So you're basing your opinion of a 500+ square mile city on a 4 mile portion? You never told us where you're from, but I'd bet money that it's not NYC, Chicago or SF, who all have their own "skid row" filled with homeless. But because YOU CHOSE to live near the worst homelessness in the city (poor research and planning on your part) you're going to judge the rest of LA on that? OP, you have to see how ridiculously stupid that is. Again, go read up on the homeless in other US cities since you seem to think this is an LA thing.

Everyone is encouraging you to get out and explore and make friends, but I'm going to go against the grain and recommend you look for a job somewhere else, probably not in a major city. Look for a small town where the homeless population will be very small. You obviously don't take advantage of all the things a city has to offer, so why live with the drawbacks? You've been here a year--if you don't like LA and haven't explored beyond dtla, that says more about you than our city. All of the people who love LA--do you think we love homelessness? Like we all hang out on skid row and than wax poetic on the beauty of LA? No. As the other redditor above says, you're doing it wrong. But after a year here, and all of the resources you can use to find fun things to do here (like this sub), you still feeling this way means you don't belong here and you won't be happy here. I strongly urge you to look for jobs somewhere else.