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Sycamore Grove is also where you can see another unexpected effect of the absence of <br />gangs: a rise in the number of homeless people. You can usually see a few guys pushing <br />shopping carts along the park and sleeping on the grass at midday. <br />Omnipresent street gangs kept rents low more effectively than any ordinance. Who'd pay <br />market rates to live in a gang neighborhood? What landlord wanted to invest in a <br />property while thugs lurked down the street? Now rents are on the rise in Highland Park, <br />and so is homelessness. <br />Uscolia Flores said that in the last three years, her mother-in-law's rent went from $600 <br />to $989. <br />"You get rid of one thing," she told me, as I was leaving, "but then you struggle with <br />another." <br />Sam Quinones is a journalist based in Los Angeles. His third book, 'Dreamland: The True <br />Tale ofAmerica's Opiate Epidemic," comes out in April. <br />Links <br />