Speaker 1: Coolz Media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, welcome, VIC can have it here.
Speaker 3: It's me James today with a terrible cold as you
Speaker 3: can probably tell, but still very important to listen today
Speaker 3: because I'm talking to andre Na, an organizer from Ktown
Speaker 3: for All Up in LA, and we're going to talk
Speaker 3: about the fires in LA and the.
Speaker 2: Meat laid response and what you can do to help.
Speaker 2: So welcome to the show Andrena, thank you for having me. James. Yeah,
Speaker 2: thanks for being here. I know you guys are really
Speaker 2: busy right now.
Speaker 3: So to begin with, like in case this has missed people,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot there's a lot of news happening
Speaker 3: right now, can you explain what's been going on in
Speaker 3: LA with respected the fires for the last two or
Speaker 3: three days.
Speaker 1: So about three or four days ago, we got a
Speaker 1: warning that we were going to be experiencing high winds
Speaker 1: up to fifty miles per hour, which is nuts, and
Speaker 1: they were going to be coming from the desert. So
Speaker 1: this is just like a barrage of hot wind. So
Speaker 1: we were preparing to have to replace tents and tarps
Speaker 1: because you know, man made structures that people are surviving
Speaker 1: with cancer that kind of wind. But when we hear
Speaker 1: that wind here in southern California, we immediately think fire, sadly,
Speaker 1: because any little you know, a cigarette, but an electrical spark,
Speaker 1: you know, like when it's this dry, it's enough to
Speaker 1: cause devastation, which is exactly what's happened. There are about
Speaker 1: seven fires right now spread around the perimeter of Los
Speaker 1: Angeles County that have been started and then spread massively
Speaker 1: by these giant winds everywhere. So the embers are being
Speaker 1: picked up. Thankfully the wind has settled down, but the
Speaker 1: wind itself has prevented, you know, the big water tinkers
Speaker 1: from flying, which is led to the massive devastation that
Speaker 1: you saw in the Palisades and other areas. You know,
Speaker 1: the entire water we being grounded for a while. It
Speaker 1: just meant that it was burning with no control, relying
Speaker 1: on on the ground firefighters. So what we've seen is
Speaker 1: just mass devastation, thousands of homes lost. I think there
Speaker 1: is a death tally, thankfully very low in about tannish.
Speaker 1: I think I've heard from this morning with confirmation, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all we're facing right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty devastating, like whole neighborhoods have gone, right,
Speaker 3: I think I thought like two thousand structures have already
Speaker 3: been burned. And like, as you said, if people aren't
Speaker 3: in the United States or aren't familiar with how fire
Speaker 3: is fort like out here in the Western United States,
Speaker 3: it's a lot of air dropping fire retired in and
Speaker 3: air dropping water, which without that, it's very hard to
Speaker 3: get enough water to where it needs to be. And
Speaker 3: I believe at one point that actually ran out of
Speaker 3: water in water towers right up in Palisades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fire hydrants ran dry in some areas, which
Speaker 1: is terrifying to think of. And we were warned, I'm
Speaker 1: in the Korea Ton neighborhood. We were warned about low
Speaker 1: water pressure. And I do know that some areas in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, particularly in that region, are being worn to
Speaker 1: boil water and that their water is unsafe to drink
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen that too. There was a water boil
Speaker 3: warning for yeah, lots of places. So as a result
Speaker 3: of these fires and all the destruction they've caused, I
Speaker 3: think I saw it, was it one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: thousand odd people have been displaced now, is that?
Speaker 2: Is that right? Is that a good number?
Speaker 1: I saw something large like that of just the people
Speaker 1: that have been evacuated. Right north of me was the
Speaker 1: Sunset fire, and that was very concerningly close to their
Speaker 1: career ten neighborhood that is generally never concerned about fires
Speaker 1: because we're so in the concrete jungle, like we're so insulated.
Speaker 1: I think that's the closest we've come to devastation. And
Speaker 1: we were really stressed out last night just keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on the news because that's, you know, not even
Speaker 1: two miles away from the core of the densest neighborhood
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess again if people aren't familiar, like, fires
Speaker 3: destroy property and kill people every year here, and the
Speaker 3: climate change has meant that they have become worse and worse.
Speaker 3: But in the middle of a city, you're genermanly not
Speaker 3: worried about fires because the resources will be spent to
Speaker 3: defend that property. Right, Like, this is to the very
Speaker 3: unique situation to see huge parts of a city burning down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, particularly the Palisades, which is historically a significantly wealthy neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you know, a den of celebrity and Hollywood elites. It
Speaker 1: seeing it devastated just kind of sends home the point
Speaker 1: that you know, you have wealth that insulates you from
Speaker 1: the worst of what we're facing, but that only goes
Speaker 1: so far. I saw that there was a couple of
Speaker 1: wealthy people on Twitter begging for private fired fighting forces
Speaker 1: to come save their homes. Famously, the same ones that
Speaker 1: are talking about tax evasion and how smart they are
Speaker 1: to do real estate, you know, maneuvering to not pay
Speaker 1: into the social system that helps in these times. Clearly
Speaker 1: we're severely underfunded and severely undermanaged when it comes to
Speaker 1: the government stepping in during these emergencies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like, that's something I want to address because
Speaker 3: I think in every natural disaster that I've covered, the
Speaker 3: reason it becomes a disaster, I guess is because the
Speaker 3: state's incapable of responding in a way that protects people.
Speaker 3: And in almost every case it's people who have to
Speaker 3: step up and look after one another. So we should
Speaker 3: talk about the response of the LA city and county governments,
Speaker 3: and then I'd love to talk about the mutial aid
Speaker 3: response after that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from what we've seen here in Kaytown, if you
Speaker 1: weren't immediately evacuated, there's nothing. All of our outreach folks
Speaker 1: that were out talking to all of our unhouse neighbors
Speaker 1: here in the area, which are in the hundreds, first
Speaker 1: of all, didn't know what was going on. They saw
Speaker 1: the sky, they assumed there was a fire nearby, but
Speaker 1: they didn't know the swath of the devastation and that
Speaker 1: we were generally threatened as well. They didn't have any supplies,
Speaker 1: and in some areas of Los Angeles we've heard as
Speaker 1: of this morning and yesterday that sweeps have continued. So
Speaker 1: the city has continued throwing away tents from the people
Speaker 1: living on the streets, and then for the house people
Speaker 1: that have been displaced. There are shelter designations that they've
Speaker 1: set up. Pen Pacific Park is one of them for Hollywood,
Speaker 1: there's one in Pasadena, you know, and the like. But
Speaker 1: it seems to be, you know, a hodgepodge of you know,
Speaker 1: disorganization and a lot of you know, mutual aid folks
Speaker 1: on the ground being the ones to direct people and
Speaker 1: gather the supplies. I have not heard of, you know,
Speaker 1: a very formalized system. There is no word on any
Speaker 1: kind of significant assistance for people who have lost their
Speaker 1: homes at the moment, I don't know if the Red
Speaker 1: Cross is gonna set a staging zone up or anything.
Speaker 1: But I do know that the people who are setting
Speaker 1: up you know, places for people to go, food, water,
Speaker 1: even pet care things like that have been just random volunteers.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm in this chat group Mutual ADLA that
Speaker 1: spurred you know, literally just on signal the day that
Speaker 1: the fire started, that has a thousand people on it
Speaker 1: mobilizing and distributing and volunteering to move people from one
Speaker 1: area of the city to the other. You know, I
Speaker 1: have this person who needs a place to stay, Like,
Speaker 1: who's got a list of places that are open, because
Speaker 1: when you have disasters this big, you need help quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and bureaucracy just doesn't you know that that's not built
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 3: And like we've definitely seen that there was just a
Speaker 3: failure of the state to respond like in the way
Speaker 3: that it needed to as quickly as it needed to.
Speaker 3: And it's really it's wonderful to see people picking up slack,
Speaker 3: Like of course it is. It's really beautiful that people
Speaker 3: show up for each other in these times. There's something
Speaker 3: about that that I obviously, like find really affirming.
Speaker 2: That's maybe why I do this for a living.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's really beautiful to see It doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that we should forget that. Like the state has capacity
Speaker 3: that it is using, as you said, to displace people
Speaker 3: who are unhoused. It could be using that capacity to
Speaker 3: bring masks to people, to bring food to people, to
Speaker 3: create shelter for people. It's not it's choosing to harasp
Speaker 3: people who live on the street.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is.
Speaker 1: Something we see repeatedly. You know, it hasn't rained in
Speaker 1: LA for about eight months, but when it did rain,
Speaker 1: we had historical rains last year, in particular, we had
Speaker 1: a cold front where folks die every time, and we
Speaker 1: know folks are going to die every time it rains
Speaker 1: here in LA. We have more people that die of
Speaker 1: hypothermia and Los Angeles than New York and San Francisco
Speaker 1: combined every year. Because hypothermia actually doesn't require it to
Speaker 1: be freezing this set end. It just requires you to
Speaker 1: be in around sixty degrees and be wet, which is
Speaker 1: very common on the streets here of LA. We've seen
Speaker 1: people get frostbite from having their skin against cold concrete,
Speaker 1: you know, over the night while it's raining, and our
Speaker 1: electeds know this. When I first started doing this work,
Speaker 1: there was a slogan that we were chanting for a
Speaker 1: day in LA and that was the number of unhelped
Speaker 1: people that died every day, and now we're at about
Speaker 1: six or seven. We request, you know, through the Freedom
Speaker 1: of Information Act, requests the coroner's report every year of
Speaker 1: how many people died, and that number is only growing.
Speaker 1: And the government knows this. They know every time we
Speaker 1: have a heat wave that there are seventy thousand people
Speaker 1: sleeping on the streets, sleeping in their cars. They know that.
Speaker 1: During the winter, you know, people are out there in
Speaker 1: the cold and the rain. And I talk to people
Speaker 1: who aren't into the organizing space and they ask me like, well,
Speaker 1: aren't there you know, insert service here that you think
Speaker 1: there should be, you know right now during the fires,
Speaker 1: Like aren't there vans picking people up and taking them
Speaker 1: to shelter? And it's like that would be wonderful. When
Speaker 1: there's not. There's never any vans picking people up, you know,
Speaker 1: even when they open up cooling shelters and warming shelters.
Speaker 1: The number one barrier we heard from people in the
Speaker 1: streets is how would I get there? And when I
Speaker 1: get there, they make me not bring my stuff in,
Speaker 1: so it's all going to get stolen. There's just all
Speaker 1: of these barriers that the city is just completely you know,
Speaker 1: purposely neglecting. They could talk to any of us on
Speaker 1: how to a successful you know, warming or cooling shelter,
Speaker 1: they don't, you know, they have no interest in what
Speaker 1: we have to say. In fact, our city council person
Speaker 1: here in Kytown doesn't respond to any of our inquiries
Speaker 1: at all. She just flat out doesn't respond to us
Speaker 1: whenever we email her with concerns or questions. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of how we've been, you know, working just with
Speaker 1: the knowledge that we don't have this support of this agency,
Speaker 1: and in fact they are opposition. You know, we're the
Speaker 1: ones having organize around them and what they're doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's sadly not that dissimilar here. Like every time
Speaker 3: it rains, people will die. Every time we have a
Speaker 3: heat wave. I remember they found the remains of an
Speaker 3: house person a couple of years ago, and they thought
Speaker 3: the person had been burned like by fire, and it
Speaker 3: turned out they had just been exposed to massive amounts
Speaker 3: of heat. And yeah, I remember a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: to give an anecdote, it was I think above one
Speaker 3: hundred degrees in town. It was so hot and I
Speaker 3: was in the riverbed, like I had this big insulated
Speaker 3: backpack to get people cold water, and just like dozens
Speaker 3: of people, we're in terrible distress. And yeah, there was
Speaker 3: no presence of police fire, anyone to help. Right Like
Speaker 3: we have these sometimes billion dollar police departments in these cities,
Speaker 3: and people are still unsafe and they don't feel safe
Speaker 3: reaching out to any government agencies because these government agencies
Speaker 3: are the same ones that you say that throw away
Speaker 3: that shit, that destroy all the little things that they've
Speaker 3: been trying to build up to get onto, you know,
Speaker 3: like a better situation in life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think there's this sense of like apathy
Speaker 1: that has built, and rightfully so from the people that
Speaker 1: live on the streets where we've you know, relayed messages
Speaker 1: that we've heard like hey, two one one says they
Speaker 1: have one hundred shelter buds tonight, call and see if
Speaker 1: you can get in, and they're like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'll give it a shot, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: very well received because we understand the amount of disappointment
Speaker 1: these people have gone through when they do the care
Speaker 1: plus sweeps, which which is in itself such an evil name,
Speaker 1: when they throw all their stuff away when they show up,
Speaker 1: and they do care. Plus they show up with a
Speaker 1: social worker first, which if I was a social worker,
Speaker 1: I'd be kicking and screaming about how damaging that is
Speaker 1: that right before they throw away everything that an non
Speaker 1: house person owns, they send in a loan social worker
Speaker 1: to write their names and maybe their numbers down and
Speaker 1: tell them that the shelters are full, but they'll get
Speaker 1: back to them, and then they have all of their
Speaker 1: belongings to them away. I can't imagine the harm that
Speaker 1: has done for just trusting services even when they're available,
Speaker 1: you know, accessing them and then giving them your information.
Speaker 1: Have one person who rightfully so told me they have
Speaker 1: trauma about filling out forms because they've done this three
Speaker 1: hundred times, you know, they said something incredible. They've been
Speaker 1: counting about how many times they've filled the same forms
Speaker 1: out to have it lead nowhere. And I can't imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of resilience. Now, with this devastation,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of homeowners who are
Speaker 1: going to experience that firsthand. I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are homeless for the first time ever in
Speaker 1: their lives, Like in their late fifties. And these are
Speaker 1: people that have owned homes, that have worked careers, that
Speaker 1: have you know, lived their whole life as you're supposed
Speaker 1: to in the United States, and then in their elder
Speaker 1: years before some sort of disaster or social Security doesn't
Speaker 1: pay anymore, and they are severely shocked when I tell
Speaker 1: them what the landscape of our social safety net looks like.
Speaker 1: I've had people ask me like, where do I go
Speaker 1: to sign up for free housing? And I have to
Speaker 1: tell them, you know, the wait list for vouchers is
Speaker 1: fifteen years long and it's a lottery. The list is
Speaker 1: closed because it's so full. You can apply to senior housing,
Speaker 1: but that's about a ten year wait. You know that.
Speaker 1: I have to be the one to tell them that,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of shock. I think is going to
Speaker 1: be hitting a lot of folks that have never tried
Speaker 1: to access services before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, let's take a little break here for some
Speaker 2: advertisements and then we'll come back. All right, we're back, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think anyone who's familiar with the situation facing
Speaker 3: unhouse people in southern California will understand that there is
Speaker 3: not a safety net, and that's about to become more
Speaker 3: profoundly obvious than ever for thousands of people. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about the way that people are helping to take care
Speaker 3: of one another, because I think that's that's what always
Speaker 3: happened to these situations. So let's talk about the mutual
Speaker 3: aid effort. Maybe you could talk about some of the groups,
Speaker 3: talk about some of the things you've been doing, and
Speaker 3: then I want to get on to how people can
Speaker 3: help if they're in town, and how people can help
Speaker 3: if they are a long way away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in LA, we have a very robust network of
Speaker 1: mutual aid groups that have been built by force, honestly,
Speaker 1: via this government. I think a lot a lot of
Speaker 1: them have started up to step in. Just there's no
Speaker 1: denying all over LA that there's this crisis. Because you
Speaker 1: walk outside of your house and there are people sleeping
Speaker 1: on your street. You know, there's people digging through your garbage.
Speaker 1: So we've seen this blossoming of mutual aid groups all
Speaker 1: over the city, and we in times of crisis, you know,
Speaker 1: will spark up a signal group that grows from zero
Speaker 1: to thousands of people overnight that are willing to jump
Speaker 1: in and get their hands dirty, to coalesce and find resources.
Speaker 1: You know, here's where we're buying masks. This star is out,
Speaker 1: don't go to this one. Go to that one who's
Speaker 1: reimbursing people for gas, et cetera, et cetera. And it's
Speaker 1: normal people. You know, I have a full time job.
Speaker 1: My friends here in k Town for All. Some are teachers,
Speaker 1: some are in the movie industry, you know, some are
Speaker 1: random lawyers you know that will take their time out
Speaker 1: to do this work. And I think that it's beautiful
Speaker 1: in the sense that we get people the help they need,
Speaker 1: and it's never enough, which is crushing. Here in Ktown.
Speaker 1: We give supplies to about four hundred or so on
Speaker 1: house people a week minimum, and that is hygiene supplies,
Speaker 1: tense blankets. We connect them to any services that they
Speaker 1: might ask us to connect them to, driving them to
Speaker 1: the hospital, et cetera. And this has been going on
Speaker 1: for the last five years. And Ktown for All specifically
Speaker 1: started as a counter protest because there was an attempt
Speaker 1: to build a shelter here in Koreatown and some homeowners
Speaker 1: organized against it. They marched down Wilshire and shut it down,
Speaker 1: and our founders found each other because they were the
Speaker 1: only five people holding up. We want shelter signs and
Speaker 1: just started doing distribution themselves. And I think that's one
Speaker 1: thing that I would really suggest to folks is it's
Speaker 1: not as intimidating as it seems to start one of
Speaker 1: these projects. It's literally you and a couple of friends
Speaker 1: who decide that you're going to do something, and you
Speaker 1: acknowledge that you can't do everything and that you'll never
Speaker 1: be able to meet the need because what we need
Speaker 1: is a government who cares about people. But in the meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we're going to do the best we can, and the
Speaker 1: lives of the you know, now four hundred or so
Speaker 1: people that we see every week are a little better
Speaker 1: because we decide to do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's really important to say that. Like
Speaker 3: it can seem really overwhelming. This is an email I
Speaker 3: get almost every week, like how do I start a
Speaker 3: mutual aid group? But like, if you can make a sandwich,
Speaker 3: then you can you can start a mutual aid group.
Speaker 3: Like just go and feed people who are hungry, if
Speaker 3: someone's cold, give them a blanket. Like it doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be like you don't have to read seventeen books,
Speaker 3: you know, and be like starting a five h one,
Speaker 3: C three and stuff.
Speaker 2: You just need to do things.
Speaker 3: And I think, especially like we're going into a new administration,
Speaker 3: we're going to see the state being more hot style
Speaker 3: to people who already marginalized, And like, the best advice
Speaker 3: I have for people is to get off the internet
Speaker 3: and to get into the streets and just do something.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you say you won't be able
Speaker 3: to do everything, not right away, maybe one day we will,
Speaker 3: but like, doing something is a lot better than doing nothing,
Speaker 3: and I guarantee it there is also much better for
Speaker 3: you and you're met. Like I feel so much better
Speaker 3: when I'm able to help people. I wouldn't be able
Speaker 3: to do the job I do at the border if
Speaker 3: I wasn't also able to help people. It helps me
Speaker 3: feel like I'm not part of the problem, I guess,
Speaker 3: or like we're doing something about it at least. What
Speaker 3: are people doing right now to help people who are
Speaker 3: impacted by the fires? Like what are the needs that
Speaker 3: are arising and how are people meeting them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Ktown for all focuses here in the k
Speaker 1: Town neighborhood, and what we've particularly focused on is mass distribution.
Speaker 1: People are sitting and it's literally raining ash in some
Speaker 1: areas and are sitting in the sut so there's that.
Speaker 1: There's basic tent and tarp gathering meals. So many emergencies
Speaker 1: services shut down during disasters that you know makes sense,
Speaker 1: but a lot of food kitchens that people would get
Speaker 1: meals from are not open right now. So it's getting
Speaker 1: people food, getting people water just enough to survive. In
Speaker 1: other areas, folks are gathering supplies. There's all Power Books
Speaker 1: that is a big distribution site right now. Po Mutuoid
Speaker 1: out in the Palms area is doing a lot of
Speaker 1: really great work. The South Bay got swept last night,
Speaker 1: so South Bay Mutuo Aid Club is replacing tens this morning.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of the Pet Mutuo Aid groups who
Speaker 1: are gathering pet food and finding foster homes for a
Speaker 1: lot of the found dogs and cats. It's just I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't even list the amount of people right now
Speaker 1: that are like in their vehicles doing drop offs to
Speaker 1: you know, the Sidewalk project. There's a big skid Row
Speaker 1: distribution point that is building up, crowdsourcing insulin, things that
Speaker 1: like you don't think about that people ran out of
Speaker 1: their house that they need to live, they don't have
Speaker 1: time to go get a prescription right, you know at
Speaker 1: a primary care provider like that we need albuterol that
Speaker 1: people are having asthma attacks. So there's these kind of
Speaker 1: burdens that mutual aid projects get around because people a
Speaker 1: don't have to fill out any forms, they don't have
Speaker 1: to wait. If we have it, you're going to be
Speaker 1: handed it. And you know, even medical providers as part
Speaker 1: of our projects, have become a really big support as
Speaker 1: people on the streets are often very disabled. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of folks at diabetes, like diabetic open wounds,
Speaker 1: like just very horrible injuries that need constant care. All
Speaker 1: Power Bookstore has a free clinic, All Power Clinic and
Speaker 1: they offer free medical care and come with us on
Speaker 1: our roots here in Ktown to offer free treatment for folks.
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that is going to only grow,
Speaker 1: as you said, as this administration occurs. Homelessness rose eighteen
Speaker 1: percent in the last year, and that's only been the
Speaker 1: case every year since we started counting there. There is
Speaker 1: no way this administration is going to institute rent control
Speaker 1: or anything that keeps people from being displaced. One mutual
Speaker 1: aid project that I think people overlook often is the
Speaker 1: tenants unions, the LA Tenants Union mobilizing to care for
Speaker 1: their members, checking in on their disabled members. These kind
Speaker 1: of community based organizations where people know people, they know
Speaker 1: who to check up on, they know who's vulnerable. Those
Speaker 1: kind of organizations are invaluable in emergencies like these.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, And like I one good thing that can
Speaker 3: come out of this is that we can build stronger communities,
Speaker 3: right and we can hopefully folks who are finding themselves
Speaker 3: dependent on mutual aid for the first time can realize that,
Speaker 3: like they can participate in that. And I know there
Speaker 3: are folks already where who have lost their homes who
Speaker 3: are still out there helping other people, driving around, rescuing
Speaker 3: people and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think we say this all the time
Speaker 1: in the homelessness space. You know, you're closer to being
Speaker 1: homeless than you are to be a billionaire. And I
Speaker 1: think this is one of the most direct examples. Like
Speaker 1: these people might have been well off maybe a month
Speaker 1: or two ago, and then now they have zero. You know,
Speaker 1: they're going to be fighting with insurance companies for maybe
Speaker 1: five years, you know, if some of them, and hopefully
Speaker 1: you know, they end up recovering. But I hope they
Speaker 1: don't forget that climate change and emergency disasters are a
Speaker 1: great equalizer. And the people that show their faces, they're
Speaker 1: not the politicians, they're not the lobbyists, they're not you know,
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, you know, TM. It's your neighbor who
Speaker 1: has a mask for you. It's me, someone random from
Speaker 1: down the block who got a couple friends together, who
Speaker 1: has water for you. You know, like, that's who comes through,
Speaker 1: and that's who you need to care for all the time,
Speaker 1: including your unhouse neighbors that are around you all the time,
Speaker 1: who live in your community and who face this emergency
Speaker 1: every day. You know, they don't know where they're going
Speaker 1: to sleep every night, they don't know where the next
Speaker 1: meal is coming from. Every day. They get their stuff
Speaker 1: destroyed by the state, you know, regularly, if not once
Speaker 1: a week, very frequently. And I hope this is really sad,
Speaker 1: but I hope it forces some empathy in people who
Speaker 1: otherwise don't think about themselves in this context of being
Speaker 1: a human that needs food, water, and shelter, you know,
Speaker 1: the basics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talking of food, water and shelter, those are the
Speaker 3: things I need as well, and so to pay for them,
Speaker 3: I have to pivot to ads.
Speaker 2: Now, Okay, we're back. I think that was a really
Speaker 2: good plug for the Quai Muti ladies.
Speaker 3: Important and hopefully there are people who are listening right
Speaker 3: or people who are finding themselves for the first time
Speaker 3: interested in helping seeing a crisis. A lot of people
Speaker 3: like will ask me if they can come help at
Speaker 3: the border, and of course you can, but you should
Speaker 3: also help in your own community because there are people
Speaker 3: who need you there, and obviously that's very true in
Speaker 3: LA right now. So I want to give some resources
Speaker 3: some ways people can help. If people are listening in LA,
Speaker 3: what are some like I know there are all kinds
Speaker 3: of efforts, but what are some concrete things they can
Speaker 3: do or some places they can go If they're in
Speaker 3: a situation where they're not massively impacted by the fires
Speaker 3: and they want to help other people, what are some
Speaker 3: things they can do?
Speaker 2: You're free to.
Speaker 1: Follow kitown for All on Instagram. We are constantly uploading
Speaker 1: on our stories year round, fundraisers, resource requests, go fundmes,
Speaker 1: et cetera. We really try to stay connected with the
Speaker 1: La Mutual Aid Network, and honestly, once you follow one
Speaker 1: of us, you kind of follow all of us because
Speaker 1: we're very supportive of each other's effort. Mutual Aid LA
Speaker 1: is a good hub. They have a magazine that gets
Speaker 1: published every month that has a list of mutual aid
Speaker 1: programs all over LA. If you can't come out on
Speaker 1: physical outreach with us, which we do on Saturdays every
Speaker 1: Saturday except the first Saturday of the month when we
Speaker 1: do our planning meeting, you're free to help us, you know,
Speaker 1: connect with others. You're free to help us financially. But
Speaker 1: we also you know, funny you mentioned this, James, But
Speaker 1: if you DM us and you're like, hey, I want
Speaker 1: to talk to someone about starting a project in my region,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to hop on a zoom with you.
Speaker 1: Tell you how we do our distribution, tell you how
Speaker 1: we make our maps of encampments, tell you how we
Speaker 1: you know, fund and routsource. Always happy to find that
Speaker 1: knowledge and people messages all the time. Can we start
Speaker 1: a Neighborhood for All chapter? Yeah, And we're like, we're
Speaker 1: so honored that you would do that. Please don't ask,
Speaker 1: but you're totally welcome to. And so we have Pasadena
Speaker 1: for All that is doing great work, and Pasadena for
Speaker 1: All is definitely always in need of support. They are
Speaker 1: in a huge disaster zone Altadena, Pasadena, Like all those
Speaker 1: areas are been evacuated, Palms mutuid But yeah, if you
Speaker 1: want to stay connected, you know, I'll follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram Ktown for all, same Twitter, same on Blue Sky,
Speaker 1: and will hopefully be your input into the La Mutual
Speaker 1: Aid scene. We're always so happy to support anyone else
Speaker 1: doing this work. And while we focus in the Ktown neighborhood,
Speaker 1: LA is a giant place. And if you have any
Speaker 1: neighborhoods in Los Angeles that you feel passionate about or
Speaker 1: need extra attention, you know, we'll always be the ones
Speaker 1: to uplift those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really cool. I think it's really important that
Speaker 2: we share.
Speaker 3: Like one of my friends, when we were doing border stuff,
Speaker 3: made a website where we documented all the stuff we
Speaker 3: did so that it was open source and available to people,
Speaker 3: like how we built shelters and how we cooked and yeah,
Speaker 3: we don't need to reinvent the wheel every time, Like
Speaker 3: we can all help each other get that start and
Speaker 3: not make the mistakes so we all made. So that's
Speaker 3: really cool that people can reach out to you. What
Speaker 3: about if they're a long way away and they just
Speaker 3: want to send some money they want to help and
Speaker 3: they've got money they want to share.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're always welcome to venmo us Ktown for all.
Speaker 1: Same on Venmo, we have a PayPal link, We have
Speaker 1: a website, kton for all dot org. We are five
Speaker 1: oho C three. If you'd like to donate in our
Speaker 1: you know, in some kind of corporate fancy way, feel
Speaker 1: free to dm us. We just got that figured out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, all of our money gets spent directly on
Speaker 1: material goods. We don't have any employees, we don't have
Speaker 1: any overhead. Our volunteers are up to their necks and
Speaker 1: baby wipes usually when we get you know, sock donations
Speaker 1: and things like that. And honestly, we prefer it that
Speaker 1: way just because you know, we know what nonprofit requirements
Speaker 1: are like and that kind of burden that that place
Speaker 1: is on mutuoid projects and we're trying to avoid them.
Speaker 1: So every time still goes to supplies. And I know
Speaker 1: every mutuoid project Jtown Action in Japantown as well, operates
Speaker 1: in a very similar model. I would just suggest people
Speaker 1: get plugged in to mutuoid La. They follow us on Instagram,
Speaker 1: feel free to send any money. Work constantly on our stories,
Speaker 1: uploading go fund and venmos and stuff. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: their help, you know, out of the country, and hope
Speaker 1: that one day orgs like ours are not needed anymore
Speaker 1: because we live in a great world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice.
Speaker 3: Is there anything else, like, do you have any bottlenecks
Speaker 3: or particular shortages that you want to shout out that
Speaker 3: the audience can maybe help you with.
Speaker 1: We're always looking for staples, So those are tents and
Speaker 1: tarps constantly. Those are often the most expensive items people
Speaker 1: have to purchase. Tents go about thirty to forty dollars
Speaker 1: each one, and the government throws a lot of them
Speaker 1: away every week. So those items, feel free to always
Speaker 1: DM me if you have some that you would like
Speaker 1: to drop off. But I will say mutual aid orgs
Speaker 1: are really good at building connections directly with vendors, and
Speaker 1: we usually get like a discount and buying in bulk.
Speaker 1: So I would really love to shake people from their
Speaker 1: fear of donating cash. Yeah yeah, I know a lot
Speaker 1: of folks feel comfortable like buying an item because you
Speaker 1: know that that's the item that's given out. But sometimes
Speaker 1: we get a better deal buying a thousand of those
Speaker 1: tenths and your dollar goes farther, so you know, tense
Speaker 1: blankets and again, don't be afraid to do this by yourself,
Speaker 1: Like you can go to home Depot and buiotent and
Speaker 1: hand it to someone. You can go to home Depot
Speaker 1: and buy masks right now and hand them to someone.
Speaker 2: You don't have to.
Speaker 1: Wait for a group like this to be around and
Speaker 1: to help, particularly if you're a neighborhood needs you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a really good message. It's a good
Speaker 2: place to end.
Speaker 3: Just to remind everyone, it's at Ktown for All on
Speaker 3: Instagram and Ktown for All on Venmo.
Speaker 2: Right, yep, great, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It Could Happen Here is a
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