Los Angeles ( CNN ) America 's Skid Row sits in downtown Los Angeles . This pocket of 2,000 men and women constitutes the nation 's biggest concentration of homeless people living and sleeping on public sidewalks , in scattered camps under tarps . Not surprisingly , sanitary conditions are appalling . This quarter of despair is now at the center of national attention for another reason : This week , Los Angeles police and a homeless man in a tent engaged in a confrontation , ending with officers fatally shooting the man known only as `` Africa , '' an apparent reference to his home continent . It was all captured on video by bystanders . Police allege `` Africa '' tried to reach for an officer 's gun , prompting the police gunfire against him . `` Skid Row is a 54-block area that has the largest homeless number of individuals in the country , '' said Jerry Jones , executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless . He 's based in New York City . `` New York City has the largest homeless population , but Los Angeles has the highest unsheltered population in the country , which has led to the destitution you see today , '' he added . New York City 's unique right-to-shelter mandate ensures `` temporary emergency shelter to every man , woman , and child who is eligible for services , every night , '' the city 's website says . But not in Los Angeles , where two-thirds of the county 's 40,000 homeless people are unsheltered , Jones said . So many live on the streets of downtown Los Angeles -- and elsewhere . In some American minds , Los Angeles may conjure up images of a great American city cursed with an abandoned urban core . That 's an old memory . Today , downtown Los Angeles enjoys a renaissance , right down to the new hotels and mall surrounding the Staples Center , where professional basketball and hockey are played , often to championships . But not on Skid Row . ( That 's its official designation . Even Google maps label it so . ) There are few champion moments here . The only exception may be the everyday heroes who labor in 107 charities and agencies feeding and comforting the lost souls bivouacked on the street . The triple-digit number of social service agencies , however , is often cited as one reason that Los Angeles endures as the nation 's Skid Row capital : There 's a $ 54-million-a-year charitable infrastructure anchored to the poverty district . Nobody seems to be going anywhere . That does n't deter Ryan Navales , manager of government and public affairs for the Midnight Mission , which strives to lift people out of poverty . His work and those of his peers is like that of Sisyphus to the rock , the mythic figure whose endless labor was to push a rock to the top of a mountain and then have to do it all over again after the rock rolled downhill . `` Skid Row has become less transient , '' Navales said . `` The history of skid row goes back to a transient neighborhood associated with the railroad . The true definition of transient is short term . Now it 's long term . It 's become a neighborhood . '' The century-old Midnight Mission now serves 3,000 meals daily to the homeless , Navales said . Navales cites a shortage of affordable housing as a reason for how `` there 's no place for people to go . '' He asserts his agencies and others offers hope to those who feel hopeless . Navales knows from personal experience . He once worked for Microsoft as a network administrator in the 1990s , but he lost it all , including his family . Drug addiction obliterated his life . `` After destroying my family , in and out of jail , in and out of treatment , I was living on the streets and doing what people have to do on the streets to support a really gnarly heroin habit , '' Navales said . `` In August of 2011 , I was brought to the Midnight Mission homeless , '' he added . `` I had a backpack on . '' He now wears a suit , on Skid Row 's front line , trying to relieve and unravel the nation 's Gordian knot of poverty . CNN 's Paul Vercammen contributed to this report .
Navales in L.A. is a 54-block area home to the nation 's largest concentration of homeless people . New York City has the biggest homeless population , but L.A. has biggest number of unsheltered homeless . The homeless in downtown Los Angeles ' Navales live on sidewalks under tarps and tents .