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The Times podcast: A homeless community that couldn’t last

Vermont Dental Implant Center
Alex Seijas Torres, shown in December, paints over graffiti in the room where he was residing in an abandoned Koreatown building that once housed the Vermont Dental Group Implant Center.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
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A small, tightknit community grew inside an abandoned building in L.A.’s Koreatown. The people who found shelter there felt lucky. In a city where unhoused people have to set up encampments wherever they can — in parks, on sidewalks, beneath freeway overpasses — this old building offered a real sense of home.

But the people who lived there knew their community couldn’t last.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Guest: L.A. Times reporter Jaimie Ding

More reading:

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In an abandoned Koreatown building, homeless Angelenos create a community

‘Gimme Shelter’: The gap in California’s homelessness plan

‘Remember that can easily be you’: Angelenos closest to the homelessness crisis urge compassion

About The Times

“The Times” is made by columnist Gustavo Arellano, senior producers Denise Guerra, Shannon Lin and Kasia Broussalian and producers Melissa Kaplan, Ashlea Brown and Angel Carreras. Our engineer is Mario Diaz. Our editors are Lauren Raab and Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera and Shani O. Hilton. Our theme song was composed by Andrew Eapen.
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