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At home in Los Angeles

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At home in Los Angeles

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AT HOME IN LOS ANGELES

by

Jon Reed

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG
SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATION AND JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)

December 2019

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My sincerest gratitude to everyone who spoke with me and invited me into their homes for this
project. Thank you in particular to TJ Laraway, Janice Johnson, and Bill Fisher. I am forever
indebted to Sasha Anawalt for her support, enthusiasm, and unwavering faith in me. Many
thanks to Willa Seidenberg for her clear-eyed guidance when I frequently veered off course.
Thank you also to my mother and father, whose homes I have always been able to call my own.
This thesis is dedicated to the people of Los Angeles, who, by facing the numerous challenges
ahead, will one day emerge with a city more vibrant, more connected, and more welcoming to
all.

2

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Transcript – At Home in Los Angeles ............................................................................................. 4
Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 28
Bibliography - Interviews ............................................................................................................. 31
Bibliography - Research ............................................................................................................... 32
Bibliography - Archival ............................................................................................................... 33
Bibliography - Music .................................................................................................................... 35

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ABSTRACT
The detached, single-family home has long been an essential component of the American dream.
In Los Angeles, it has been a defining feature of both the city’s sprawling landscape and
architectural heritage at least since the end of the Second World War. By the 1960s, city officials
had gone as far as to effectively ban any other type of housing in many residential areas1. Today
it remains illegal to build anything other than a single-family house on close to 75% of land
zoned for residential purposes. Now, as housing prices soar and available land dwindles, not only
is home ownership prohibitively expensive for the average Angeleno, the number of homeless
residents living without any formal shelter is at crisis levels.
In this 22-minute podcast, a transcription for which is in the pages that follow, I explore
the history of the idea of home in Los Angeles - one closely tied to the single-family house - and
how it is challenged and complicated by the extreme cost of living. Through interviews with
longtime residents, individuals experiencing homelessness, architects, and authors, I explore the
conditions necessary for creating a home, which naturally extend far beyond a physical structure,
and how those who have experienced homelessness try to regain their sense of belonging. In
particular, I investigate one building in Skid Row, created to remedy some of those challenges by
not only offering formerly homeless individuals a place to live, but also a place in which they
can establish a new sense of community and identity.

1 Emily Badger, “Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House with a yard on Every
Lot.” The New York Times (New York), June 18, 2019.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-
family-zoning.html

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TRANSCRIPT: AT HOME IN LOS ANGELES

HOST: Jon Reed
What do you think of when you think about home?

MUSIC: “Celie And Harpo Grow Up / Mr. Dresses To See Shug.” Quincy Jones.

HOST: Jon Reed
A nice house. A yard. A white picket fence maybe? Well here in America, it’s usually something
along those lines. In fact, that idea, the single-family home, has long been an essential part of the
American dream, dating at least as far back as the post-war period.

MUSIC: “Movietone News Opening Titles.”

ARCHIVAL: “Lakewood: "The Future City as New as Tomorrow."”
Mass production of modern houses with liberal financing arrangements enabled many
thousands of Americans to own their own homes for the first time.

ARCHIVAL: “Building the American Dream.”
There is such a wide variety of architectural styles and floor plans that the buyer can
usually find what suits him best in the location where he wants to live.

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HOST: Jon Reed
It was a dream that was very much attainable to the average person.

ARCHIVAL: “Building the American Dream.”
In the eyes of the rest of the world, modern American housing is the epitome of
convenience and comfort.

HOST: Jon Reed
But, fast forward a few decades later, the population has swelled and building has slowed. We hit
some growing pains.

MUSIC: “Hearts Intertwined.” Jonathan Elias & Sarah Trevino.

ARCHIVAL: “US is experiencing an affordable housing crisis.“ Ben Carson.
We have a country which is really in an affordable housing crisis right now.

ARCHIVAL: “Median May home prices.” Diana Olick.
With lower mortgage rates and that low supply, we're going to continue to see these
prices move higher yet again.

ARCHIVAL: “US has huge housing shortage: Economist.“ Mark Fleming.
We have under built for the last decade, since the end of the recession, to the tune of tens
of millions of homes.
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HOST: Jon Reed
So now, what once was an essential component of the American dream has become out of reach
for many. And here in Los Angeles it is especially bad. Real estate tracker CoreLogic says LA
housing prices hit record heights in June. What has that done to our idea of home? First, we need
to understand a little better what it means to have a home in the first place. I may have found just
the person to help.

INTERVIEW: DJ Waldie
My name is DJ Waldie. D period. J period. W-A-L-D-I-E. I’m the former deputy city
mayor of the city of Lakewood. I am a writer about Southern California and have been
doing that since around 1995.

HOST: Jon Reed
And what does he know about home?

INTERVIEW: DJ Waldie
Well, I've lived my whole life in Lakewood. Still live in the same house my parents
bought in 1946 and where I was born in 1948.

HOST: Jon Reed
Well, ok then.

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INTERVIEW: DJ Waldie
Long residence in a place gives you a great deal of experience with people’s stories, how
they came to Lakewood, how they found their first house, how they built a family and
their lives. And how their lives have changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the
worse.

HOST: Jon Reed
Lakewood is a suburb near the LA airport. It’s probably best known for being a post-war planned
community, similar to the East Coast’s Levittown. Think blocks and blocks of cookie cutter
houses, as far as the eye could see.

ARCHIVAL: “Lakewood: "The Future City as New as Tomorrow."”
People came from Maine, New York, Texas, Canada, England, Germany everywhere. To
many, Lakewood was paradise.

MUSIC: “Munchkinland.” Herbert Stothart.

HOST: Jon Reed
Including to Mr. Waldie. He’s written a lot about life there and in Southern California. His most
famous book, Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, is all about his experience there. A paradise of
the ordinary as he calls it. He says that for places like Lakewood to feel like home, they need
more than just houses.

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INTERVIEW: DJ Waldie
They need social institutions like churches and schools and local governments….They
need cultural institutions like…libraries and meeting places and indeed saloons and
restaurants.

HOST: Jon Reed
Community essentially. Built around places where people can come together and get to know
each other. And then there’s one other you need.

INTERVIEW: DJ Waldie
Having a home anywhere involves something like falling in love with the place where
you are.

MUSIC: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Judy Garland.

HOST: Jon Reed
That’s right, love. And the way Waldie describes it, it’s pretty similar to the way it might happen
with a person.

INTERVIEW: DJ Waldie
To fall in love you probably need to get intimate with the place. So that means you
probably have to get out of your car and walk around it and see the lay of the land and the
contours of the topography. And you probably have to stop, fall silent, and hear them talk
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about why they’re there, why they fell in love with this place. And probably through that
process you might discover the reasons to fall in love with the place where you are.

MUSIC: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Judy Garland.

HOST: Jon Reed
So in this podcast, I want to dig a little more into what home in LA really means, right now.
With the challenges the city faces. And I want to focus on one issue in particular.

MUSIC: “Munchkinland.” Herbert Stothart.

HOST: Jon Reed
Because where LA used to be perhaps the ultimate place to make a home, it’s now become
something else.

ARCHIVAL: “Mayor Garcetti Asks for Help with LA’s Homeless Crisis.“ Conan Nolan.
Los Angeles, a haven for the mentally ill, drug addicted, and those with nowhere to go.

ARCHIVAL: “There's no way out of this.” Jamie Yuccas.
Nearly 60,000 people are now homeless in LA County.

ARCHIVAL: “Mayor Garcetti Asks for Help with LA’s Homeless Crisis.“ Eric Garcetti.
This is what people say is an unsolvable problem and I’m committed to solving it.
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HOST: Jon Reed
That’s a little dark, I know. But Los Angeles in recent years has become a very difficult place to
live for a lot of people. It’s expensive, difficult to get around, and now it’s become the epicenter
of homelessness.

MUSIC: “Doubled.” Diner Gothic.

HOST: Jon Reed
There is perhaps no issue more visible and more pressing.

ARCHIVAL: “Inside Los Angeles’ homeless crisis.“ Lisa Montgomery.
…most notorious tent city. This is an entire neighborhood of trash-strewn streets and
broken lives.

HOST: Jon Reed
Despite investments made by local leaders and taxpayers, including a $1.2 billion bond measure
to fund housing for the homeless, the number of people without a home continues to rise.

ARCHIVAL: “There's no way out of this.” Unnamed homeless man.
It’s an embarrassment of course. There’s an embarrassment issue there. Who wants to be
seen like this?

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HOST: Jon Reed
Like our ideas about home itself, homelessness is about more than just shelter and economics. If
having a home means belonging, community and loving where you are, homelessness must be
the opposite.

AMBIENT: Street, Downtown Los Angeles

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
So where are we going right now?

INTERVIEW: Doug Jessop
To one of the one of the charging spots, this is literally by City Hall.

HOST: Jon Reed
Meet Doug Jessop. He’s a handsome young man. Broad shoulders. Dark Hair. He’s in his early
30s. He spent some time living on the streets.

INTERVIEW: Doug Jessop
You can’t sleep here. Nobody really sleeps here. But you can sit here and just charge
your phone.

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HOST: Jon Reed
Here he’s showing me a secret charging station. Just an electrical outlet really. This one happens
to on the side of the staircase leading up to entrance of LA City Hall.

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
So did you actually use this spot?

INTERVIEW: Doug Jessop
Hell yeah bro, so you can sit right there, bro… You just sit down put it there. And what's
cool about it is you're out of public eye.

HOST: Jon Reed
Doug says when he was homeless, he was often just trying to stay out of the way. That could be
hard, with nowhere else to go.

INTERVIEW: Doug Jessop
Like real talk man you'll fall asleep over at Union Park right that little tiny part across
Union Station. Like you'll fall asleep and they'll turn on the sprinklers, bro, and that shit
will hit you right in the face.

HOST: Jon Reed
Doug never really had a place he could call home. He didn’t have the best relationship with his
family. His parents were verbally abusive. And he had severe depression.
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INTERVIEW: Doug Jessop
My entire life I had somebody always telling you you're this, you're this, you're this,
you're this, you're this, do you get what I’m saying? So I just kept to myself. Fuck it.

HOST: Jon Reed
At one point he attempted suicide. He tried to overdose on some medication he was taking at the
time. But he ended up blacking out. And he attacked his dad.

INTERVIEW: Doug Jessop
It was just a very, I was going through a very distraught time, you know wouldn't wish it
on anybody. But I did and I decided to do what I did and…I’m still here.

HOST: Jon Reed
It wasn’t long before someone called the cops and they arrested him. Then he was sent to
prison. When he got out, he had no one to turn to. He says a big part of being homeless is feeling
like an outsider. You learn to find relief in the little things: A water fountain, a shady spot in the
park, an outlet to plug in your phone. Things you might take for granted in your own home. But
it’s hard to feel secure. Even with the growing number of people around also living without
shelter.

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INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
So is there like kind of a sense of community among people that like, you know, if you're
living on the street and-

INTERVIEW: Doug Jessop
Staying on the streets? Yeah. There actually is and it’s, it's a different sense of
community. It's not like. You just all have a mutual understanding, do you know what I
mean? That we're all on the streets. That's really it, so.

HOST: Jon Reed
For Doug, not having a home wasn’t just going without shelter. It also meant a total disconnect
between him and the rest of the world. That’s how it can be for many because people tend to
look at you differently.

INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
People think that homeless people are all drug addicts, alcoholics, and stupid. Well that’s
a huge misconception. I became homeless because I fucked up. And my heart went south.

HOST: Jon Reed
This is Bill Fisher. He said it was a shock to find himself without a home

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INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
I couldn’t say I was homeless. I couldn’t fucking say it. I was. I said ok, urban camping, I
can do this.

HOST: Jon Reed
He says experiencing homelessness can create a division between you and everyone else. Which
brings me to the next part of this story.

MUSIC: “Distant Futures.” Andres Deeley.

HOST: Jon Reed
A new kind of home in LA, designed not just to put a roof over someone’s head, but restore
everything else you lose when you don’t have a home. Your sense of community, that love for
where you live. And this is where Bill lives now. We’ll come back to him. But first, more on the
building itself. It’s called the Star Apartments in Downtown LA. Skid Row to be precise. It was
built for people who have experienced homelessness. It’s what’s known as permanent supportive
housing. Subsidized housing with on-site health care services. This building is unique because of
the way it’s designed. It’s six stories and bright white. There are big glass windows. It’s sleek
and modern. The idea is to create a sense that the people who live there deserve a nice place to
live. A home they can be proud of. And feel part of a community. It’s part of a growing trend of
similar buildings going up around the city in recent years. In addition to apartment units, the
building has a massive second floor gathering area. There’s a community garden, meeting rooms,
a cafe-style kitchen, and a walking path that circles its way around the perimeter. Plus, there are
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health clinics on the ground floor, open to both residents and the general public. One of the
buildings’ designers, Theresa Hwang, describes it like this.

INTERVIEW: Theresa Hwang
Essentially the second floor is like a public park and then you have commercial, on-the-
street services. So, we have offices and a clinic, and so it's almost like a mini city held in
a singular building.

HOST: Jon Reed
The designers argue these kinds of services and community spaces are not only important to the
physical well-being of the residents, but an attempt to give them the feeling that the building was
made for them. A deeper sense that it is their home.

INTERVIEW: Theresa Hwang
There was a spatial investment in just like having fun and making friends, right? Like
that's what gardening is. It's about getting you outside of your room, meeting your
neighbors, connecting with other community members in a very intentional way.

HOST: Jon Reed
Remember what DJ Waldie said about getting intimate with the place? It’s like that, like you
might in your own neighborhood, which Theresa says is important for everyone, not just
someone who has been homeless.

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INTERVIEW: Theresa Hwang
So, you know, this idea of creating a sense of spaciousness, right? But then also you have
like your own little pocket of this world that's unto yourself.

AMBIENT: Guitar playing

HOST: Jon Reed
Here’s Bill Fisher again. Let’s take a look into his world.

AMBIENT: Guitar playing, singing

HOST: Jon Reed
He’s truly made himself at home here, his unique version of it. Bill is a jack of all trades type.
He’s a former iron worker and construction guru. It shows in his apartment. He’s got planks of
wood and tools lying around and shelves lined with books on everything from gardening to
biographies of old jazz legends. But the first thing you notice is his wall of guitars.

AMBIENT: Guitar playing

INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
I buy and sell a lot of guitars. I have a guitar right now that was owned by Dick Dale. I
had a guitar that was owned by John Lennon.

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AMBIENT: Guitar playing

INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
I haven’t played this in a while, you know, I try not to play the nice ones. I hide them.
That’s what beaters are for....

AMBIENT: Guitar playing

INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
This is a xylophone.

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
Does it work?

INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
Absolutely.

AMBIENT: Xylophone keys.

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
I mean this place is more like a workshop than it is…

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INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher Yeah because I don’t sleep much. I start putting stuff on walls.
White Walls? No, no, no, no, no.

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
Yeah because when you come in here originally, it’s just...

INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
Empty.

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
Empty right?

INTERVIEW: Bill Fisher
Empty. No homey feeling. You know you get a little pot and you get a little frying pan
and a blanket and a sheet. It’s enough to get started. But to me, a house isn’t a home until
you got food cooking and something on the walls.

MUSIC: “Ticky Tack.” Architect.

HOST: Jon Reed
Home for a lot of people I talked to was about having this kind of personal space to make your
own. And once you have that, community and love can start to fall in place.

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INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
This is Star Apartments number 5-1-7. I’m TJ Laraway, that stands for Timothy John.

HOST: Jon Reed
TJ was one of the first residents of the building.

INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
I got to move in here and got to wake up on Christmas Day of 2013 with a new home. I
had a blanket and sheets - no pillow - and a neighbor of mine had given me a grocery bag
full of food.

HOST: Jon Reed
TJ has bipolar disorder. When he was homeless, he slipped off his medication. Getting a place to
live was not only a relief from the streets. It allowed him to get back into a routine.

INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
I’m very, very organized…. My friends say that my desktop looks like the apps on a cell
phone. I have little slips of paper. I have two rolls of tape because I tape things up as you
can see.

HOST: Jon Reed
TJ’s apartment is filled with all sorts of hand-written notes - phone numbers, addresses, positive
affirmations. And everything he owns has a place.
22

INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
These are all my meds. Those are my cooking things. This is my pantry. I label
everything in case I have a guest, so they can find things comfortably.

HOST: Jon Reed
Beyond his own little space, he’s made an effort to really get to know the place.

INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
Front door key and apartment key. [Door closes]

HOST: Jon Reed
He says he has put a lot of effort into becoming part of the community here.

INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
So I always rearrange the table and chairs…. I’m kind of the steward of the Star
Apartments. And I put up and put down the umbrellas and things like that. (chair
folding). We’ll go ahead and leave this table out here.

HOST: Jon Reed
That to him is a big part of feeling like the Star is his home. But there’s one thing he values more
than anything else. It’s back in his apartment.

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INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
This is my mom, that picture is from Christmas at my great grandfather’s house.

HOST: Jon Reed
We’re standing over an antique dresser. It’s about a hundred years old, he says. A family
heirloom that he somehow held on to throughout his time on the streets. It’s covered with photos
and old postcards.

INTERVIEW: TJ Laraway
This is my cousin Bea who’s passing away of Alzheimer's in the Midwest right now.
When I was homeless, she used to send me little things like this with a hundred dollar
check every month. She sent me her hope and her faith and her love and her money. And
that’s what I needed.

MUSIC: “Slimheart.” Bitters.

HOST: Jon Reed
Home at the Star is many things for many people. A workshop. A place to think and get things
done. For others, a place to connect, with the people around you and your family. The Star tried
to make it all possible in one place. It was an attempt to bridge the practical needs the city has in
housing vulnerable people, but also to reintroduce those individual human needs of connection
and belonging that many experiencing homelessness have lost. Still, not everyone feels it...

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INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
This is my apartment and I'm dog sitting, because they do allow people to have emotional
support animals. Because you need one to live here.

HOST: Jon Reed
Meet Janice Johnson.

INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
And that's my girl. She gonna start barking. [dog barks] Ok. Yeah so this is my little
abode. It's livable. That's all I can say.

HOST: Jon Reed
Janice was born and raised in LA. The city has always been her home. She loves it here. But she
isn’t so impressed with the Star.

INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
Yeah on paper, it looks nice. They show us off all the time in the mega- you know, little
news articles and stuff like that. (9)

HOST: Jon Reed
She ended up here after a knee injury sent her to the hospital. She was technically homeless at
the time and living on a friend’s couch. When she was told about an opening at the Star, she got
excited. But as soon as she moved in, things changed.
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INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
The first 90 days, I cried every day. Every day. I looked out that window and I saw all
these black men walking up and down the streets. It’s like the walking dead.

HOST: Jon Reed
The Star Apartments is in Skid Row, the homeless capital, not just of LA, but the entire country.
Sidewalks are packed by tent cities. People living in conditions so bad the LA Times called it a
national disgrace. Janice says she hates living in the middle of all that.

INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
I never tell my friends. I just had my 50th class reunion. I'm not going to tell them people
I live on Skid Row. I say downtown. They think I’m in a condo. Oh Miss Johnson?!

HOST: Jon Reed
But the Star seemed at least something of a refuge from it all…

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
You’ve made this place kind of- like you have pictures of horses. You’ve got some
family photos I saw.

INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
They’re in the front yeah.
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INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
Does it feel kind of homey at all?

INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
No. No. I don’t even call this home.

INTERVIEW: Jon Reed
What is home to you? What does that mean to you?

INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
56th Street. My mommy and my daddy. Can’t ever duplicate that. Never can duplicate
home.

MUSIC: “Bell Solo.” Glacier Quartet.

HOST: Jon Reed
Janice says it’s not necessarily the Star itself that makes her feel this way, but Skid Row.

INTERVIEW: Janice Johnson
When I was a little girl, my mama told me, if you don't get an education and you don't go
to church, you going to end up on Skid Row, because it was always associated with
ugliness.
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HOST: Jon Reed
In some ways, living here for her is the opposite of that classic American dream, where you work
hard, you get a nice house. You build a home. For Janice, Skid Row and, by extension, the Star
Apartments, are where those dreams go to die.

MUSIC: “The Silver Hatch.” Rayling.

HOST: Jon Reed
When I think about home in LA, and how our ideas about it may or may not be changing, I think
back to something the architect Theresa Hwang talked about. The change she saw in her work,
and the way we think about the environments we live in.

INTERVIEW: Theresa Hwang
My goal as an architect is to create spaces where people can see themselves, like to
identify with, to feel like that's representative of me, my culture, my ideals, my values.

HOST: Jon Reed
She says the buildings around us are monuments. Windows into our collective history and our
values.
They’re important to pay attention to, she says, because the signals they send can have profound
effects on the way we feel about our homes and ourselves.

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INTERVIEW: Theresa Hwang
It’s a matter of making sure that we can create monuments to us all. And so that we all
understand that we're important, that our opinions are valid, that we can again see
ourselves in our neighborhoods. It's one thing for it to be beautiful, but...how do we
facilitate deep understanding, right, so that I begin to say, you know this person who lives
on the street, their dignity is just as important as mine. ()

HOST: Jon Reed
The Star and the other buildings like it were bold steps in the confronting the problem of
homelessness in LA. And not just the lack of housing, but a lack of home and all the feelings that
brings up. Because even if a lot of people live here, homeless or not, they may not all feel at
home. Creating a home here is not just about providing adequate housing. It’s also about the
communities they’re part of. And when those things start to come together, we can learn to fall in
love with the city, and everyone in it, once again.

MUSIC: “Homeward Bound.” Simon & Garfunkel.

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SUMMARY
Thesis audio: https://soundcloud.com/ronjeed/at-home-in-la

Home, as I’ve come to realize, is a tricky term to define. It’s a place, yes, but it is also an idea
and a state of mind. It is many things to many people.
In researching this thesis, I read a number of books that touched on the subject. Two that
were particularly useful were The American Idea of Home: Conversations about Architecture
and Design and DJ Waldie’s Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir. The former offered a variety of
perspectives on a unifying theme: The house as home and the architect’s role in shaping it. A
collection of interviews with architects and critics, it sought to elicit definitions of home from
each. The latter abandoned definitions all together, offering instead a patchwork of memories
and scenes that when woven together constructed a vision of the author’s particular version of
home. I borrowed from both approaches here. I was less interested in articulating a complete
definition of what home means as it is far too subjective an idea and experience. Therefore,
through this podcast, I established parameters through which others might think about home, set
against the backdrop of a changing city.
That backdrop is one informed largely by Christopher Hawthorne, the former
Architecture critic of the LA Times and now Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles,
who articulated a concept he calls the “Third LA” in an episode of KCET’s series Artbound. In
it, he describes a “new civic identity that Los Angeles is working, and often struggling, to
establish.” It is an identity tied less to “the building blocks of postwar LA, including the private
car, the freeway, the single-family house, and the lawn,” and more to public space and
experimental multifamily architecture.
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Fundamental to Hawthorne’s analysis of this moment of change are the profound
challenges the city at large is trying to overcome: Rising housing costs, a lack of available land
to develop additional housing, and a crisis of homelessness. All, of course, are intimately
interrelated and have also made creating a home in LA more difficult. I therefore wanted to focus
this project primarily on a building that brought all of those issues into focus. The Star
Apartments represented a possible future for the city: A densely inhabited, multifamily building
with its own public space and community built in. I wanted to explore how residents, once
homeless, had fared in creating a renewed sense of home for themselves, successfully or not.
Their stories held larger lessons for others in less dire circumstances. I was also especially
interested in the power of architecture and design to create that framework, and the idea that
residents of a building designed with care and purpose might develop a deeper sense of pride and
connection than they otherwise would.
Because of the elusive nature of home as an idea, a podcast was a particularly effective
means through which to tell this story. Audio has a unique ability to create a connection between
listener and subject. Without images to guide them, listeners imagine the scenes unfolding before
them, creating images in their heads that, like the concept of home itself, would be unique to
each individual. I, too, wanted the podcast to feel like a story, rather than a report, to which the
medium is again well-suited. I shaped the story using a variety of sounds, including original
interviews and music. I relied on sound from archival films and television news reports both to
quickly establish context around historical notions of home and the challenges I’ve articulated
above, and also to create sonic variety to build narrative momentum and keep listeners engaged.
Through this project, I helped listeners connect and empathize with people who have or
are experiencing homelessness as well as highlighted an innovative solution to many of LA’s
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housing concerns that has, for the most part, proven successful. Though I do not define home in
exact terms, I outlined some fundamental conditions through which it can be created. In doing
so, I invited listeners to develop a deeper curiosity about how they might define home for
themselves as well as how they might go about creating it, whether here in LA or elsewhere.
If the collective goal of the people of LA is to create a city that is more accessible to a
greater number of people, the changes needed are just as much about resources as they are our
attitudes. It is not simply about creating more housing, but housing that is conducive to new and
alternative ideas of home and our ability to accept them.

32
BIBLIOGRAPHY - INTERVIEWS
Interview with Jessop, Douglass on September 19, 2018
Interview with Laraway, Timothy J. on October 15, 2018
Interview with Johnson, Janice on October 15, 2018
Interview with Waldie, Donald J. on December 6, 2018
Interview with Johnson, Janice on January 15, 2019
Interview with Fisher, Bill on January 15, 2019
Interview with Hwang, Theresa on January 22, 2019

33
BIBLIOGRAPHY - RESEARCH
Artbound, Season 8 Episode 5, “Third L.A With Architectural Critic Christopher Hawthorne.”
Exec.Prod. Devis, Juan & Christopher Hawthorne. Aired June 14, 2016 on KCET.
https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/episodes/third-la-with-architecture-critic-
christopher-hawthorne
Badger, Emily. “Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House with a yard on Every Lot.”
The New York Times (New York), June 18, 2019.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-
single-family-zoning.html
Friedman, Bernard. The American Idea of Home: Conversations about Architecture and Design.
Austin: University of Austin Press, 2017.
Waldie, D.J. Holy Land: Suburban Memoir. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.

34
BIBLIOGRAPHY - ARCHIVAL
Bartiromo, Maria. 2019. “US has huge housing shortage: Economist.“ Mornings with Maria. Fox
Business. New York: FBN May 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sESir1odnM
“Building the American Dream.” United States Gypsum Company and the National Association
of Home Builders. 1956. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPqnJTrtWyM
Kuzj, Steve. 2019. “Downtown L.A. Residents Slam Latest Homeless Encampment Cleanup.“
Morning News at 11. KTLA 5. Los Angeles: KTLA July 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIfpmerw--c
“Lakewood: "The Future City as New as Tomorrow" (Modern Architecture in Los Angeles).”
City of Lakewood, California. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGG1IbwpZg
Montgomery, Lisa K. 2019. “Inside Los Angeles’ homeless crisis.“ Kennedy. Fox Business. New
York: FBN July 16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq9nDZOtwSE
Nolan, Conan. 2019. “Mayor Garcetti Asks for Help with LA’s Homeless Crisis.“ News at 6pm.
NBC4. Los Angeles: NBC July 3. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Mayor-
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Olick, Diana. 2019. “Median May home prices are up 4.8 percent, highest since last August.”
CNBC June 21. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/06/21/median-may-home-prices-are-
up-4point8-percent-highest-since-last-august.html
Payne, Charles. 2019. “Ben Carson: US is experiencing an affordable housing crisis.“ Making
Money with Charles. Fox Business. New York: FBN June 25.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzX0EeZ5pt8
Yuccas, Jamie. 2019. “"There's no way out of this": Lack of affordable housing contributes to
35
Los Angeles homeless crisis.“ News at 6pm. CBS. Los Angeles: CBS July 5.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeless-population-los-angeles-county-california-
rises-2019-07-05/

36
BIBLIOGRAPHY - MUSIC
Architect. “Ticky Tack.” Blue Dot Sessions, 2019.
https://www.sessions.blue/?fwp_sessions=architect
Arlen, Harold. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Judy Garland. MGM, 1939.
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Bitters. “Slimheart.” Blue Dot Sessions, 2019. https://www.sessions.blue/?fwp_sessions=bitters
Deeley, Andres, Hugh Brody, Tim Sawtell. “Distant Futures.” Focus Music, 2013.
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Elias, Jonathan & Trevino, Sarah. “Hearts Intertwined.” Perfect Moment Music & ZFC Music,
2014. https://www.firstcom.com/en-us/explore/albums/10710/Music-For-Story-Tellers
Glacier Quartet. “Bell Solo.” Blue Dot Sessions, 2015.
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Simon & Garfunkel. “Homeward Bound.” Columbia. 1966. mp3.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The detached, single-family home has long been an essential component of the American dream. In Los Angeles, it has been a defining feature of both the city’s sprawling landscape and architectural heritage at least since the end of the Second World War. By the 1960s, city officials had gone as far as to effectively ban any other type of housing in many residential areas. Today it remains illegal to build anything other than a single-family house on close to 75% of land zoned for residential purposes. Now, as housing prices soar and available land dwindles, not only is home ownership prohibitively expensive for the average Angeleno, the number of homeless residents living without any formal shelter is at crisis levels. ❧ In this 22-minute podcast ( https://soundcloud.com/ronjeed/at-home-in-la ), a transcription for which is in the pages that follow, I explore the history of the idea of home in Los Angeles - one closely tied to the single-family house - and how it is challenged and complicated by the extreme cost of living. Through interviews with longtime residents, individuals experiencing homelessness, architects, and authors, I explore the conditions necessary for creating a home, which naturally extend far beyond a physical structure, and how those who have experienced homelessness try to regain their sense of belonging. In particular, I investigate one building in Skid Row, created to remedy some of those challenges by not only offering formerly homeless individuals a place to live, but also a place in which they can establish a new sense of community and identity.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Reed, Jonathan Alan (author)

Core Title At home in Los Angeles

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 12/16/2019

Defense Date 08/26/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Home,Homelessness,Housing,Los Angeles,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Anawalt, Sasha (committee chair), Page, Tim (committee chair), Seidenberg, Willa (committee member)

Creator Email jreed333@gmail.com,reedja@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-253176

Unique identifier UC11673479

Identifier etd-ReedJonath-8063.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-253176 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ReedJonath-8063.pdf

Dmrecord 253176

Document Type Thesis

Rights Reed, Jonathan Alan

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA