whisper the same fears. Some have stopped walking entirely. Others feel guilty for being afraid — as though compassion requires us to ignore danger.

I do not blame the man sleeping on the sidewalk because he has nowhere to go. I do not blame the woman in the orange wig for whatever trauma or addiction has unraveled her life. My heart breaks for every person who has fallen through the cracks — those who would accept help if it were offered (though some will not), those who are ill, addicted, traumatized, abandoned. Hollywood has always attracted the hopeful, but it has also been a magnet for the fragile, the lost, the untreated, the invisible. To be homeless in Los Angeles is to live in a city that speaks in lofty promises but often delivers nothing but tents, asphalt, and heat.

What I do blame — and what I refuse to excuse — is the system that has allowed violent, threatening behavior to become untouchable under the banner of compassion. Every resident knows the uneasy truth: if I shoved someone into traffic, screamed at passersby, dumped sewage onto a sidewalk, blocked a driveway, hurled objects into the street, or slept in the middle of the road, I would be arrested. But if someone who is homeless does these things, the message — explicit or not — is that the city looks away.

Maybe the police are understaffed. Maybe they are restricted by policy. I have been told, quietly, that officers are discouraged from responding to “homeless complaints.” I cannot confirm whether this is politically mandated, bureaucratically enforced, or simply the result of fatigue and burnout. But I know this: a city cannot function when one group of residents is held to a standard that another is not. Compassion cannot mean permitting violence. Understanding cannot require surrendering public safety. And a city that prides itself on progressivism should not allow its sidewalks to become laboratories of human suffering.

There is no simple answer. There never was. Homelessness is a braid of addiction, mental illness, poverty, unaffordable housing, broken families, untreated trauma, and institutional failure. But acknowledging complexity should never become an excuse for paralysis. Hollywood deserves solutions — real ones, not slogans. Outreach teams, mental health beds, addiction services, safe housing, enforceable rules, coordinated agencies, and leaders willing to act — all are necessary, and all have been promised.

Meanwhile, people like me — people who love Hollywood, who stay here despite everything — are caught between empathy and fear, compassion and exhaustion. I want every suffering person to receive help. But I also want to walk down my street without being shoved into traffic.

The city must realize that these desires are not at odds. They are intertwined. The safer the streets are for residents, the safer they are for the unhoused. The more structure we enforce, the more effectively we can deliver care. The more we allow disorder to flourish, the more we abandon everyone — housed and unhoused alike.

I still believe Hollywood is worth fighting for. I still believe compassion and accountability can coexist. But something has to change. Because right now, the street where I live feels like a warning — not just for Hollywood, but for every corner of a city that once promised to "protect and serve" us all.

Who has the answer? I don’t know. But I know this: pretending we’re not in crisis is the worst answer of all.

I invite you to share your thoughts, experiences, and perspectives in the comments—this is a conversation our city needs, and your voice matters.