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Speaker 1: Previously on Weedy in House, I saw that the Black

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Speaker 1: Panther Party was an organization that was doing something about

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Speaker 1: treat them and liberation and black people. As time went on,

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Speaker 1: I learned what the Black Panther Party was doing. I

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Speaker 1: learned how they were feeding children breakfast programs, and they

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Speaker 1: were fighting for our liberation. So I did ultimately join

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Speaker 1: the Black Panther Party.

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Speaker 2: The only way we ever get anything, any kind of

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Speaker 2: social or political justice. As we fight in the street.

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Speaker 3: We struggle in the streets.

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Speaker 2: We struggled in front of the rich people's palaces, we

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Speaker 2: struggled in front of the government buildings. We have never

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Speaker 2: gotten anything, any single thing that didn't require struggle.

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Speaker 3: We've never been given anything by this government. Welcome back

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Speaker 3: to Weedy in House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. This

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Speaker 3: episode is pretty straightforward. We're going to be diving into

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Speaker 3: the effects of the recent devastating Los Angeles fires head

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Speaker 3: on communities. Here, I'll be speaking with a mutual aid

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Speaker 3: Western Tear and a returning unhoused guest who chronicles their

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Speaker 3: experiences evacuating and rebuilding. But first, Unhouse News. Our first

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Speaker 3: story is about the weather. As weather forecast includes cold

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Speaker 3: snaps and places like Missouri, New York, Chicago, Washington, North Carolina,

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Speaker 3: and Michigan, to name a few. In Missouri, for instance,

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Speaker 3: bands are transporting the end House to pop up shelters.

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Speaker 3: Peter and Paul Community Center says anyone who comes through

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Speaker 3: their doors will be given at warm bed, food and support.

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Speaker 3: This is a developing story. For further information, have a

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Speaker 3: look at the list of cold weather shelters at the

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Speaker 3: link in the description. Our next story is an update

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Speaker 3: on the consequences of the Grants Pass ruling. Grands Pass

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Speaker 3: Oregon City Council voted to revoke funding but a low

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Speaker 3: barrier shelter on Redwood Highway. Citizens and advocates expressed alarm

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Speaker 3: and concern that houselessness will increase in the area. The

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Speaker 3: city council voted five to two to revoke funding. The

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Speaker 3: new city council also plans on proposing limiting camping hours

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Speaker 3: at the resting site of seven to twelve Northeast seventh

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Speaker 3: Street and closing entirely seven to fifty five Southeast j

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Speaker 3: Street resting site. Our next story a moment of silence

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Speaker 3: for Cornelius Taylor, an unhoused man who was run over

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Speaker 3: by Atlanta City Workers. It cannot be more ironic that

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Speaker 3: he was run over across the street from the church

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Speaker 3: that the King preached at, Ebenezer Baptist Church. The effort

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Speaker 3: was to visually sanitize the area in the wake of

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Speaker 3: activities surrounding Doctor King's holiday. Another moment of silence for

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Speaker 3: the unhoused man, mister Kevin Smith, who died in the

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Speaker 3: Los Angeles fire. Our last story. Recently, at a gas

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Speaker 3: station in Los Angeles on Hunterson Drive, a black Infinity

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Speaker 3: car pulled up to an arcle gas station and used

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Speaker 3: a paint gun machine gun on an unhoused man Onlookers

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Speaker 3: noted the stress and trauma the unhoused man exhibited trying

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Speaker 3: to flee from the car who was following and continued

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Speaker 3: shooting at him. License plates and other identifying infrat is

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Speaker 3: presently unknown if community members in the area near the

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Speaker 3: Hunting and Drive gas station ARCO see the young house

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Speaker 3: man and which to offer support. Is usually there and

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Speaker 3: is willing to help recycling and washing car windows. And

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Speaker 3: that's on House News. When we come back, we'll speak

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Speaker 3: with Philip Hit'llsey, mutual aid organizer and co owner of

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Speaker 3: ASEA in Little Tokyo. Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm

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Speaker 3: THEO Henderson. I want you to drink in. What started

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Speaker 3: out as a dispassionate fire warner, which is normal by

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Speaker 3: any California standards. We are fully aware of brush fires

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Speaker 3: and their propensity for destruction. What we had not counted

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Speaker 3: on was the magnitude of the destruction. Please listen in

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Speaker 3: how the story developed from the beginning, and then will

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Speaker 3: we begin the conversation.

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Speaker 4: He its a brush fire breaking out in the hills

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Speaker 4: above Pacific Palisades.

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Speaker 3: Assignment manager Mark lou Is at the desk with the video.

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Speaker 5: Mark, how does it look out there?

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Speaker 3: Not good, Christina, but.

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Speaker 6: It is a totally different windstorm than when we're typically

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Speaker 6: used to seeing with the sant Anah.

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Speaker 4: Went late to night, another fast moving fire exploded. This

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Speaker 4: time it was in Altadina's emcam. So if you're in

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Speaker 4: any of these foothill communities right along that urban wildland interface,

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Speaker 4: you need to have a go bag ready.

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Speaker 6: He just drove up into the hills of Pacific Palisades,

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Speaker 6: where as you say, these fires are pretty much out

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Speaker 6: of control. Thirty thousand people under mandatory evacuation orders.

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Speaker 4: And then we looked outside.

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Speaker 1: We saw a huge fire and we just packed whatever

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Speaker 1: we can and we ran out of his chaos.

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Speaker 4: We thought we're gonna come.

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Speaker 5: Back tomorrow, so we didn't even back anything. We had nothing.

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Speaker 4: My dear year old kids asking me, are we gonna go?

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Speaker 4: Do you regret coming the fire department budget by millions

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Speaker 4: of dovers mountain?

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Speaker 3: Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?

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Speaker 6: We do have breaking news on the two major fires.

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Speaker 4: We've just learned the overall depth toll has climbed to

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Speaker 4: twenty seven.

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Speaker 3: I'm standing out in front of the Pasadena Job Center

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Speaker 3: here on the outskirts of the Eden fire, where hundreds

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Speaker 3: of volunteers have gathered to assist in the bre clean

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Speaker 3: of efforts.

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Speaker 1: I'm here doing blood pressure checks, wood care, diabetes.

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Speaker 4: We're dispensing medications, blankets, clothes.

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Speaker 3: What we say is solidari it's not try. We're all

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Speaker 3: here like dealing with.

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Speaker 5: The same issue.

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Speaker 7: We want to make sure that people know that there's

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Speaker 7: no shaming coming here in the time of need and

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Speaker 7: getting what they need.

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Speaker 3: Our first guest today is Philip here to say, the

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Speaker 3: co owner of a restaurant in Little Tokyo who's been

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Speaker 3: involved in mutual aid in the aftermath of the fire.

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Speaker 7: Here's his story jokingly say, I am my parents' associates

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Speaker 7: or ambassador as seen as the fires happened. I think

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Speaker 7: there was definitely a moment of shock to understand the

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Speaker 7: size of this devastating natural disaster. Los Angeles County has

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Speaker 7: had brush fires support, but never to this magnitude. We

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Speaker 7: had no idea how it was going to be this devastating.

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Speaker 7: It did start in the early evening in which there

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Speaker 7: were high winds. The following day, it was just very

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Speaker 7: clear that this isn't normal, and how yeah, how much

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Speaker 7: of an impact it had on people who were living

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Speaker 7: close by house and unhoused. And I think as yeah,

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Speaker 7: especially with you know, the commination of high winds and

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Speaker 7: the dry climate, we understood that this, yeah, this wasn't normal.

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Speaker 7: And even with us being I have a terrible sense

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Speaker 7: of distance, but I think we're like twenty twenty miles

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Speaker 7: away from the fire.

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Speaker 5: Twenty thirty miles away.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean even say, because that was not just

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Speaker 3: a fire, because breash fires happened, but we had multiple

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Speaker 3: fires simultaneously.

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Speaker 7: Exactly, Yes, fires simultaneously from both ends, from the east

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Speaker 7: and to the west. And yeah, this was a public

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Speaker 7: safety issue because it was contaminating, contaminating.

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Speaker 5: The air that we were breathing.

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Speaker 7: And if it was bad here, I couldn't have imagined

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Speaker 7: how bad it was for the immediate communities.

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Speaker 3: One of the things too, I wanted to point out,

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Speaker 3: because there was always armchair quarterbackers stating some things that

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Speaker 3: this needs to be disabused of, is that issues is

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Speaker 3: evacuate and that statement doesn't really put full scope on

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Speaker 3: it because people were evacuating, but people there was a

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Speaker 3: log jam of cars. And then two, because the fires

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Speaker 3: and predictability in the winds, the fires come in another direction,

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Speaker 3: they're telling you to evacuate another area, so there's another

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Speaker 3: log jam. So it wasn't that simple to just listen

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Speaker 3: to what people were because you know, and some people

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Speaker 3: didn't have access like some house people didn't have access

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Speaker 3: to phone to be able to dial in anyway, or

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Speaker 3: wasn't able to physically to just speed off and just

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Speaker 3: into the night and move into another location.

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Speaker 7: Right exactly like in these instances, there's no very clear

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Speaker 7: and methodical ways to do things because of the urgency

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Speaker 7: of the issue with the fires and the high winds

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Speaker 7: being so violent and We're always thinking about the responsibility

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Speaker 7: for the community, responsibility for employers wellbeing also includes their

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Speaker 7: financial wellbeing, and then also just I think at the

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Speaker 7: end of the day, we just want to feed people.

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Speaker 7: I think in hospitality we're very mindful and sometimes can

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Speaker 7: be obsessed with wanting to make.

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Speaker 5: People happy and nourished.

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Speaker 7: And you know, we checked in on each other first

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Speaker 7: to see if anybody lived in the area, and then

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Speaker 7: we went straight into the pantry and to see what

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Speaker 7: good do we had these to just start cooking up,

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Speaker 7: packaging and sending it to those who are running towards

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Speaker 7: the fires to help other people, and then those who

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Speaker 7: are running away from the fires, and then also for

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Speaker 7: the people who are unable to attain shelter, because I

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Speaker 7: think the assumption is that their shelter for everyone, but

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Speaker 7: we know the reality is that there isn't and wanted

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Speaker 7: to be very clear about that.

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Speaker 3: Even though I was minimally impacted in this with my eyes.

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Speaker 3: But the thing but it is that where people could

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Speaker 3: go into shelters to be able to minimize the toxic

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Speaker 3: effects of the fire fires, many on the house people

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Speaker 3: had to sit and ingest that for its sustaining period

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Speaker 3: of time, because the libraries wasn't open, and you know

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Speaker 3: at nights on the weekend, it's like Sunday, it is

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Speaker 3: not open. And these shelters that they offered, so if

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Speaker 3: they did offer was not out of what they had

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Speaker 3: to stay day and then they had to leave, and

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Speaker 3: then they had two up in their whole lives. On

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Speaker 3: top of that, mayorbas was conducting sweeps against unhoused people

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Speaker 3: while these fires were going on. To juxtapose the spiritus

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Speaker 3: people that are being displaced instantly through no fault of

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Speaker 3: their own by a fire, there are people that are

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Speaker 3: still follow their own affected by the fire, that are

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Speaker 3: on housed out year, and they are being targeted in

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Speaker 3: the same horrific way that Los Angeles usually do with

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Speaker 3: forty one eighteen and the grants pass ruling to justify

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Speaker 3: their venom and their aggressiveness toward vulnerable people.

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Speaker 7: Right, No, exactly, Yeah, And at the end of the day,

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Speaker 7: this is a form of displacement and I think it

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Speaker 7: is something.

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Speaker 5: That we are not all immune from.

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Speaker 7: Because you know, a natural disaster could have happened anywhere

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Speaker 7: in which a threat in itself is not your natural disaster,

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Speaker 7: but capitalism in itself being a threat to enacting displacement itself.

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Speaker 3: Well, that brings me to the beginning center. My point

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Speaker 3: is that what I noticed that you guys started cooking meals.

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Speaker 3: How many meals if you prepare and where would they

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Speaker 3: go up?

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Speaker 7: So we were able to provide a thousand meals, which

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Speaker 7: which we think was really great, And we wanted to

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Speaker 7: specifically target people who were all affected by the fire,

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Speaker 7: with the understanding that there are degrees in which people

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Speaker 7: are affected by the fire. As a stack, we were

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Speaker 7: very We understood that we are all affected because there

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Speaker 7: that we breathe, but some more than others. Like for

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Speaker 7: those who have places to live that weren't affected, didn't

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Speaker 7: be evacuated, it is less than those who had had

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Speaker 7: to evacuate, is less than those who had to evacuate

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Speaker 7: and don't have shelter. So wanting to target those who

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Speaker 7: are most vulnerable.

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Speaker 3: Not forget the people that were conducting or fighting the

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Speaker 3: fires or providing egg to people in it. You know,

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Speaker 3: they may have had a place to stay.

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Speaker 7: No exactly, Yeah, like there are firefighters themselves in which

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Speaker 7: we all knew that there are incarcerated people fighting the

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Speaker 7: fires themselves. In the form of modern day slavery in

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Speaker 7: which they're not compensated. So we wanted to provide nourishment

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Speaker 7: through comfort, provide nourishment as a means for energy to

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Speaker 7: continue fighting fires, as nourishment to help others, to be

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Speaker 7: able to help others.

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Speaker 5: So we're also including.

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Speaker 7: People who have received people to provide temporary shelter because

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Speaker 7: we also understand that, you know, they need to be

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Speaker 7: helped as well. So like if there's a couple who

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Speaker 7: was displaced and they're living with someone, we're going to

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Speaker 7: give them three meals and settages two because I think

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Speaker 7: the people who are showing displays of mutual aid, they

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Speaker 7: also need to keep going so that the work can continue.

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Speaker 3: That's an excellent point about the scarcity mindset that sometimes

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Speaker 3: people think when you see people getting a little extra,

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Speaker 3: they don't understand the first circumstances. We are not all

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Speaker 3: in this. We're in the same ocean, but we're not

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Speaker 3: in the same boat, and people may need to plan

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Speaker 3: meals in a way. Like a perfect example, like Saturday,

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Speaker 3: a musual aid people are hungry and like I said,

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Speaker 3: your meals came in to save the day. What did

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Speaker 3: you see with the un house community there on the weekend.

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Speaker 7: Well, what was interesting as we saw that there is

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Speaker 7: a disconnect of communication, as I heard through one of

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Speaker 7: our dear friends, Philip in that people here don't have

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Speaker 7: the information that they need to be safe, especially when

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Speaker 7: it comes to the air quality. And so we did

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Speaker 7: see how the fire does directly and indirectly affect us.

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Speaker 5: And you know, with the many things that we.

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Speaker 7: Learned through power through j Town, through me Ado, just

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Speaker 7: talking to the stuff about and people about. You should

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Speaker 7: only do any things that you would want to receive,

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Speaker 7: and you need to be thoughtful about the conditions in

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Speaker 7: which they're receiving things. So like what good is a

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Speaker 7: bag of romain lettuce gonna do if a person doesn't

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Speaker 7: have a kitchen, right, if they don't have the means

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Speaker 7: to prepare food, they should be eating somethings that are

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Speaker 7: ready to eat. So yeah, just just wanting to at

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Speaker 7: least avoid a lot of inefficiencies that places are expensing

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Speaker 7: right now.

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Speaker 3: And I have because I'm a foodie, but I have

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Speaker 3: to point out, like some of the meals that you

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Speaker 3: preferred were ready to eat but also already warmed, which

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Speaker 3: also is a big thing, which is a contested thing

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Speaker 3: that I have being on house knowing how EBT is

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Speaker 3: being used. Now they're having abt allow hot food, but

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Speaker 3: the public's did have been hated that unhouse people won't

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Speaker 3: have the hot food, so you had to use the

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Speaker 3: cash to the day, which was not that much to use.

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Speaker 3: How food unless we were on a program that you

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Speaker 3: had to find with restaurants were friendly to eat the sea.

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Speaker 3: But one of the things that was really I know

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Speaker 3: is appreciated when you have every weekend. We've tried to

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Speaker 3: provide hot meals along a diversity of food, but mostly

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Speaker 3: importantly hot meals so they can at least have a

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Speaker 3: hot meal full at least for one period of time

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Speaker 3: in their existence.

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Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, no, exactly hot food.

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Speaker 7: It takes a lot of work, but it's also something

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Speaker 7: that we all deserve and it's something that provides that

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Speaker 7: actual step of nourishment that a cold sandwich may not.

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Speaker 7: I mean, I think especially with our weather dipping in

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Speaker 7: like the high forties in the evenings, it makes me

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Speaker 7: think of a lot about chefs and how you know,

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Speaker 7: they're not only people who cook food at restaurants, but

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Speaker 7: they're they're masters at knowing how to nourish people. I

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Speaker 7: know how to scale up because I know that thing

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Speaker 7: is really difficult. People can make a meal for four people,

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Speaker 7: but how do you make meals for hundreds of people?

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Speaker 7: That is definitely a skill that a chef is able

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Speaker 7: to do. And being mindful about food safety, what food

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Speaker 7: can be warmer, longer, how food deteriorates as it travels.

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Speaker 7: These are things as chefs are so wonderfully talented skilled ota.

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Speaker 3: One of the things I want to point out as

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Speaker 3: well is that we all impacted by what's going on

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Speaker 3: at what's continuing the apper effects And one of the

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Speaker 3: things we've mentioned is that you know, people from the

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Speaker 3: places that I've gone, even a grocery stores, it's not

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Speaker 3: the same intensity of people. People are still a little

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Speaker 3: the skittish to go out and be skilled about to eat.

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Speaker 3: You have now offered to.

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Speaker 5: Meet that eat.

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Speaker 3: What are the services that people want to either donate

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Speaker 3: to as a to or to get the meals and

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Speaker 3: they are a little bit hesitants to come out and

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Speaker 3: ing just you know the air right now.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the real barriers and

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Speaker 7: challenges that we're facing is there's the element of people

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Speaker 7: feeling ashamed to want to receive help or food to connect,

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Speaker 7: and so we're trying to meet people where they're at

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Speaker 7: by wanting to go to them directly, of course, you know,

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Speaker 7: with the consent and with a established relationship, because people are,

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Speaker 7: especially in traumatic situations, they're so vulnerable and it's really scary.

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Speaker 7: And so instead of just dropping it things off to

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Speaker 7: a distribution center, we are trying to target and be

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Speaker 7: more intentional and wanting to have a higher rate of

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Speaker 7: people receiving the help because I can't imagine going to

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Speaker 7: the evac center and you know that itself is such

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Speaker 7: an operation, it could be scary, it could be so

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Speaker 7: much so ones that are a little more local or

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Speaker 7: cent I think would be more effective. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 7: we're we've been also very mindful and that we don't

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Speaker 7: want to deter people from donating directly to people affect

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Speaker 7: it because at the end of the day, like the

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Speaker 7: restaurant is okay, even though we are bleeding money on top,

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Speaker 7: it is okay. So we you know, we don't openly

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Speaker 7: just say that works like donations because we want that

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Speaker 7: support to go directly to people. And we're also very

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Speaker 7: mindful in that Altadena has a history of it being

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Speaker 7: a black community, so we don't want to extract more

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Speaker 7: attention and support from there, but how do we channel.

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Speaker 5: Our supporters into that direction? If anything, they're a.

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Speaker 3: Good question, and they're a good point. Altadena is not

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Speaker 3: getting the bread is of help. And the stories that

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Speaker 3: I hear out there are heartbreaking us personally what the

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Speaker 3: history is going on. Many people, any walks of lives

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Speaker 3: have been impacted, some restaurants, from homes, from just basically

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Speaker 3: just employment in order to be employed in the area,

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Speaker 3: and they are not having the best of times. But

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Speaker 3: also is much more of an added hardship as well

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Speaker 3: because of the heavy police or law enforcement presence there

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Speaker 3: to intimidate and to terrorize the community that has had

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Speaker 3: the history of police brutality and violence, so that meets

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Speaker 3: has not been overlooked. And in addition as well, there

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Speaker 3: are as the communities are impacted, is like the Altadena

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Speaker 3: but not it's on the severe end like that as

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Speaker 3: of course unhoused black people. You heard that probably with death.

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Speaker 3: And like I said, pointing out, our mayor has opted

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Speaker 3: instead of just suspending these kinds of sanitation and at

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Speaker 3: least the sweet kind of purposes, she sends the message

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Speaker 3: inadvertently or deliberately that your branch of houselessness is to

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Speaker 3: be criminalized and dehumanized. And these people that have houselessness

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Speaker 3: over Pacific palisays, you know, which is a tragedty in itself.

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Speaker 3: But for many of the people here, like many of

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Speaker 3: the unhoused recently, what I've seen Racefule, they have to

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Speaker 3: start from scratch and they're going to be subjected to

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Speaker 3: the same laws and things that are the current on

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Speaker 3: house people are usually I dealing with. And that's another

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Speaker 3: thing that it's not talked about, but these things on

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Speaker 3: the books unintended consequences that maybe people that were for

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Speaker 3: these kind of things, but forgetting that we all are

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Speaker 3: much more closer to being unhoused and not building it.

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Speaker 3: And all it takes is, like you said, you can

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Speaker 3: be doing everything, you're supposed to have a mansion or

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Speaker 3: have a big billionaire or rich, and then all of

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Speaker 3: a sudden, it's a spurning ember that turns something that

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Speaker 3: destroys everything.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 7: And for black folks, I feel like in Altadena, for

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Speaker 7: many people like this was a way in which they

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Speaker 7: could become homeowners once that re learning was lifted. However,

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Speaker 7: many decades ago and there are patterns of displacement through

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Speaker 7: natural disasters like this, and displacement of folk communities like yeah,

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Speaker 7: just went to a conference in New Orleans and their

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Speaker 7: neighborhoods that have changed forever since Katrina that were historically black.

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Speaker 5: Neighborhoods and no longer are.

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Speaker 7: So this is not yeah, like an isolated incident or

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Speaker 7: it's just Los Angeles.

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Speaker 5: But it is everywhere. That is, I mean, it's really everywhere.

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Speaker 7: The natural disasters are maybe unique in that earthquakes may

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Speaker 7: not happen in Servis will but you know, yeah, as

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Speaker 7: powder as a displacement or yeah, let's not.

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Speaker 3: Forget what recently happened over North Carolina. They didn't have

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Speaker 3: a brushfire, they had a very traumatic hurricane, and there

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Speaker 3: are people that are now living out intents or living

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Speaker 3: and its displacement type of displacement rich environment where we're

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Speaker 3: going on to the beginning tale of adding on to

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Speaker 3: more displaced people in our city. So now our environment

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Speaker 3: fails us, all of us, and we have to contend

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Speaker 3: with the reality of that. Thank you for your time,

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Speaker 3: and I know you're busy and I kind of intruded

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Speaker 3: on your time, but I easily.

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Speaker 4: Get Italian yeah, thank you again.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much to Philip for his time. You

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Speaker 3: can learn more about AAY at their website Azay Little

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Speaker 3: Tookyo dot com. And when we come back, we were

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Speaker 3: here returning guests and journalist Ruth Lesser's story. Welcome back

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Speaker 3: to c CEO Henderson with Weedian House for our final

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Speaker 3: interview today a returning guest direct experience of the forest fires.

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Speaker 3: Most unhoused people's stories are left in the ashes of

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Speaker 3: indifference and the ugly falling down the wall crying of

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Speaker 3: losing rich people's mansion. Here Ruth Lesser talks about witnessing

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Speaker 3: and experiencing firsthand effects of the fire.

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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I grew I go by Roofless on social

401
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Speaker 4: media and I have an iPhone. I live in public

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Speaker 4: in the city of la I continuously lived that way

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Speaker 4: since twenty seventeen. But I was first displaced in two

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Speaker 4: thousand and three unexpectedly because of TV.

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Speaker 3: TV is domestic violence, So so people know domestic violence,

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Speaker 3: Is that correct?

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Speaker 4: Yes, domestic violence between my parents At the time, I

408
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Speaker 4: was in middle school, Okay, and yeah, so that was

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Speaker 4: like unexpected, but my first kind of experience of being

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Speaker 4: displaced and I didn't realize that a lot of other

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Speaker 4: people were going through this too. I thought it was

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Speaker 4: just me, and then I kind of learned that this

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Speaker 4: is a problem not just in our society and in America,

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Speaker 4: but globally it's a huge problem of displacement. So I

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Speaker 4: try to align with, you know, the globally landless people.

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Speaker 4: I do displacement spaces every Sunday night, or I try

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Speaker 4: to if I have a battery charge, and it's like

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Speaker 4: a Twitter spaces where people come live. Sometimes in person,

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Speaker 4: they come to my spot and sometimes virtually and we

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Speaker 4: just kind of talk about anything related to displacement. That's

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Speaker 4: kind of the community. Like I've tried to foster. It's

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Speaker 4: you know, it's obviously tech isn't completely equitable, but it's

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Speaker 4: been a cool way to meet people in Palestine and

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Speaker 4: the UK and Africa. And the one before the last one,

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Speaker 4: like I had one last night and a week before

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Speaker 4: I had two inmate firefighters, one in person and one

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Speaker 4: virtually for the State of California, talking about how they

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Speaker 4: were inmates. One of them was a juvenile inmate. He

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Speaker 4: was seventeen, and they were defending other people's houses on

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Speaker 4: the front line.

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Speaker 3: Wow, that's the perfect segue into the conversation. The fires

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Speaker 3: affected everyone. Unfortunately, the media was hyper focused on people's

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Speaker 3: mansions and not understanding the other walks of life that

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Speaker 3: was impacted. People that were working jobs or had struggling

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Speaker 3: to work jobs for the rich, people that have lost

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Speaker 3: the houses, or people that are in housing secure and

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Speaker 3: we always forget about talking about how the unhoused community

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Speaker 3: were impacted. So what was your experience when the fires happened?

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Speaker 3: Where were you and how did you survive in this

440
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 3: kind of the environment that was happening.

441
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 4: Well, it got pretty real really fast. I'm used to

442
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 4: the elements, like I've done hurricanes and you know, atmospheric

443
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 4: rivers and you know all those things. But the winds

444
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 4: were really strong, like my roof blew off, and transformers

445
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 4: were exploding near me. There was power lines that were down.

446
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 4: There was palm fronts, those sharp, dried out ones that

447
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 4: were like really whipping around like in the air, and

448
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 4: one hit like right outside of my little door, and

449
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 4: that scared me a lot because there was like I

450
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 4: looked up and there was like thousands of them on

451
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 4: this huge palm tree that was like swaying like a

452
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 4: pendle of it was dust in the air, and I

453
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 4: couldn't tell if it was dust or smoke or what,

454
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 4: but the combination of all those elements was really intense

455
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 4: for me. And I hid out in this little cubby

456
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 4: like where I was able to shelter, and then I

457
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 4: put up on my Twitter that I was looking to

458
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 4: voluntarily evacuate and Bakeically, a Displacement Spaces participant who I'd

459
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 4: never met, happened to be a ridehare driver came by

460
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 4: and scooped me up. So I had a really cool

461
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 4: experience of actually being elsewhere. I never leave my area

462
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,880
Speaker 4: usually I stay around here. But yeah, I was wished

463
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 4: out of trouble and returned on Saturday afternoon. So while

464
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 4: I was gone, there was a named fire literally visible

465
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 4: from my house, like right across the street. It was

466
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 4: a smaller named fire, but it was. Yeah. I was

467
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 4: really glad not to be breathing all that in as

468
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 4: it was happening live.

469
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, you know, even when I was walking

470
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 3: down the street, I was impacted by the ash. My eyes,

471
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 3: of course, was dry but swollen. I had to really

472
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 3: do some rehabilitation in the breathing like these wildfires. What

473
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 3: I've noticed when I was staying out in the park

474
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 3: when we had brushfires before. It really impacts the breathing,

475
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 3: particularly because not only just as the smoke and the ash,

476
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 3: but also the debris like what they were saying they

477
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 3: had arsidic in the air and other kind of metals

478
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 3: that's going on that was being moved into different other

479
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 3: places where they might not have had a fire per se,

480
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 3: but they had the remnants of the backlash or the

481
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 3: backwash if you will, of those things.

482
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 4: Oh. Yeah, it's not my first experience with fire for sure.

483
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 4: Like I was trapped in a fire in twenty eighteen

484
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 4: under a bridge and I was targeted by an arsonist

485
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 4: in twenty nineteen.

486
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 3: Wow.

487
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 4: But when I had that bridge fire experience, I remember

488
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,479
Speaker 4: kind of having the realization later with my friends who

489
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 4: also escaped, that, you know, all the things that we lost,

490
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 4: Like we had bicycles basically turned into piles of ash

491
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 4: with just like a derailer on top of it because

492
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 4: their carbon fiber. We realized that we were breathing in bicycles,

493
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 4: we were breathing in you know, all those things like

494
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 4: that's all in our you know, in our lungs. And yeah,

495
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 4: I definitely had lasting impacts from that because I breathed

496
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 4: in a lot of heavy suit I remember, I was

497
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 4: not the same. I don't think I've ever really been

498
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 4: the same like I have asthma though. So I learned

499
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 4: that asma is a higher prevalence in the unhoused population,

500
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 4: and I find that interesting. I'm not sure if it's

501
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 4: like a cause.

502
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 3: Or effect, you know, but it seems like that would

503
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 3: be a direct causal result of living in the elements.

504
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 3: When I was living on the street, I noticed like

505
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 3: my eyes were much more bloodshot, and one of my

506
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 3: former martial arts students thought I was on drinking or

507
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 3: on drugs, and I was like, no, it's just because

508
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 3: of we take it for granted the air quality that's

509
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 3: going on out here. Just because it's sunny doesn't mean

510
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 3: air is not polluted and thick with harmful contaminants, and

511
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 3: it seeps in everything. And this person is housed, they're

512
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 3: mostly in a stationary position because they don't want the

513
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 3: things taken or they have found a spot that they

514
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 3: don't want it taken up or discovered, or however, so

515
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 3: they keep centrally to their place of occupancy, just most

516
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 3: like anyone would do if they had a house.

517
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Actually, while I was going, somebody moved

518
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 4: into my spot or a few people and thin give

519
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 4: it back. You know, they found my roof, they put

520
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 4: my roof back on, they found my park somewhere down

521
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 4: the road or something, and then they gave it act.

522
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 3: But see, and you know that's the thing too. You know,

523
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 3: we all understand as in the house, how it is.

524
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 3: And once you get a spot, you know, we try

525
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 3: to hold on as long as we can. And you

526
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 3: know that we get when someone comes back to their spot,

527
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,479
Speaker 3: oh well you know, here it is, and yeah, you know,

528
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 3: this is it. And that's that. I wanted to talk

529
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 3: to you about some of the struggles that you have

530
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 3: been going on, not only with the fires, but with Jay.

531
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about Jay if you want,

532
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit about his situation and his

533
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 3: story and what would you like to see to help ja.

534
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really tough one. We've been together since

535
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen and he's amazing. He's a partner and right

536
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 4: now he's in men Central Jail in the LGBTQ plus section.

537
00:31:57,760 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 4: They call it the powder Blues because they wear like

538
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 4: light blue colored scrubs. I guess in Men's central deal

539
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 4: that signals that they call it alternative lifestyles or whatever,

540
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 4: but it's a different population than general population. And I

541
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 4: haven't heard from him since well, we last spoke on

542
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 4: the fifth, briefly sink about twenty minutes. He got housed

543
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 4: right in the summer. He got permanent supportive housing, which

544
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 4: we thought was the best thing that could ever happen.

545
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 4: I didn't believe it was real, Like I mean, I

546
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 4: think I'm still in disbelief a little bit because I

547
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 4: just never had a housing opportunity, actually material life like that.

548
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 4: Like I observed his After eight months of working with

549
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 4: the MH Home teams, he was given a permanent supportive

550
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 4: housing unit in the Valley in Panorama City. And he

551
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 4: was doing good, like he was starting to spend time

552
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 4: there and you know, grocery shops up and cooked and

553
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 4: you know, pay his rent. And I was seeing a

554
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 4: little less of him. But I was happy about that,

555
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 4: like because you know, he's doing great. And then he

556
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 4: got arrested. I thought he was at his house before

557
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 4: I knew it, he was declared incompetent to stand trial

558
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 4: on Christmas Eve. I didn't know that this whole legal loophole.

559
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 4: I'm perceiving it as existed that I thought that the

560
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 4: sixth Amendment guaranteed you a steedee trial a jury of

561
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 4: your peers in the jurisdiction that you were accused. But

562
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 4: apparently if you are a person with mental illness and

563
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 4: a public defender or a judge or a prosecutor questions

564
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 4: your competency and a hearing, you can get diverted to

565
00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 4: this whole competency restoration process, which it takes place in

566
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 4: the state hospitals. There's five of them. I think it's

567
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 4: NAPA Patent Metropolitan tasked Darrow or something, and Toilano I think,

568
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 4: or something like that, and they're talking about putting him

569
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 4: in one of thout. Tomorrow is his placement hearing, and

570
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 4: they're estimating two years. And this is all pre trial.

571
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 4: He hasn't actually a trial for any crime. So it

572
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 4: was really harsh to have my partner since twenty seventeen

573
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 4: just lisked out of my life and have nothing I

574
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 4: can do about it. He's being forcibly medicated. Yeah, I

575
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 4: haven't been able to tell him that I evacuated and

576
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 4: returned his apartment key and his EBT card and stuff

577
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 4: are in his property up the jail because he was

578
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 4: grocery shopping when he was apprehended, and I haven't been

579
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 4: able to access it because well, my friend went to

580
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 4: on the second, but they didn't release the property for

581
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 4: some reason. So if I had his key, I could

582
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,959
Speaker 4: have sheltered from the fire in his apartment. I could

583
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 4: have paid his rent. It's his money order is in

584
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 4: the apartment for December. All these things are unraveling and

585
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 4: there's nothing he can do about it, and there's nothing

586
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 4: really anyone except for maybe his public defenders and the

587
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 4: prosecutors can do about it. But I guess at any

588
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 4: point they can declare him competent again. But it's such

589
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 4: an arbitrary concept. In competence to stand trial means, and

590
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 4: that's the specific reason they are holding him. It's not

591
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 4: just general and competence, it's in competence to stand trial.

592
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 4: That's basically an educational issue, not a medication issue. But

593
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 4: the only treatment he's getting is for some medication. He's

594
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 4: not getting time in a courtroom like observing a trial,

595
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 4: for discussions with legal people, you know, people who know

596
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 4: the laws, or even there's a legal library in men

597
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 4: Central Jail. He has not been given access to it,

598
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 4: so I don't understand how he's supposed to be getting

599
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:20,359
Speaker 4: more competent to stand trial through this forced medication. It

600
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 4: seems really humiliating and really traumatic, Like it's hard for

601
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,400
Speaker 4: me to go through this. From my perspective, I can't

602
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 4: imagine what condition he's in because I feel like I

603
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:34,240
Speaker 4: would just feel hopeless, like I'm stuck in this basically

604
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 4: lead box because he hasn't been able to have visits,

605
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,439
Speaker 4: to phone calls, and the only way out is through

606
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 4: this bureaucratic process. In any way you go, it's years

607
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 4: just to get back to where you were. And you know,

608
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 4: I'm trying to save his apartment so he has a

609
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 4: place to come home to. That's my main concern because

610
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 4: I know when those conversations do start eventually, if I'd

611
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 4: be in two years, but he is going to need

612
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 4: a place to come home to and to tell the

613
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 4: judge and the prosecutor and everything that he's going to

614
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 4: be able to be stable at. And it just seems

615
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 4: like they're sending him backwards. And you know, his permanent

616
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 4: support of housing took eight months working with the case

617
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 4: managers to get after being homeless for decades, and he

618
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 4: didn't even have it for like maybe six months at

619
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 4: the most. He was supposed to spend his holidays there.

620
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,799
Speaker 4: He had his fiftieth birthday on New Year's Eve in

621
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 4: the jail, And yeah, it's just really sad because now

622
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 4: his apartment's just sitting empty, and he's sitting in a

623
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 4: jail cell and I'm sitting outside and it's really depressing.

624
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 4: I'm sorry to like sound funny, but he has been

625
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 4: hearing tomorrow, so it's top of mind. And from what

626
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:56,399
Speaker 4: I understand, there's probably about one hundred Jonathan in La

627
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:56,919
Speaker 4: right now.

628
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 3: Wow, it sounds like a whirlwind case that it is

629
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 3: hard to put the head around. And also my heart

630
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,840
Speaker 3: goes out to you and trying to stay strong into

631
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:09,279
Speaker 3: this kind of uncertainty. You know, there's so much this

632
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 3: uncertain in the conversation with this going on that you

633
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 3: don't know which direction is. And I can only imagine

634
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 3: what Day is going through with all of the challenges

635
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:20,799
Speaker 3: and trying to cope to a life where you know,

636
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 3: he's being medicated, in a place that he's in where

637
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 3: they're dealing with separated from society and any kind of

638
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 3: positive contact. So what is the goal for him, is

639
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 3: he to go to court tomorrow they're going to sentence him,

640
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 3: or if they are going to release him into state

641
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 3: custody for in the hospital, or what is their plan.

642
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 3: Do they have a plan.

643
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 4: It's so hard to know. I feel like it would

644
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 4: be great news if they would just send him back

645
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 4: to criminal court, because like last time I spoke with him,

646
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:54,840
Speaker 4: he said, I feel like I should have just put guilty,

647
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:58,959
Speaker 4: like even though that's not the disposition he wanted to

648
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 4: go with, Like he said, you know, I feel like

649
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 4: I would have gotten a sentence. I would have a timer,

650
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 4: you know, I would know when I was coming home.

651
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 4: I would not be yet stressed out. There would be

652
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 4: so much less unknown, you know. And it's weird that

653
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 4: our mental health diversions, which most people I think just

654
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 4: like instinctually think it's kinder and nicer and softer, it

655
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:27,760
Speaker 4: really seems like it's way meaner and way more traumatizing

656
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 4: and way less clear. Like there's no communications. He hasn't

657
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 4: been able to speak with a public defender. There's only

658
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 4: one working phone in the section he's in, and that's

659
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,959
Speaker 4: been since he got there, So everybody in that unit

660
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 4: where he's house is sharing one phone. The only time

661
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 4: he's ever been able to call me has been in

662
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,439
Speaker 4: the middle of the night. And his public defender, who

663
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 4: I've been calling during the day, and his son has

664
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 4: been calling, and you know, we've been trying to get

665
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 4: in touch with all year. I just found out that

666
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:06,720
Speaker 4: he was on vacation basically last year and won't return

667
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 4: until tomorrow. So while Jonathan's been spending the holidays in

668
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:19,280
Speaker 4: jail getting forcebly medicated, his public defender has been not answering.

669
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 4: His phone hasn't even been ringing when we call it,

670
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 4: and we've been trying to talk to him, and he's

671
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:29,240
Speaker 4: just been on vacation, like killing and it just seems

672
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 4: unfair that, you know, his whole future is basically in

673
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 4: this person's hands and they can't even answer a phone call.

674
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 4: His DNAH worker, who he was in constant contact for

675
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 4: more than a year because they're the ones who helped him,

676
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 4: haven't even answered a text. I said, are you still

677
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 4: Jay's caseworkers, I'll stop texting you if you're not, could

678
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 4: you please just let me know? And they didn't answer.

679
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 4: They last texted me before his hearing on the twenty fourth,

680
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:02,479
Speaker 4: before he was declared competent to scan trials. So it's

681
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 4: just been really bleak. Like I would like to tell

682
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 4: him that, you know, I'm safe, that I evacuated and

683
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 4: I came back. He'd be probably super impressed, you know

684
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 4: that I'm doing all right. It's hard eating a woman outside.

685
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 4: You know, I'm sheltered and I have a lot of

686
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 4: good people around me. But it's not ideal, and I

687
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 4: don't see how this helped anyone or is helping anybody

688
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 4: at all. He doesn't have victims. Just to get to

689
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 4: his criminal case really quick, Like in April, he was

690
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,840
Speaker 4: accused of felony vandalism, but the details of that case

691
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 4: were that he is thought to have been drawing on

692
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 4: a parking space with chalk, but there were no witnesses.

693
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 4: There's no business or victims or anything that's trying to

694
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 4: avenge this. It's snowballed from there. So it's amazing how

695
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 4: such a petty little thing can turn into years of

696
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 4: your life.

697
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 3: That's the thing too, is that anything can happen, just

698
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 3: what we just witnessed with the wildfires. People had established

699
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 3: homes at homes and now they're out on they're out

700
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:12,479
Speaker 3: in the cold.

701
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly right out here with us. Yeah, and just

702
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 4: when you think the bottom can't fall out, like you

703
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 4: know it does, do you think you're you can't get

704
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:22,799
Speaker 4: any worse than this, and then you know you just

705
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:24,240
Speaker 4: plung fire or whatever?

706
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 3: Right, will finish this conversation after the break and we're back.

707
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:38,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did just have at least twelve three hundred

708
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 4: people joining us in homelessness, or at least twelve thousand,

709
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 4: three hundred homes get destroyed. So whoever was in those homes,

710
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 4: like the probably more people than once per Some of

711
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 4: those homes were vacant too, though that's kind of a

712
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 4: phoat I have to pick with that situation, Like a

713
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 4: lot of those homes were baked and they're more flammable.

714
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:00,120
Speaker 3: Well not only that too, is like you know, you know,

715
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 3: there's so much disinformation going on about people looting and

716
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 3: all of that nonsense. And then, like I say, it

717
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 3: was to how this whole story has been framed with

718
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:12,359
Speaker 3: the elite losing their homes. There are people that are

719
00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 3: struggling and going to be struggling for years to come

720
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 3: and going to be falling prey to the legal rapifications

721
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:21,279
Speaker 3: that other in house people. Do you know while this

722
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 3: was going on, other in house people were being swept

723
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 3: in other parts of the city.

724
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 4: So yeah, they were. Yeah, people were losing everything and

725
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 4: they didn't have to be. It was unnecessary, as you know,

726
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 4: people were having their homes burning killed. I said for

727
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,479
Speaker 4: a long time that, you know, until a week ago,

728
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 4: I would always say La has more homes than it's

729
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 4: ever had. You know, we've never had more homes, and

730
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 4: so to still have homelessness up to a week ago,

731
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 4: when we had more homes than we've ever had and

732
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 4: will have for a few years at least until we

733
00:43:55,280 --> 00:44:00,120
Speaker 4: rebuild twelve thousand filings at least. And so what are

734
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 4: we going to do to change that? Like if we rebuild,

735
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 4: are we going to cheap that? Like are we going

736
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 4: to keep units vacant again? You know, we still have

737
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 4: vacant home tees. I'm still next to a two hundred

738
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 4: room hotel that's been vacant for years that used to

739
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 4: be a room key. You know, we should occupy every unit,

740
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,239
Speaker 4: like any empty unit should be considered a nuisance and

741
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 4: the hazard.

742
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,439
Speaker 3: Honestly something to think on. So now we've got we've

743
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 3: covered the fires, We've covered the Jay's situation, what's next

744
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 3: for you? What stories are you hoping to cover?

745
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 4: I think I'm trying to get Eva's story out there.

746
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 4: She wasn't Vennis. She rented an apartment for twenty years

747
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 4: and she went through a breakup, she lost, you know,

748
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 4: family support. She's an older lady and she's got, you know,

749
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 4: some struggles, like with disabilities, and she saw this coming

750
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 4: from a mile away, that her living situation wasn't sustainable.

751
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 4: She downsides to a zero bedroom from a one bedroom

752
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,320
Speaker 4: in the same building, which is funny because many years

753
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 4: prior she had upsides to accommodate a long term relationship.

754
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 4: She was in a zero bedroom, and then she was

755
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 4: in a one bedroom, and then she was in a

756
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:14,760
Speaker 4: zero bedroom again, all in the same red control building Inventors.

757
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 4: And she got a notice to vacate in November. The

758
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 4: date that she was supposed to meet by was Veterans Day,

759
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 4: and so on the Tuesday, the twelfth, she figured that

760
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 4: the sheriffs would be at her door first thing in

761
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 4: the morning. And I was trying to explain to her that,

762
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 4: you know, there's.

763
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 8: A lot of people on that eviction list every month,

764
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 8: like you might have some time, and she kind of

765
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 8: started to realize it after you know, several days went

766
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 8: by and there was no one trying to physically remove her.

767
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 4: I said, stay as long as you can. You don't

768
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 4: have anywhere else to go, you know, stay as well,

769
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 4: like until they remove you, basically, or until you get

770
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:59,760
Speaker 4: another place to go. So we've been applying for everything,

771
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 4: and there's so many resources in her neighborhood that on

772
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 4: the west side, she's got home Key Ramata that's been empty.

773
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 4: It's had so much money go into it that they

774
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 4: could have built a whole new hotel. It's only thirty

775
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 4: three units, but Tracy Park is not opening it. It

776
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 4: was supposed to open last month and they don't have

777
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:25,240
Speaker 4: an estimated opening date, but the media had reported December

778
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four. So I've just been trying to help her.

779
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:32,359
Speaker 4: She's a really nice lady. I don't want to have

780
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 4: to live with her outside. If I can help it,

781
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 4: I don't let her have to go through that adjustment

782
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 4: of her age. But with the Bridge Home closed in

783
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 4: in Venice and then the Dell Affordable housing project stalled,

784
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 4: and I think the AHHH apartments near her are not accessible,

785
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 4: like she can't just apply for them for some reason.

786
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 4: I guess it's the CEES thing. She has to basically

787
00:46:56,520 --> 00:47:00,399
Speaker 4: win the lottery to get in. It's very convoluted. Yeah,

788
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 4: she can't really access anything, and she's just looking for

789
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,839
Speaker 4: sustainable housing that she can afford. In the process of

790
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,839
Speaker 4: researching this, I learned that her zip code paid four

791
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 4: million dollars into United to House LA, but they were

792
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 4: exempted from the assistance that was supposed to provide. And

793
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 4: with the fires, I'm wondering how many of those mansions

794
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 4: don't exist anymore that paid those taxes, and what the

795
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 4: revenues for that is going to look like now that

796
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 4: we've had the fire. I'm sure the projections are all

797
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 4: going to change. But the issue was that they had

798
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:39,880
Speaker 4: a located funding for a improme assistance program for seniors

799
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 4: and disabled people who owed back rent. Her back rent

800
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,879
Speaker 4: was the exact average amount in the study they did

801
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 4: in the data for this program that's part of ULA,

802
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 4: and they never funded it. In twenty twenty four, they

803
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 4: just rolled all the funds over to twenty twenty five,

804
00:47:55,600 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 4: so implementation never happened, but eviction still happened. And she's

805
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:03,879
Speaker 4: become a really motivated public commenter, and I love that

806
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 4: but I do wish I had some better news as

807
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 4: far as where she's going to stay when she gets

808
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 4: kicked out. I would love to do like an action

809
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 4: at that Ramata to pressure of Tracy Parks into opening it,

810
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 4: because otherwise I don't think she.

811
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 3: Ever will Well, she's basically listens into the nimbies anyway,

812
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 3: which I when I covered story, is a very bizarre

813
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 3: kind of thing there. We've got activists there that speaks out,

814
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 3: but we've got pseudo activists that are trying to do

815
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:34,799
Speaker 3: the riding. They're both fenced kind of thing. It's a

816
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 3: very bizarre ecosystem there. But the bottom line is they

817
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 3: don't want unhouse people there and they do every slippery

818
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 3: type of tactic to make sure that that doesn't happen.

819
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 4: That's true. Yeah, the West Side has got a very

820
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 4: hostile vibe to unhouse people. But I do have to

821
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 4: say they pay most of the mansion taxes in the

822
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 4: West Side, so they've paid large sums of money, some

823
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 4: of the personally and seen no results because there's been

824
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 4: no implementation. Their anger and shouldn't be targeted at the

825
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 4: unhelped people because they're the people who didn't get helped.

826
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 4: You know, the city got the money, has been collecting

827
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 4: interest on it, I'm sure, But I have noticed amazingly

828
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 4: that there is five partisan or across the spectrum support

829
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 4: for occupying these empty hotels, like nobody wants to see

830
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 4: them sit there empty. And the reason I realized that

831
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 4: was because of a right wing newspaper investigated it and

832
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 4: called it out and did a great piece on it. Actually,

833
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 4: so I do think that, you know, we we got

834
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:41,320
Speaker 4: to find common ground sometimes for the sake of common goal.

835
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:46,240
Speaker 4: Like occupying an empty hotel that's gotten twenty million dollars

836
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 4: invested into it and it's just been sitting vacant since

837
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two is a really good way to come

838
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 4: together and demand that Tracy Parks do something about it,

839
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 4: because she's the one in control there.

840
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:04,400
Speaker 3: Well, that's something to think on one of the things. Also,

841
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 3: Venice is very unique because it's a tourist attraction, so

842
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 3: that's another part of the tension that's been going on

843
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 3: with residents. And it has a history of its own

844
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 3: as well that's not completely talked about, but it's interesting

845
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 3: how that spirals into the interaction and who suffers the

846
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:26,359
Speaker 3: most is the un housed community. That's the bottom line,

847
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 3: you know.

848
00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, it's got a fascinating history. Venis and become

849
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 4: almost an on club where there's not very many disabled people.

850
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 4: It's not a very diverse place, like and do they

851
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 4: want that? It's like, I.

852
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 3: Don't see why the country has always has been that way.

853
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 3: And it's not an accident. It's not an accident.

854
00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, but the history there on the canals

855
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 4: and everything, you would think that. I don't know, Like

856
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 4: I liked Bond and the era. I thought I had hope,

857
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 4: you know, I thought, you know, things were going to

858
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 4: go better. And I still support like his council file.

859
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:14,879
Speaker 4: I was still trying to get it past it died

860
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:19,399
Speaker 4: last November to create a Lived Experience Commission on homelessness

861
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 4: because our city really needs to hear from people, you

862
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 4: know us kid Row, and hear from people on the

863
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:29,400
Speaker 4: river Wash, and hear from people you know in RV's

864
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 4: and use those people's voices to guide policy. And we're

865
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 4: still struggling to be heard about anything. Meanwhile, the fire victims,

866
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:44,920
Speaker 4: they're getting three years of free parking without having to

867
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:47,720
Speaker 4: worry about tickets if they get an RV or a trailer.

868
00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 3: What begs the question too, will they be susceptible to

869
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:54,399
Speaker 3: forty one eighteen in the grant's pass right, because that's

870
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 3: the thing too that we're not talking about. But not

871
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 3: everyone's going to know that they're from the fire. So

872
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 3: unless they now or they have some kind of identifying

873
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 3: kind of idea of something with that.

874
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 4: Nature exactly, Yeah, how do you know?

875
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:08,759
Speaker 3: So how are you going to know? Right?

876
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 4: And if you think about it, with the first line

877
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:16,759
Speaker 4: of defense, the normally a FEMA solution would be a

878
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,399
Speaker 4: bunch of RV's right, a bunch of FEMA trailers. Yeah,

879
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 4: but we know our city is possible to that. We

880
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:25,719
Speaker 4: got I think six hundred and fifty of them back

881
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty that we're supposed to be for homeless people,

882
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,360
Speaker 4: and believe it or not, a few dozen of those

883
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 4: came from campfire victims that were living in them. And

884
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 4: eventually FEMA or whoever was like, hey, we need you

885
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:43,840
Speaker 4: to pay rent on those trailers and if you can't,

886
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 4: you need to give it back. And then they took

887
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 4: them back and they were like, Okay, we need to

888
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 4: give them to the homeless people in LVA. So campfire

889
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:55,399
Speaker 4: victims were made homeless again so that we could get

890
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 4: these things we never got, and now we need them,

891
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:02,440
Speaker 4: you know. Now there's a need for thousands more than

892
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 4: we got, and what are we gonna do. We can't

893
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 4: come up with a parking lot, a public parking lot,

894
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 4: whereas LAPD has tons of LATD garages. If you want

895
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 4: to toe an RV somewhere, LATD will find a place

896
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 4: to toe it. But they can never find a place

897
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 4: where you can just park it.

898
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:22,440
Speaker 3: You know, I say, sometimes you just shake your hand

899
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 3: and just say, well, what else is crazier in this planet?

900
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:28,760
Speaker 3: But you know then there's always something else.

901
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 4: Always something else. It always yet just when you think

902
00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 4: it could get any weirder. Uh, Yeah, I did dis

903
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 4: places spaces last night. I had my friend here and

904
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 4: we we found out about something just really sad that

905
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 4: happened in Atlanta. Did you hear about the sweet the.

906
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 3: Deadly sweep about the unhoused guy got run over?

907
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, and they're having we're like snowbreat there

908
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:57,319
Speaker 4: right now.

909
00:53:57,719 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, But also too, there was also here there was

910
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:02,400
Speaker 3: a couple of unhoused people that passed away through the

911
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:04,879
Speaker 3: through the fires as a result of the fires too

912
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:07,760
Speaker 3: that I was brought up to attention too, So from.

913
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 4: The fires, I didn't know that. That's awful. Yeah, well, yeah,

914
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:17,359
Speaker 4: there's been a kind of an ongoing issue in our

915
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 4: city with r D fires and things like that, where

916
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 4: the coroners had a lot of unidentified paces for a

917
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 4: few years, and I always feel really sad about those

918
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,880
Speaker 4: because it's hard. I've actually been able to identify a

919
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 4: few people this year through just talking to people and

920
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 4: getting information together, trying to get everybody their name back,

921
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 4: but it's really chad. There's I believe there's a lot

922
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 4: of people still missing too.

923
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 3: Right, yes, yes, yes, And it's very difficult to sometimes

924
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:55,160
Speaker 3: the track on house people particular because we're very nomadic,

925
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 3: so if we're on the move with the fire and things,

926
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:01,880
Speaker 3: chances are are some places they're not allowed to go

927
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:06,800
Speaker 3: back because they're still being recovered or is destroyed entirely.

928
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, And two of my friends that live

929
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 4: in houses, two of my closest friends, Zach who's been

930
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 4: on the show, and my other friends are displaced. Their

931
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,919
Speaker 4: homes did not burn down, but there their neighbors did,

932
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 4: like on either sides of him, like within two houses

933
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 4: I think or four houses. Yeah, so Jack last I

934
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 4: spoke to him. He was still displaced down the county.

935
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 4: I'm like, you want to come stay with me?

936
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:36,800
Speaker 3: You know? Yeah. I was going to ask how is

937
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:40,560
Speaker 3: Zach was doing as well. He's another independent journalist.

938
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 4: He was just he was doubly displaced. He's displaced from

939
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:45,400
Speaker 4: Alpadina and Pasadena.

940
00:55:45,719 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that.

941
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he escaped the county. I don't know when

942
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 4: they'll be back. I think they're finally opening back up

943
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,840
Speaker 4: to residence from what I heard and emails and stuff.

944
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 3: Now, and I'm so sorry to hear that. Well, I

945
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:05,160
Speaker 3: think this is where we can cut it. And I

946
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 3: wanted to thank you again for taking the time to

947
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 3: show up and not show but also to tell us

948
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:12,680
Speaker 3: what's been going on with you as well as your

949
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:16,880
Speaker 3: partner and what you're working on. So is there anything

950
00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:18,439
Speaker 3: else that I missed that you want to say?

951
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for asking.

952
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:23,440
Speaker 9: I want to shed light on what's going on at

953
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:28,839
Speaker 9: the VA because the veterans were displaced doubly and they

954
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,800
Speaker 9: were living in tiny sheds right and they.

955
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:32,960
Speaker 4: Were told in the middle of the night that they

956
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 4: had to get up and leave, even though their area

957
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:40,280
Speaker 4: wasn't mandatory evacuated and I don't think they've been allowed

958
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:44,440
Speaker 4: back yet last night checked. So definitely concerned about our

959
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 4: veterans at the VA in West LA. And yeah, that's

960
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 4: something that's interesting. But thank you so much for caring

961
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 4: about Jay. He asked court tomorrow at eleven am, Department

962
00:56:56,719 --> 00:57:01,319
Speaker 4: two O three in Hollywood. That's Tuesday, the first. So

963
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 4: all right, the only thing I can think to do

964
00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 4: is invite people to go and show the judge that

965
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:09,640
Speaker 4: people in LA care about him and don't want him

966
00:57:10,239 --> 00:57:12,280
Speaker 4: tipped around the state for the next two years.

967
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 3: We want to keep him here in his community absolutely,

968
00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 3: And again, thank you for your contributions and staying is

969
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 3: the person that you are.

970
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:20,480
Speaker 4: OK.

971
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 3: Thank you again to Ruth. You can support their work

972
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 3: by following Instagram at Ruth Lesser and more at the

973
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 3: links in the description. Thank you all for listening and

974
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 3: to the experiences that are not usually uplifted or only uplifted. Briefly,

975
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:44,720
Speaker 3: Weedian hows would be making an effort to cover more

976
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 3: stories such as the aftermath and fallout of the fire

977
00:57:47,680 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 3: in an Alta Dina. If you know or feel of

978
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 3: a person's story who's been affected by the fire. Please

979
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 3: reach out to Wdianhows at gmail dot com, a Widian

980
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:03,280
Speaker 3: house on Instagram. Thanks again for listening, and may we

981
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:10,400
Speaker 3: again meet in the light of understanding. Wheedian Howes is

982
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 3: a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted, and created

983
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 3: by me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie Loftus, Kaye Fager,

984
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:26,240
Speaker 3: Katie Fischal, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Wand

985
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:30,240
Speaker 3: and our loco art is also by Katie Ficial. Thanks

986
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:30,720
Speaker 3: for listening.