The end of Skid Row’s cheap hotels? L.A. leaders want to replace homeless housing
Thirty years ago, when the Produce Hotel fell into disrepair, a newly formed nonprofit, the Skid Row Housing Trust, acquired and rehabilitated the turn-of-the-century building, restoring the brick facade and preserving 100 rooms for formerly homeless residents.This story was repeated hotel after run-down hotel in the 1980s and ‘90s as homelessness advocates and civic leaders poured money and energy into saving the old single-room occupancy hotels in Skid Row — first built for itinerant railroad and agricultural workers —…