Speaker 1: Cool Media.
Speaker 2: Hello Jamie. Here two quick things before we get started. First,
Speaker 2: before you even start listening to this episode, please go
Speaker 2: check out the link at the very beginning of this
Speaker 2: episode of the description to contribute to gofundmes to middle
Speaker 2: and working class families who have lost their homes in
Speaker 2: the recent LA fires. Any amount you're able to give
Speaker 2: is wonderful. I've been giving consistently, and at this time
Speaker 2: I'm hearing that direct.
Speaker 3: Financial aid is what is needed. So go check those out.
Speaker 2: And once you've done that, self plug reminding you that
Speaker 2: I have tickets on sale for our live show with
Speaker 2: the Bechdel Cast in San Francisco on next Thursday, January
Speaker 2: twenty third. We still have a couple of tickets in
Speaker 2: the description. Our Portland show.
Speaker 3: Is sold out.
Speaker 2: Sorry, And with that a very special sixteenth Minute.
Speaker 3: Six six.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we usually
Speaker 2: do other things, but every four episodes or so, something
Speaker 2: of historical consequence happens and so then we talk about
Speaker 2: that instead. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and usually on
Speaker 2: this show we take a look at and often speak
Speaker 2: with the internet's characters of the day and see how
Speaker 2: their moment affected them and what it says about us
Speaker 2: and the Internet. And this week, originally we were going
Speaker 2: to be talking about Haley Welch, the Hawk to a Girl,
Speaker 2: and we will not today, But I have sixteen thousand
Speaker 2: words and a separate Google doc that guarantees that we
Speaker 2: will be talking about her for more than one week,
Speaker 2: I promise. But this week in particular, I wasn't sure
Speaker 2: if I was going to be able to get an
Speaker 2: episode out in time. I've been sicker than I've been
Speaker 2: in years, but there's something important that I would like
Speaker 2: to talk to you about this week, and that is
Speaker 2: the fires in southern California, where I've lived for the
Speaker 2: last nine years or so. I want to tell you
Speaker 2: a little bit about what's going on, and hopefully use
Speaker 2: this space to spotlight the people and the efforts that
Speaker 2: I feel that some of the present coverage of this
Speaker 2: tragedy is leaving behind. But just to be clear of
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to do here, I am so grateful
Speaker 2: to the on the ground reporters who are collecting these
Speaker 2: crucial accounts of families who have lost their home, their histories.
Speaker 2: But what I'm trying to do here is zoom ount
Speaker 2: a little bit and take a look at some of
Speaker 2: the underemphasized elements that will, I think help continue to
Speaker 2: liberate displaced communities. I'm talking about mutual aid organizers, local
Speaker 2: investigative reporters, advocates for the unhoused community, and advocates for
Speaker 2: crucial public gathering spaces like our public libraries. So if
Speaker 2: you're not totally familiar with the situation, or you are
Speaker 2: and you're not sure how best to get involved, I
Speaker 2: hope this is a place to start. But first Jamie's
Speaker 2: little monologue. Last week, the first week of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five wildfires tour across southern California, burning through thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands of acres and counting. As I write this, these
Speaker 2: fires are nowhere close to being completely contained and have
Speaker 2: at present claimed twenty four lives, with seventeen people still
Speaker 2: missing and not accounted for.
Speaker 3: And it's not just one fire.
Speaker 2: The largest was in the Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica
Speaker 2: areas south of where I live, while other fires burned
Speaker 2: north in Altadena and Pasadena and in the San Gabriel Valley.
Speaker 2: So there was a moment this past Wednesday where there
Speaker 2: were fires within ten miles in every direction that our
Speaker 2: city was just not able to combat fast enough to
Speaker 2: save people. What hasn't been discussed very much is that
Speaker 2: while many wealthy neighborhoods have burned, like the Pacific Palisades
Speaker 2: and Santa Monica, there are also middle class and working
Speaker 2: class neighborhoods that have burned, mainly Alta, Dina, and Pasadena.
Speaker 2: And we'll get into that later, but it is important.
Speaker 2: But first I want to share the names of the
Speaker 2: people who were lost in these fires. Palisade senior Annette Rosalie,
Speaker 2: who stayed behind with her four pets in her home.
Speaker 2: Anthony and Justin Mitchell, a father and son in Altadena,
Speaker 2: Anthony being in a wheelchair, and Justin who had cerebral palsy.
Speaker 2: Anthony's body was found at the foot of his son's bed.
Speaker 2: There's Arlene Kelly, and Altadena senior who didn't want to
Speaker 2: abandon her home of more than forty years. There's Victor Shaw,
Speaker 2: an Altadena resident who died fighting the flames in his
Speaker 2: home with a garden hose. There's Altadena resident Rodney Nickerson,
Speaker 2: who'd lived in the neighborhood for over fifty years. There's
Speaker 2: Rory Sykes, who also had cerebral palsy and whose mother
Speaker 2: was not able to evacuate him to safety. He was
Speaker 2: my age. There's Randy Meod, who died in his Malibu
Speaker 2: home fighting the fire. Delise Curry, a nine five year
Speaker 2: old Alta Dina resident. She was a known figure in
Speaker 2: Old Black Hollywood and an extra in Ladies Sings the Blues.
Speaker 2: There's longtime Alta Dina resident Evelyn McLendon, who died in
Speaker 2: her bedroom. There's Arthur Seminu, who died in the Tapanga
Speaker 2: home he'd built with his own hands. The majority of
Speaker 2: the people lost in these fires were seniors, they were disabled,
Speaker 2: or they were longtime black homeowners in the middle class
Speaker 2: neighborhood of Altadena, California. The people that we have lost
Speaker 2: were valuable and many were vulnerable, and many who have
Speaker 2: survived these fires are valuable and vulnerable. In short, I
Speaker 2: am tremendously lucky because as I record this, I'm in
Speaker 2: my apartment with air purifiers wailing, And even as a
Speaker 2: tremendously lucky person, last week was really scary because, as
Speaker 2: I said, I was really sick. As the air quality
Speaker 2: worsened in and in my area, a large fire started
Speaker 2: in an area we could see from our neighborhood. I
Speaker 2: felt that we had to leave if I was going
Speaker 2: to be any use to anyone in the long term.
Speaker 2: So we went to Long Beach, about thirty miles south
Speaker 2: until the smoke blew far enough south that it made
Speaker 2: more sense to try to buy the last air purifier
Speaker 2: on Earth and drive back home. And I'll add in
Speaker 2: case this is funny, because I was extremely sick and
Speaker 2: my boyfriend was not sick at all.
Speaker 3: We slept in separate twin.
Speaker 2: Beds in n ninety five masks in this hotel room,
Speaker 2: like if Lucy and Ricky has survived.
Speaker 3: An atomic bomb.
Speaker 2: But as I sit recording this Monday night, the city
Speaker 2: is in for two more days of wind advisories and
Speaker 2: quote unquote particularly dangerous conditions. According to the government, there's
Speaker 2: families losing everything on a scale like this.
Speaker 3: Do you know anything about your house?
Speaker 4: Known?
Speaker 5: Everything, my kids, school, our community, our neighbors, houses, everything's
Speaker 5: just pronowned, everything's gone.
Speaker 3: We were having dinner.
Speaker 5: I told my three year old my one year old
Speaker 5: that I told them that we're having a fancy candleg
Speaker 5: dinnerhistled power went out, and then we looked outside. We
Speaker 5: saw a huge fire and we just packed whatever we
Speaker 5: can and we ran out.
Speaker 6: It was chaos, but.
Speaker 3: They you know, to me, it's just it's sad to
Speaker 3: say everything that we work for, everything that.
Speaker 7: We built here to just be gone in hours.
Speaker 8: We want here for today, So we know what happened.
Speaker 8: And now's our chimney. We're Santa comes in. It's gone.
Speaker 8: Now we can't get presents here anymore.
Speaker 2: I know a dozen people whose homes and belongings and
Speaker 2: memories are just gone. And many of these people have
Speaker 2: young kids, and these kids have lost their schools, their libraries,
Speaker 2: their parks, everything that they remember. We weren't ready for this,
Speaker 2: and the most vulnerable communities that are so often treated
Speaker 2: as afterthoughts, are always the first to suffer. It's not
Speaker 2: fair that I get to sit here with my dumb,
Speaker 2: fucking stuff and they have to start over.
Speaker 3: It's not fair. But that's not how.
Speaker 2: I have seen this talked about online, and this is
Speaker 2: an internet culture show. So I will say that I
Speaker 2: noticed that many people were kind of clowning on houses,
Speaker 2: particularly in the Pacific Palisades, burning, and you know, my
Speaker 2: Boston instinct is to say to those people, kill yourself.
Speaker 2: But rationally. It's hard to get too angry at any
Speaker 2: one person when the way that these tragedies are represented
Speaker 2: on national news lead with the tremendous privileged each and
Speaker 2: every time. To make sure I wasn't losing my mind,
Speaker 2: I asked my family in Massachusetts, who were checking in
Speaker 2: with me, what they had seen on the news, And
Speaker 2: it was only these very privileged neighborhoods that they saw spotlighted.
Speaker 1: Zan this being the home of Hollywood, of course, it's
Speaker 1: everyday Californians. But they are not only every day Californians
Speaker 1: that are the victims. Along a fire scarred stretch of Malibu,
Speaker 1: we met up with Milo vent Emilia, a forty seven
Speaker 1: year old father to.
Speaker 9: Be for Miles Teller, who played a firefighter in Only
Speaker 9: the Brave. This is all the remains of his Palisades home,
Speaker 9: the top Gun. Maverick Star and his wife bought the
Speaker 9: Cape cod style villa in twenty twenty three for seven
Speaker 9: and a half million dollars. Behind me, what is left
Speaker 9: of Billy Crystal's house. This is the place where he
Speaker 9: raised his children and grandchildren, and now it's gone. But
Speaker 9: this is also about more than just celebrity. It is
Speaker 9: about everyday.
Speaker 2: People, and it is cruel to mock anyone who has
Speaker 2: lost their memories and all of their possessions. But with
Speaker 2: class disparity the way it is in the US, I
Speaker 2: get that leading with people who are very likely to
Speaker 2: be able to rebuild with their own money. It's a
Speaker 2: hard cell to empathize for people who are really struggling.
Speaker 3: But I can't emphasize enough.
Speaker 2: Most of my friends who lost their homes were regular people.
Speaker 2: They didn't live in the Palisades. They lived in the
Speaker 2: middle class town of Altadena up in the Valley, a
Speaker 2: place that has a lot of history and is known
Speaker 2: as one of the only places in the area where
Speaker 2: middle class families have even a shot at owning a home.
Speaker 2: Now to mention that Altadena is a very diverse area
Speaker 2: due to horrifically racist redlining practices in the mid century,
Speaker 2: making Altadena a rare oasis where black and brown families
Speaker 2: could buy their own property and build generational wealth, and
Speaker 2: so much of that is gone. But if you're seeing
Speaker 2: gleeful posts that the homes of the rich are burning,
Speaker 2: you're missing the forest for the trees in a huge way.
Speaker 2: And that's stupid, because the forest and the trees burned down.
Speaker 2: I would ask you to consider how widespread the effects
Speaker 2: of a climate catastrophe event like this will cause. Even
Speaker 2: in the Pacific Palisades, We're sure many of the wealthy
Speaker 2: will be able to afford to rebuild. I have not
Speaker 2: seen a lot of consideration of who cleans these people's
Speaker 2: homes and is now out of either a job, lodging,
Speaker 2: or both.
Speaker 3: Who are the.
Speaker 2: Nannies who care for their children that are now out
Speaker 2: of work. Who are the weight staff at their favorite restaurants.
Speaker 2: Who are the Amazon delivery drivers that recently allege they've
Speaker 2: been kept on twenty hour shifts in spite of the
Speaker 2: danger that these fires present. It's a situation where, even
Speaker 2: if you're lucky enough to still have your home, if
Speaker 2: your job burned to the ground, what are you supposed
Speaker 2: to do? I'd ask you to consider who is fighting
Speaker 2: these fires. One piece of information I have seen breakthrough
Speaker 2: to the mainstream this week is that over thirty percent
Speaker 2: of the firefighters combating this nightmare are incarcerated, people who
Speaker 2: make no more than ten dollars a day, risking their
Speaker 2: lives to keep the rest of us safe.
Speaker 3: And many of them are young. I hope.
Speaker 2: I don't need to tell you what a racket American
Speaker 2: incarceration is and how brutally it targets men of color.
Speaker 2: And this in a state where California quite literally voted
Speaker 2: to keep slave labor policies present in prisons just a
Speaker 2: couple months ago. And what's worse, because of how felony
Speaker 2: laws work in California, these same incarcerated firefighters will not
Speaker 2: be eligible to be hired as firefighters professionally upon their release.
Speaker 2: Twitch streamer Hassan Piker was able to interview some of
Speaker 2: these firefighters the other night.
Speaker 10: Here's a clip cal fires kind of just a cover
Speaker 10: up for it, you know, And we get out there
Speaker 10: and we do.
Speaker 6: The hard work. Yeah, but shout out to those people.
Speaker 6: Those people do work too, you know, but we get
Speaker 6: the rough and tough and of the state.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 12: If you heard of the word institutionalized, right, it's the
Speaker 12: word institutionalized. I've heard that work before, institutionalized. Like so
Speaker 12: now I've been I've only did it for like twelve
Speaker 12: years and thirteen years. But the point is, I'm about
Speaker 12: to get home.
Speaker 4: Home next month.
Speaker 12: So you go from the cell to this right here,
Speaker 12: it's like it's culture shocking. So now I guess like
Speaker 12: the fire camp, bringing back lights to the fire camp, right,
Speaker 12: it does help you because now you start like like
Speaker 12: get mingling with the public, with you guys, the civilians, right,
Speaker 12: which is I feel foreign with you guys because it
Speaker 12: feels like I'm part of the prison.
Speaker 9: That's who I was.
Speaker 12: So they allotted me to be, right, Yeah, so they
Speaker 12: wanted me to be so like now they want you
Speaker 12: to get out here and then go to a fire
Speaker 12: camp and then act like if you're a firefighter when
Speaker 12: we do get like minimum training, right, So how is
Speaker 12: it that you do that? How can I become a
Speaker 12: better civilian?
Speaker 13: A citizens?
Speaker 12: And you're coming from prison to this, Like maybe you
Speaker 12: guys know something about that.
Speaker 2: If you're interested in learning more, or you can also
Speaker 2: send money directly to commissary for these firefighters at the
Speaker 2: link in the description. But I can't emphasize enough we
Speaker 2: have teenage prisoners fighting fires at slave wages. Consider the
Speaker 2: air something that I can say for a fact people
Speaker 2: are really confused about because I'm really fucking confused about it.
Speaker 2: If I look at my phone right now, Apple says the.
Speaker 3: Air quality is good.
Speaker 2: But Apple doesn't take into consideration the kind of chemicals
Speaker 2: that are released into the air when over ten thousand buildings,
Speaker 2: some of which are very old, burn nearby.
Speaker 3: My phone is like, go outside, queen.
Speaker 2: But when I go outside, the confetti that we released
Speaker 2: on New Year's Eve is on our neighbor's porch covered
Speaker 2: in ash. Consider how unregulated our housing market is. There's
Speaker 2: a number of thankfully eagle eyed people tracking how reeltors
Speaker 2: and landlords have been increasing rent prices by a lot
Speaker 2: overnight in order to take advantage of these displays families.
Speaker 2: And if these aren't reported and there aren't rent and
Speaker 2: eviction moratoriums put in place, this will inevitably displace renters
Speaker 2: who are priced out of their longtime neighborhoods to be
Speaker 2: replaced by these families. And while we have heard so
Speaker 2: many devastating accounts of families who are newly unhoused or
Speaker 2: housing insecure, there has been little to no consideration or
Speaker 2: conversation about people who have lived on the streets of
Speaker 2: Los Angeles for years. Many unhoused people in the area
Speaker 2: now have access to n ninety five masks, but in
Speaker 2: a polluted environment that no one quite understands. Yet, unhoused
Speaker 2: people are as always on the front lines of the
Speaker 2: climate crisis, living in a city that is always hostile
Speaker 2: to them. A climate scientist at UCLA named Daniel Swam,
Speaker 2: who is a very respected local source, said that a
Speaker 2: tragedy like this was inevitable at this stage of climate crisis.
Speaker 2: He says, when you have bone dry, critically dry vegetation,
Speaker 2: fifty to ninety mile an hour winds with highly flammable
Speaker 2: structures densely intermixed with vegetation, there isn't a lot to
Speaker 2: stop the aggressive chemical reaction that is the combustion process
Speaker 2: of an intense wind driven fire, and so to some
Speaker 2: degree there's only so much the city and state can do.
Speaker 2: But this city is historically hostile to the unhoused. It's
Speaker 2: a place where the forty one to eighteen code states
Speaker 2: that the unhoused are prohibited from quote sitting, lying or sleeping,
Speaker 2: or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property in the
Speaker 2: public right.
Speaker 3: Of way unquote.
Speaker 2: Basically, it's illegal to be unhoused, and this has continued
Speaker 2: now at a national level. Last summer, the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: passed the Grant's past decision one that makes it quite
Speaker 2: literally an arrestable offense to be unhoused, and what tragedies
Speaker 2: like these fires demonstrate is a time I'm honored truth.
Speaker 2: You can do everything right, but if something unprecedented happens,
Speaker 2: if something happens to your home, if you get sick
Speaker 2: and your insurance won't cover something, it is very possible
Speaker 2: that you would find yourself unhoused and subject a nationally
Speaker 2: sanctioned brutality. It is all legal, every climate catastrophe, and
Speaker 2: they will continue lay bare the ways in which systems
Speaker 2: have failed us and encouraged us to turn against one another.
Speaker 2: Isn't this episode fun? Are we having fun?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: One last thing, even in the middle of this scary time,
Speaker 2: I do think that there is still a lot to
Speaker 2: be grateful for. Something I've been thinking about a lot
Speaker 2: is I read a book a few years ago, at
Speaker 2: the recommendation of one Robert Evans, called A Paradise Built
Speaker 2: in Hell by Rebecca Solnet, one that takes a look
Speaker 2: at some of the most devastating no disasters in the
Speaker 2: last century plus of North American history, and its central
Speaker 2: thesis is that when disaster strikes, it's inhuman nature, across class, racial,
Speaker 2: gender boundaries, to be there for your community. Even though
Speaker 2: plenty of media would have us believe that normal people
Speaker 2: go Lord of the flies and turn against each other,
Speaker 2: we don't, soul Net illustrates. She uses examples ranging from
Speaker 2: the San Francisco earthquake of nineteen oh six to Hurricane
Speaker 2: Katrina in New Orleans in two thousand and five in
Speaker 2: great detail to show that mutual aid and wanting to
Speaker 2: help our neighbors during a disaster appears to be a
Speaker 2: natural instinct. This inherent desire to help others is so
Speaker 2: much of what I've seen in the last four days.
Speaker 2: My point is not to go full Randy on you,
Speaker 2: but I love la, I love it. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to share a passage from a paradise built in house
Speaker 2: that frames disaster as a devastating and painful opportunity to
Speaker 2: view the world differently. Disasters provide an extraordinary window into
Speaker 2: social desire and possibility and what manifests their matters elsewhere.
Speaker 2: In ordinary times and in other extraordinary times, in the
Speaker 2: wake of an earthquake, a bombing, or a major storm,
Speaker 2: most people are altruistic, urgently engaged in caring for themselves
Speaker 2: and those around them, strangers and neighbors, as well as
Speaker 2: friends and loved ones. The image of the selfish, panicky,
Speaker 2: or regressively savage human being in times of disaster has
Speaker 2: little truth to it. Decades of meticulous sociological research on
Speaker 2: behavior and disasters have demonstrated this, but belief lacks behind,
Speaker 2: and often the worst behavior in the wake of a
Speaker 2: calamity is on the part of those who believe that
Speaker 2: others will behave savagely and that they themselves are taking
Speaker 2: defensive measures against barbarism. Disaster doesn't sort us out by preferences.
Speaker 2: It drags us into emergencies that require we act or
Speaker 2: act altruistically, bravely, and with initiative in order to survive
Speaker 2: or save the neighbors. No matter how we vote or
Speaker 2: what we do for a living, the positive emotions that
Speaker 2: arise in those unpromising circumstances demonstrate that social ties and
Speaker 2: meaningful work are deeply desired, readily improvised, and intensely rewarding.
Speaker 2: Horrible in itself, disaster is sometimes a back door into paradise,
Speaker 2: the paradise at least in which we are who we
Speaker 2: hope to be, do the work we desire, and are
Speaker 2: each our sisters and brothers keeper, and when we come
Speaker 2: back a few talks with the people who have been
Speaker 2: shedding light on their forgotten.
Speaker 3: People of these disasters. See you after these scary ads.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to sixteenth minute, No little jokes today. It's
Speaker 2: a serious one. One of the many things that I
Speaker 2: believe I can turn any innocuous conversation into is a
Speaker 2: belabored point about the desperate need for local journalism, and.
Speaker 3: This episode is no exception.
Speaker 2: It's the local reporters who know the city like the
Speaker 2: back of their hand, who know the massive diversity and
Speaker 2: richness of experience and problems that exist within it, that
Speaker 2: can really get to the heart of the issues that
Speaker 2: the average.
Speaker 3: Angelina is facing right now.
Speaker 2: And I cannot overstate how much I admire our first
Speaker 2: interviewee today.
Speaker 3: Alissa Walker.
Speaker 2: It was the podcast that she co hosts, LA podcast
Speaker 2: about local issues that really woke me up to the
Speaker 2: inner machinations of our city and had a big part
Speaker 2: in activating me as a part of my own community.
Speaker 2: She is an amazing reporter who has long written about
Speaker 2: public transportation. She's written for Curbed and most recently launched
Speaker 2: her own own newsletter, Torched. Here's Alyssa Walker.
Speaker 14: My name's Alyssa Walker.
Speaker 15: I'm a journalist who writes the newsletter Torch, which has
Speaker 15: a rather appropriate name, which is covering LA's mega event era,
Speaker 15: including the twenty twenty eight Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Speaker 7: There's so many things I want to talk to you about.
Speaker 2: I know you've been reporting on the LA area for
Speaker 2: such a long time now, and particularly I mean you
Speaker 2: might go to in terms of transportation in particular, and
Speaker 2: that you lived in the area. You're a parent, There's
Speaker 2: all of these intersecting issues in your life. When it
Speaker 2: became clear these fires were going to have a serious
Speaker 2: impact on our area. What was your first instinct as
Speaker 2: a parent, and what was your first instinct as a journalist.
Speaker 15: I put a story out last week, a few days
Speaker 15: after the fires began, and the first thing that was
Speaker 15: wild was after the first really bad night, LAUSD hadn't
Speaker 15: canceled schools.
Speaker 14: They have really big.
Speaker 15: Aversion to, you know, telling parents who you know, of
Speaker 15: course rely on the school to be able to go
Speaker 15: to work, that they're going to cancel school. So you
Speaker 15: have you see all this real hesitation about why an't
Speaker 15: we going to close them? How do we provide services
Speaker 15: like meals to kids, you know, who rely on them.
Speaker 15: And then of course, like we have staff members who
Speaker 15: are impacted, you know, evacuating or maybe you know, having
Speaker 15: to travel far distances on dangerous roads. So that first morning,
Speaker 15: actually school was not canceled. We went to school. And
Speaker 15: one of the reasons I took my kids in school
Speaker 15: was because the smell of smoke was so strong inside
Speaker 15: our house.
Speaker 14: And I know that their.
Speaker 15: School building got upgraded filtration systems during growing.
Speaker 2: Right, Right, that didn't even accorded to me, but like
Speaker 2: that makes total sense that.
Speaker 7: It might be safe for there.
Speaker 15: Right, they just messaged that, you know, they would try
Speaker 15: to keep the kids inside and we should bring them.
Speaker 15: And you know, for a lot of people, I think
Speaker 15: that sounded like a better deal than being in their well. Me,
Speaker 15: I have this like leaky, drafty house. So we took
Speaker 15: them a and then within a few hours, I think
Speaker 15: it was very clear how bad the situation was and
Speaker 15: we had to go scoop them up and they went back.
Speaker 15: Today today's Monday.
Speaker 14: I'm glad they're back.
Speaker 15: You know, a lot of schools, some schools burned to
Speaker 15: the ground, Some schools are really close to evacuation zones.
Speaker 15: Some have extenuating circumstances, and I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 15: parents don't feel good about sending kids back, especially when
Speaker 15: we have this second windstorm coming through. But for the meantime,
Speaker 15: you know, that was my biggest concern, was, you know,
Speaker 15: worrying about a lot of people have to travel through
Speaker 15: the region to get to places, and I think lausd
Speaker 15: offers a good signal that people should stay home and
Speaker 15: get prepared and take care of their families and check
Speaker 15: in on loved ones. So I was glad that the
Speaker 15: schools were closed because at least it sends that message
Speaker 15: that's very powerful.
Speaker 2: And I think that this ties into a larger point
Speaker 2: you made in your most recent piece, where there was
Speaker 2: just very clunky communication on the city's part on the whole,
Speaker 2: because I've seen so much black and white debate of
Speaker 2: like is this a failure of city officials or is
Speaker 2: it just the inevitable consequence of climate change? And I
Speaker 2: feel sure the answer is somewhere in the gray area.
Speaker 2: As such a close observer of city politics, what could
Speaker 2: have been done better here?
Speaker 15: So this is where I'll turn to the scientists first
Speaker 15: instead of that, instead of the politicians. I've been watching
Speaker 15: the live streams of Daniel swayin cla climate scientists and
Speaker 15: like a climate messenger, kind of like studies about how
Speaker 15: we do communication related to these types of disasters. Always
Speaker 15: a fascinating person to talk to someone I always call when.
Speaker 14: I have a question. And that's basically what he said.
Speaker 15: The second part, you know of your thought that this
Speaker 15: is an unprecedented situation because of the situations we have created,
Speaker 15: because we worship fossil fuels in the city and this
Speaker 15: society and this country and this planet, and there's really
Speaker 15: at a certain point nothing you can do when you're
Speaker 15: faced with these types of conditions. They kept calling it
Speaker 15: the perfect storm. That being said, there are a lot
Speaker 15: of things that we could do. The Palisades fire started
Speaker 15: in a neighborhood that is in the city of la
Speaker 15: but it's like tucked up into the mountains of Malibu.
Speaker 15: We can talk about why it started later. I'm sure
Speaker 15: they're figuring that out. There's a lot of things to
Speaker 15: discuss there. But the fact that we are building in
Speaker 15: areas that need to burn, continue to burn have burned traditionally,
Speaker 15: creates a catastrophic and dangerous situation for everyone else that
Speaker 15: lives in the city. And until we want to confront
Speaker 15: that this.
Speaker 14: Is going to keep happening.
Speaker 2: What if the Olympics were happening right now? You ask
Speaker 2: yourself this every day, as you say.
Speaker 14: Like I said, it terrifies me.
Speaker 15: I literally walk around the city every single day and
Speaker 15: think that I think about it on one hundred and
Speaker 15: ten degree days when we have like pout major power.
Speaker 15: You know, I'm at a loss for words right now
Speaker 15: because it's like, this is kind of the worst thing
Speaker 15: I ever considered happening while it was happening. But in
Speaker 15: a way, the thing I'm worried the most about is
Speaker 15: more people being here. It doesn't sound very considerate of
Speaker 15: the residents, but like adding millions of tourists to the evacuations,
Speaker 15: people who don't understand how those alerts come through on
Speaker 15: their phones, Like do we are we gonna tell people
Speaker 15: when they land in lax to lax to like download
Speaker 15: all the different warning systems and the earthquake early warning system.
Speaker 2: Right, and like introducing more language barriers and just oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, such a good point.
Speaker 15: And people staying in hotels that don't have access to cars,
Speaker 15: and that's the instinct to getting your car and evaccuat.
Speaker 14: Even though it might not be the best idea.
Speaker 15: You might need to get out a different way. So actually,
Speaker 15: what you know, what terrifies me the most is having
Speaker 15: people who aren't familiar with the city here. That was
Speaker 15: always in my mind. This is still look for the
Speaker 15: worst case scenario though. Yeah, I wrote a story for
Speaker 15: Curved after the Woldy fire with those it's the same
Speaker 15: images we see every time, just the cars backed up
Speaker 15: on the pch of people trying.
Speaker 7: To get out.
Speaker 15: And that was during the same time as the campfire,
Speaker 15: which is you remember in Paradise, which is the deadliest
Speaker 15: fire in Califerni history. Hopefully we do not get close
Speaker 15: to those numbers here. Many of those deaths were caused
Speaker 15: by people who were trying to evacuate in their car,
Speaker 15: who got stuck in traffic trying to get out as
Speaker 15: the flames were kind of coming too fast. Again a
Speaker 15: situation where you can't drive fast enough in some of
Speaker 15: these cases to outrun these fire, these new fires that
Speaker 15: we've created, and to talk to experts, especially after that fire,
Speaker 15: saying in the wolseyfire in LA just saying, like, you know,
Speaker 15: have a bike in your garage, like have another way
Speaker 15: to get out.
Speaker 14: Just come up with it.
Speaker 15: One one alternate that's not a car, because all sorts
Speaker 15: of things can prevent you from getting out in a car.
Speaker 15: And when there was evacuation, the evacuation of Hollywood the
Speaker 15: other night there was the sunset fire that was in
Speaker 15: Running Canyon.
Speaker 16: You know, the.
Speaker 15: Fastest way to get out, we'd have probably been walking
Speaker 15: down to the Hollywood Highland Metro Station. Trains were running,
Speaker 15: trains were free, and just put yourself to safety, like
Speaker 15: just yeah, yet far away as far away as you can.
Speaker 15: That was not something that our city leaders were promoting.
Speaker 7: Without the laboring the point.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think about how as you've written about
Speaker 2: quite a bit that the La Olympics in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: eight are predicated on, will be a Carliss city by then.
Speaker 15: What is the likelihood is that actually every venue is
Speaker 15: actually every venue? Yeah, I mean, it's it's a funny that,
Speaker 15: Like I said, that was the first thing I thought
Speaker 15: of when the fire started, when it was very small
Speaker 15: and you had Steve Gutenberg, you know, out there telling
Speaker 15: people not to leave their keys in their car when
Speaker 15: they were abandoning their vehicles because and then they come
Speaker 15: through with the they came through the bouldo or to
Speaker 15: move like all these like Porsches and Teslas and Mercedes
Speaker 15: like get out. I mean, it was very comical in
Speaker 15: the early moments of the fire, because this is this
Speaker 15: is our this is how the life we've chosen is.
Speaker 15: You might have to leave your car behind as you're
Speaker 15: getting out because you get stuck in traffic. But it's
Speaker 15: the same issue when I go back to the way
Speaker 15: we've decided to design our communities right, like, you do
Speaker 15: need two different ways out.
Speaker 14: You do need to be able to.
Speaker 15: Walk to a place where maybe a shuttle can come
Speaker 15: pick you up and evacuate you safely if you don't
Speaker 15: have a car. In Altadena, there was there are multiple
Speaker 15: instances of people who were disabled or who were elderly
Speaker 15: who were left behind. This is usually what happens in
Speaker 15: these types of disasters. I believe in the campfire three
Speaker 15: fourths of the victims where elderly or disabled. In the
Speaker 15: median age was something like seventy five or something like that.
Speaker 15: So we have not done a good job with that
Speaker 15: aspect of our evacuation plan. I mean, yes, we say
Speaker 15: chicken on your neighbors, get yourself ready, we always say
Speaker 15: pack the car, But like if you look at other
Speaker 15: cities that have been through these types of disasters, like
Speaker 15: New Orleans, they do have like a public evacuation system
Speaker 15: in place where you're making sure that everyone can get out.
Speaker 15: And that's I mean, that's what shouldn't happen in a
Speaker 15: place like Pacific Palisades, right. You just don't imagine that
Speaker 15: that a wealthy community like that would have deaths because
Speaker 15: people got left behind.
Speaker 2: As a journalist, what stories are not being looked at
Speaker 2: that should be looked at in the mainstream coverage of
Speaker 2: this event. Who are releading behind? What stories are releading behind?
Speaker 15: I would love to see more about why people were
Speaker 15: physically left behind. But really the story they said this
Speaker 15: morning on the news on Monday morning, I think they
Speaker 15: said seventeen people were still missing. I hope we won't
Speaker 15: reach these very high numbers where we have this massive
Speaker 15: loss of life. But for the most part, we do
Speaker 15: do an okay job, you know, getting people to safety,
Speaker 15: but there are these big gaps, and not just you know,
Speaker 15: the physical of you know, being able to transport people,
Speaker 15: but the messaging systems. I'm seeing so many different ways
Speaker 15: that people were told to leave and who told them
Speaker 15: to leave and who they listened to, and even the
Speaker 15: risk that people know about when they buy a home,
Speaker 15: and that many people had moved into places that they
Speaker 15: didn't fully understand had burned recently. So how can we
Speaker 15: continue to explain to people how dangerous this is. I
Speaker 15: think people get earthquake drilled into their head a lot
Speaker 15: and they think about that a lot. But these are
Speaker 15: fires that are coming down into neighborhoods sometimes that aren't burning,
Speaker 15: haven't burned before. So we really need to have a
Speaker 15: deeper conversation about messaging and disclosures. I guess is in
Speaker 15: one sense, if you rent to the place, would you
Speaker 15: know the same way that a homeowner? Did you know
Speaker 15: what kind of what kind of risk?
Speaker 3: You read?
Speaker 15: All these questions I have? Yeah, maybe just like situational
Speaker 15: awareness about your neighborhood, your particular home. You know, we
Speaker 15: shouldn't be forced to learn all these things.
Speaker 14: But this is kind of a new.
Speaker 15: Reality we all need to face together. If a fire
Speaker 15: starts tonight, you know, during the second windstorm event, it
Speaker 15: doesn't really matter where you are in the city. It's
Speaker 15: not going to be put out right away because the
Speaker 15: resources are a stretch thin and everything could go up
Speaker 15: in flance. But just being prepared, talking to your neighbors,
Speaker 15: getting everything packed up, even if you're going on foot,
Speaker 15: this is what we have to do. Yeah, well, thank
Speaker 15: you so much, Thank you, Jamie, Thank you.
Speaker 2: So much to Alissa, and particularly if you're a local,
Speaker 2: I highly encourage you to subscribe to her newsletter torched
Speaker 2: in the description. So my next conversation is with a
Speaker 2: close colleague and friend of mine named Theo Henderson. And
Speaker 2: if you don't listen to his show on iHeart Podcasts,
Speaker 2: you have to get your act together. It's called We
Speaker 2: the Unhoused, and it began back in twenty nineteen when
Speaker 2: THEO himself was living on the streets of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: These days, he's brought the show to iHeart and continues
Speaker 2: to be one of the only major platforms where stories
Speaker 2: about and that concern the unhoused are told and centered
Speaker 2: around the unhoused. And I was really eager to hear
Speaker 2: what Theo had been hearing within the unhoused community and
Speaker 2: how he felt about the media cycle around this climate disaster.
Speaker 7: Theo Henderson, Hello.
Speaker 4: Hello, thank you for having me on your show. It's
Speaker 4: like turn about as by a play.
Speaker 7: I know the tables have turned.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you're doing all right. This, I mean,
Speaker 2: just observationally, is another huge example of the mainstream media
Speaker 2: kind of wing it. So I'm curious, as you've been
Speaker 2: observing how the coverage of this has been versus the
Speaker 2: lived reality, what's been on your mind.
Speaker 4: I've seen some misfires in the communication about the newly
Speaker 4: displaced and the existing displays of unhoused community members, and
Speaker 4: how the narrative has been framed. In the beginning, the
Speaker 4: narrative was framed as they were looking at rich people's homes,
Speaker 4: which brought out a response where there was a lot
Speaker 4: of cynicism and sarcasm and a lot of Gallows type
Speaker 4: of humor, which people took umbrage with because of the
Speaker 4: fact that anybody can lose, no matter what kind of
Speaker 4: economic status that they have, can lose things and can
Speaker 4: feel things. And I think the point was made on
Speaker 4: the moment was missed is because of the fact that
Speaker 4: media does what media does, mainstream media in particular, they
Speaker 4: always try to reach out for the elite or the
Speaker 4: oligard in the ways we have to feel empathy and
Speaker 4: sympathy for them. But we missed the point where the
Speaker 4: people the rich people that are being displaced, there were
Speaker 4: people that work for rich people that are being displaced.
Speaker 4: There were rich people, There are people working class people
Speaker 4: that have to survive, provide the services and all of
Speaker 4: the accouterments that are necessary for the wealthy to upkeep
Speaker 4: their lives. But we also miss out on another major
Speaker 4: incident that when we talk about how marabas Has does
Speaker 4: a duplicious type of service, is that during the cars,
Speaker 4: during all of the panic and the chaos and the
Speaker 4: pandemonium was going, they were sweet still being held. There
Speaker 4: were sweeps being on simultaneously and the same day on
Speaker 4: the same time, where people were being asked to move.
Speaker 4: Whether it's spot clean or whether it was a deep
Speaker 4: intensive or whether it was the way of just forcibly
Speaker 4: removing on house people from areas when a such a
Speaker 4: volatile situation was occurring. They're still coming at every Thursday.
Speaker 4: They come sweep on house people every Thursday. It's just
Speaker 4: so much that many unhoused people's self ef thatt it
Speaker 4: is when I was on housed, I briefly stay here,
Speaker 4: but the antipathy against unhoused people here is so strong,
Speaker 4: and they hide it with political correctness, and they don't
Speaker 4: really you don't really see the veil come off unless
Speaker 4: you are really entrenched in it and you are impacted.
Speaker 2: All of the immediate coverage went to these wealthy people,
Speaker 2: which is the media's tendency, and also just like those
Speaker 2: discordant any solidarity to the working class that makes LA work.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything about, you know, the domestic workers
Speaker 2: in the palis Ades. I haven't seen anything about you know,
Speaker 2: the weaighte staff that works in this area, people who
Speaker 2: may not have lost their homes but definitely lost their jobs.
Speaker 2: And I mean there's just such a wide gradient in
Speaker 2: a way that I feel like minimizes the issue and
Speaker 2: makes it seem like, oh good, these rich people lost
Speaker 2: their homes, Because are all of these people, I mean
Speaker 2: thousands of people who are either newly housing, insecure or
Speaker 2: unhoused themselves now overnight. I feel like it really just
Speaker 2: further demonstrates that this could happen to anyone. Everyone is
Speaker 2: far closer to being unhoused than they think. But in
Speaker 2: the media, I've noticed that there's a clear delineation between well,
Speaker 2: they were housed last week, so we don't need to
Speaker 2: treat them like we do unhoused people in the media.
Speaker 4: That's the agual conversation point that we have is that
Speaker 4: for example, the worthy un housed and the unworthy on house.
Speaker 4: You see, the narrative has been always put out because
Speaker 4: which is why the unintended consequences always is. I guess
Speaker 4: it is oxymoronic if you want to be being really clear,
Speaker 4: is the fact that the narrative has always been pushed
Speaker 4: about unhoused people are drug addicted, mentally ill, they don't
Speaker 4: want help. It's it's effective because it turns the working
Speaker 4: class that could be an ally to you against you.
Speaker 4: Now we have to sift through all of the misinformation,
Speaker 4: but also sift through what the apparatus that's in place
Speaker 4: that when we talk about houselessness, when we talk about
Speaker 4: housing insecurity, we must be honest with our communities and
Speaker 4: what are different walks of life to understand that this
Speaker 4: is a declear example of climate exchange. I want to
Speaker 4: point out one more thing about climate change as well.
Speaker 4: Climate injustice is what is going on and the first
Speaker 4: line of defensive people that are affected, the frontline workers
Speaker 4: are unhoused people. You know, many people could put on
Speaker 4: a mask, But the mask is still not necessarily effective
Speaker 4: enough if you're sitting in a stationery position outside on
Speaker 4: the street, where there's debris, where there's falling ash, where
Speaker 4: there's breathing metals and all of the other things that
Speaker 4: are going on. It only gives you a certain rescipite
Speaker 4: if you're going into maybe another layer of protection, like
Speaker 4: you can go into a building, close the door and
Speaker 4: not be able to ingest that for it maybe a
Speaker 4: temporary period of time. But can unhouse people do that
Speaker 4: on a sustaining level. No, not particularly. There are not
Speaker 4: enough shelters. There are not enough places where they can
Speaker 4: be able to find a respite. On the weekend, like Sunday,
Speaker 4: the libraries are closed, so where they're going to go.
Speaker 16: You know?
Speaker 4: So I think we there is so much of the
Speaker 4: environmental issues to be considered. I personally, it affects me,
Speaker 4: like but I got affected with all of the asking
Speaker 4: my damn. I But yeah, like the breathing quality, It's
Speaker 4: like when I was out living when they have brush fires,
Speaker 4: it is very difficult to try to sleep, and it's
Speaker 4: very difficulty if you have health issues. I have health issues.
Speaker 4: It affects my my chart. It affects my breathing. So
Speaker 4: I know I'm not the only one. I know I'm
Speaker 4: not the only unhused person that has other medical issues
Speaker 4: that have to contend with where there maybe having people
Speaker 4: that may have medical issues and other issues that they're
Speaker 4: in a house environment to be able to get the
Speaker 4: appropriate medical care. Many in house people missed that they
Speaker 4: still state type of services.
Speaker 2: I know you speak to this every week on Webian House,
Speaker 2: which I'm going to plug the hell out of throughout
Speaker 2: this show.
Speaker 7: How you know this is a.
Speaker 2: California example of the of a house people being on
Speaker 2: the front lines of climate injustice.
Speaker 7: But you cover stories like this all the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've talked about Florida and North Carolina and
Speaker 2: these are problems that aren't going to go away.
Speaker 4: Well also too that climate change affects us maybe a
Speaker 4: little bit a different lead. They have a different recipe
Speaker 4: because we're dealing with brush fires. But I also want
Speaker 4: to point out the climate changes that are going on
Speaker 4: in the Midwest and the colder places where there are
Speaker 4: migrant on house families are living out in in elements
Speaker 4: it's very cold. We're going to get a cold snap
Speaker 4: coming up very soon. So on house people here are
Speaker 4: going to be dealing with that issue. But I also
Speaker 4: want to point out most hypothermic depths are usually here
Speaker 4: in California, but particularly because I believe most when I
Speaker 4: was in the house in Chicago and those Midwest places,
Speaker 4: they do have places where warming centers and things, and
Speaker 4: California does, and Los Angeles in particular does a very
Speaker 4: piss for job and getting the word out creating services
Speaker 4: to get vans or trolleys or things of that nature
Speaker 4: to get unhouse people to and fro places and have
Speaker 4: it may be a commiss you kind of are kind
Speaker 4: of warming centers where there's not stringent requirements for them
Speaker 4: to be in places that I think that's where one
Speaker 4: of the things that many of the things that Los
Speaker 4: Angeles misses demark on during the season, there are various
Speaker 4: stages of climate injustice and incidents that are happening to
Speaker 4: unhouse people.
Speaker 2: The answers to this, I know will be fairly obvious,
Speaker 2: but for the sake of asking it, what is the
Speaker 2: City of Los Angeles and the state, by extension, what
Speaker 2: should they be doing for unhoused and housing insecure folks
Speaker 2: right now that they are not doing?
Speaker 4: We need another eviction and rent more moratorium. The second
Speaker 4: thing is that we need is another facilities opened up
Speaker 4: that are extended for unhoused people to have a sustained
Speaker 4: place to live, may hotels, but also places where we
Speaker 4: can be able to get unhoused people inside. And in
Speaker 4: two we need to upgrade our medical facilities because again
Speaker 4: unhoused people, you're going to see many more. It's going
Speaker 4: to be an uptick of medical emergencies, particularly probably from
Speaker 4: unhoused people, because they're going to be in sustained environmentively
Speaker 4: disastrous kind of areas. There was an unhoused person that
Speaker 4: I was in contact with that was impacted. They voluntarily
Speaker 4: evacuated because the area that they were at was starting
Speaker 4: to burn and so they had to leave because they
Speaker 4: were in hiding. And why were they in hiding. It's
Speaker 4: because of the aggressiveness of the Grands past that and
Speaker 4: then the forty one eighteen kind of things.
Speaker 2: Just for listener clarity, I know we talk about this
Speaker 2: every single day. What is Grant's past for those who
Speaker 2: are not in the.
Speaker 4: Know, Yes, well, you know, as you know, Jay, I
Speaker 4: know it exasperates everybody, but I've been on the book box.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, No get back on the subdox.
Speaker 7: This is the time.
Speaker 4: So well, I'm going to do a very quick synopsis
Speaker 4: because I can go in on and on on like
Speaker 4: I'm on a pool pill. So the launch. In short
Speaker 4: of it, what Grant's Past is done is given the
Speaker 4: right for state city workers and leaders to criminalize unhoused
Speaker 4: people without any solutions, without any kind of appropriate follow
Speaker 4: up to get them off the streets. In short, it
Speaker 4: is basically they have to write it they see an
Speaker 4: unhoused person to put them in jail or do other
Speaker 4: criminalized ticket them, or make themselves evict or evict them
Speaker 4: from the area. Because many of the cities would use
Speaker 4: that as the rallying cry or the whipping poles to
Speaker 4: justify that. They claim that they couldn't do anything because
Speaker 4: the state is giving the and how so many rights
Speaker 4: or you hear Heaven forbid that on house people between
Speaker 4: like human beings instead of the detriatis that they want
Speaker 4: to treat them as. So Grant's Past is the vehicle
Speaker 4: that is used to justify different horristic examples. One of
Speaker 4: the things that I do think too, we were making
Speaker 4: a very good point too about with COVID about where
Speaker 4: one shelter had one hundred percent of the entire staff
Speaker 4: and residents had COVID because they were bunched in together.
Speaker 4: But also one of the improving things that I think
Speaker 4: encouraging is that and this is not from the city,
Speaker 4: but I noticed from our citizenry the mutual aid response.
Speaker 4: I think that was the perfect proving ground or the
Speaker 4: perfect testing ground and case and a point that I
Speaker 4: want to point out, and I've been interviewing some of
Speaker 4: the neutral eight groups myself that stating some of the
Speaker 4: city leaders are asked for resources from the mutual groups.
Speaker 4: We've been asking for the assistance the city is what
Speaker 4: they always do is throw money at the problem for
Speaker 4: criminalization or propaganda propaganda campaign to delineate or to blame
Speaker 4: the victims for their problems, but in the same on
Speaker 4: the certain turf token that they want service this from us.
Speaker 2: That is I think one of the major positive takeaways
Speaker 2: of the last week is I feel like it's proven
Speaker 2: time and time again, and I think we saw this
Speaker 2: during COVID as well, is when times are horrible, it
Speaker 2: is human instinct to come together and want to provide support.
Speaker 2: I'm curious how you have seen the mutual aids sort
Speaker 2: of roll out, but how do we sustain it? You know,
Speaker 2: I mean I worry about flashing the pan moments and
Speaker 2: then and then I'll fall off.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's one of the legitimate concern One of
Speaker 4: the things that I noticed when I first started my
Speaker 4: podcast during the time hy pandemic, everyone was concerned. Everyone
Speaker 4: wanted to dial in to understand about houselessness and housing
Speaker 4: and security because they realized on that clear example that
Speaker 4: they were on their way out on the street, there
Speaker 4: were some that were on this way on street. But
Speaker 4: also it also created a sense of bond hominge or
Speaker 4: a sense of empathy that is fleeting. And one of
Speaker 4: the things that I've noticed on what really irritates is
Speaker 4: why there was such a generation of gallows humor and
Speaker 4: starcasm about this current situation is because of the flashing
Speaker 4: the plan or the spotty kind of empathy that it is.
Speaker 4: It's like, one of the things that we need is frankly,
Speaker 4: most mutual aids need now is money, because this is
Speaker 4: a problem that's going to have unintended consequences. There was
Speaker 4: a recent article that was talking about people are competing
Speaker 4: now that had would recently house and trying to find housing. Now,
Speaker 4: I want you to consider for a moment, looking into
Speaker 4: the vista on what this is going to look like
Speaker 4: for the newly unhoused. They are now going to be
Speaker 4: susceptible to Grant's pass. They're now going to be susceptible
Speaker 4: to being swept. They're now going to be susceptible to
Speaker 4: forty one eighteen. Because the money is going to only
Speaker 4: sustain terminal one that lived on the house and had
Speaker 4: to go through the steps before I became completely unhoused.
Speaker 4: You're going to be on this hamster wheel that you
Speaker 4: won't be able to get off unless you have some
Speaker 4: kind of community organized support to be able to get
Speaker 4: you out of that and to sustain you when you
Speaker 4: are not financially at the best place, or you're going
Speaker 4: to end up falling through the cracks like many of
Speaker 4: the young house currently are. And you're going to see
Speaker 4: the effects on how the city has very limited empathy
Speaker 4: or sympathy towards your condition, even though you've gone through
Speaker 4: the pandemic or you've gone through the fires. We're going
Speaker 4: to see more of that. We're going to see more
Speaker 4: of the politician is going to come in and look
Speaker 4: at unhoused trying to hope with the stresses and traumas
Speaker 4: of losing everything and trying to use the coping mechanisms
Speaker 4: that they can, and they're going to make a video
Speaker 4: and make it sound like this is where your money
Speaker 4: is going. They're coddling on house people they don't want
Speaker 4: help and things like that, and then now we're going
Speaker 4: to be faced in the same hostile kinds of response
Speaker 4: to the houseless crisis.
Speaker 7: Is there anything I didn't ask that you wanted to
Speaker 7: touch on?
Speaker 4: Also to really lean into the mutual aids start financially
Speaker 4: being much more sustainable in helping the unhoused currently as
Speaker 4: well as the enduring on housed as well as well
Speaker 4: as looking at TO and both of our podcasts and
Speaker 4: learning more of the matter because I'm going to be
Speaker 4: covering the fires as well and the multitude of different
Speaker 4: responses that I've heard, and I wanted to be able
Speaker 4: to say that thank you, thank.
Speaker 2: You so much to the amazing THEO Henderson, and please
Speaker 2: subscribe to be the Unhoused as you will continue to
Speaker 2: cover the fallout of the fires in the unhoused community,
Speaker 2: which is definitely something to keep your eye on. And
Speaker 2: we will be right back with mutual aid and organizational
Speaker 2: tips with three pros. See you after all these ads.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to sixteenth minute with more interviews with the
Speaker 2: folks who are shedding light on those who aren't being
Speaker 2: centered in these conversations about the Southern California fires. My
Speaker 2: next conversation is with the executive director, operations manager, and
Speaker 2: volunteer coordinator with an unhoused nonprofit coalition in my neighborhood
Speaker 2: called SILA. Sarah Maybe and Rachel are such wonderful people,
Speaker 2: and as they are very experienced organizers, I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask them what this week has been like with increased
Speaker 2: demand for services and how they would advise new organizers
Speaker 2: who want to get involved. Here's our talk.
Speaker 10: Hey, everybody, my name is Maybe, the operations manager for CELA,
Speaker 10: and my pronouns are she her, and they them.
Speaker 16: Hi.
Speaker 13: My name is Sarah Mayis. I'm the executive director of
Speaker 13: sela neighborhood homeless coalition, and my pronouns are she her.
Speaker 2: We're recording this interview on the afternoon of Monday the thirteenth,
Speaker 2: and I know it has been a very heartening and
Speaker 2: also chaotic weekend over at CELA. How's everybody doing.
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 13: Can you tell by our silence we're good. I'll let
Speaker 13: I'll let everyone else speak to about to their mental
Speaker 13: health and energy. But I think we are. We're overwhelmed
Speaker 13: and in all the best possible ways. But yeah, overall good, Yeah,
Speaker 13: do it.
Speaker 10: All right, both physically and emotionally, recovering from the past
Speaker 10: few days.
Speaker 14: I definitely feel similarly.
Speaker 17: Something that I know all of us are feeling that
Speaker 17: I think speaks to how much I love everybody here
Speaker 17: is that we all are dealing with our own personal
Speaker 17: anxieties with fire and our own homes and our friends' homes,
Speaker 17: and that we're all still able to come together and
Speaker 17: focus on each other is beautiful and also of course tiring.
Speaker 14: But we all have so much support.
Speaker 2: For those listening who are uninitiated. What does a normal
Speaker 2: week look like at CELA in terms of mission and programs,
Speaker 2: and then we'll talk about what has been adjusted and
Speaker 2: expanded in the past week.
Speaker 13: Absolutely so. Our vision statement at SELA Neighborhood Homeless Coalition
Speaker 13: is a community where every neighbor thrives. That's sort of
Speaker 13: what we're working towards, is this ideal community where homelessness
Speaker 13: is not something that we're confronting, because everyone has a
Speaker 13: home and the resources they need to thrive in their
Speaker 13: world in their lives. We do that by activating a
Speaker 13: coalition of participants and sister organizations and working in lockstep
Speaker 13: with social services and city services to host a couple
Speaker 13: of different program types. So first and foremost, we have
Speaker 13: our drop in programs at the Silver Lake in Silver
Speaker 13: Lake in Hollywood and in Echo Park. Those drop in
Speaker 13: programs are every single week, and they provide things like
Speaker 13: bike repair and ID support and meals, and some of
Speaker 13: them have movie screenings. But really fundamentally, what they are
Speaker 13: is a place for people to come and be in
Speaker 13: community and know that just because they are existing without
Speaker 13: homes at this moment, that does not make them anything
Speaker 13: other than our neighbors and valued members of our community.
Speaker 13: And those are our drop in programs. Our outreach programs
Speaker 13: run in tandem with many of our drop in programs. Again,
Speaker 13: those happen multiple times every single week across Northeast LA,
Speaker 13: and we do things by starting with material aid, like
Speaker 13: handing out water bottles at encampments. Right now, we're doing masks.
Speaker 13: We can talk about some of our emergency response a
Speaker 13: little bit later, but handing out meals handing out harm
Speaker 13: reduction supplies and getting to know people and really truly
Speaker 13: fundamentally listening to what is the experience of our neighbors
Speaker 13: who are living on the street and what is it
Speaker 13: that they need, and educating our house neighbors and elevating
Speaker 13: the voices of our unhoused neighbors to make sure that
Speaker 13: we're all working in unison to create that community where
Speaker 13: every neighbor thrives.
Speaker 2: You're such a well oiled machine of being able to
Speaker 2: show up, not to show up for your own house neighbors,
Speaker 2: but also build sustaining relationships, build connections in the neighborhood
Speaker 2: that can assist your unhoused neighbors, whether that be medical
Speaker 2: or veterinary services, whether that be social services, whether that
Speaker 2: be connecting with transportation or caseworkers, or whatever.
Speaker 7: The need may be.
Speaker 2: In a situation like this last week, where all of
Speaker 2: a sudden there is a new population of people who
Speaker 2: are either housing insecure or houseless, what was it like
Speaker 2: as sort of the leaders of this organization of figuring
Speaker 2: out how do we respond to this and how do
Speaker 2: we expand on the programs and systems we arelready have
Speaker 2: in place.
Speaker 10: You know, I think one of the things that helped
Speaker 10: us to be prepared for something that was not necessarily
Speaker 10: immediately foreseeable is the fact that we do this week
Speaker 10: in week out, year round, year after year. So our
Speaker 10: organization exists to respond to people in crisis. And so
Speaker 10: given that, you know, I feel like we were just
Speaker 10: a little more prepared than you know, somebody who doesn't
Speaker 10: work with a volunteer organization or is not immediately familiar with,
Speaker 10: you know, working with people who are neighbors in crisis.
Speaker 10: So because we already had our programs in place, we
Speaker 10: basically had to adapt our existing programs to meet the
Speaker 10: conditions of the day. And so, you know, we had
Speaker 10: our Wednesday program. At first, we thought about canceling the
Speaker 10: program because you know, we were nervous about having our
Speaker 10: volunteers have to be outside, nervous about our participants having
Speaker 10: to be outside during these you know, this these smoky conditions.
Speaker 10: So basically we ended up adapting the program. We brought
Speaker 10: it inside, and we open it up to the entire community.
Speaker 10: Anybody that needed to come in to charge their devices
Speaker 10: if their power was out, if they're housed, or if
Speaker 10: they needed to just get out of the smoky air,
Speaker 10: basically just opening it up to everybody. So a lot
Speaker 10: of adaptation, but because we already have systems in place,
Speaker 10: it was we were able to adapt to the situation.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 10: One of the other things is, you know, we've been
Speaker 10: overwhelmed in such a positive way, with so many people
Speaker 10: wanting to help in so many different kinds of ways,
Speaker 10: whether that be through material donations or through volunteering, and
Speaker 10: so I think even just you know, having to figure
Speaker 10: out how to utilize in a very quick manner, how
Speaker 10: to effectively take in these donations and you know, empower
Speaker 10: volunteers to be able to take action, which I think
Speaker 10: Rachel you can probably speak about that.
Speaker 2: I know that there was already sort of a huge
Speaker 2: influx of volunteers late in the year, and now I
Speaker 2: would imagine that there's no other wave of volunteers. How
Speaker 2: as a volunteer coordinator do you make that work with
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, like the beautiful problem of so
Speaker 2: many people who want to help.
Speaker 17: Yes, the energy is so it feels so monumental, and
Speaker 17: I think everybody feels how important this moment is. Of course,
Speaker 17: we've all been working with our neighbors in this capacity,
Speaker 17: like maybe just said, but you can feel the the
Speaker 17: it's just everything so compounded. You can feel the urgency
Speaker 17: that people have. And so one of the things that
Speaker 17: we had to figure out right away is you spoke
Speaker 17: to the well oiled machine nature of everything. And part
Speaker 17: of that has been, like there's a sign up process.
Speaker 14: We've figured out.
Speaker 17: Roles that are very specifically needed, and we make sure
Speaker 17: there's shifts for those roles. And we kind of had
Speaker 17: to change that in the moment where it was just
Speaker 17: our doors are open, if you can help, come here.
Speaker 17: We'll figure out what that help looks like when you're here.
Speaker 17: And so it was sending out a lot of mass
Speaker 17: communication by our emails, via our Instagram, texting people I know,
Speaker 17: maybe brought some friends to join that they can speak
Speaker 17: more to. And it was literally things as specific as
Speaker 17: figuring out what is inaccessible on our website because I
Speaker 17: know so many people are on the website, and it
Speaker 17: was just making it so that anybody knew that they
Speaker 17: could just show up. And then part of that in
Speaker 17: real time, when you're welcoming people to join you, you
Speaker 17: have to give them everybody space in the communication and
Speaker 17: the guidance to figure out what being on site looks
Speaker 17: like in this emergency.
Speaker 14: So that was letting.
Speaker 17: People know when they got here, Hey, we just had
Speaker 17: a bunch of people come to move these supplies. We're
Speaker 17: kind of figuring out our next move. We don't know
Speaker 17: what it is yet, can you just be here? And
Speaker 17: people were so willing to just be there and figure
Speaker 17: out what the next steps were, and our volunteers, our participants,
Speaker 17: our community decides how this organization moves forward. And so
Speaker 17: I think it was a really important opportunity for us
Speaker 17: all to be in a physical space with our usual
Speaker 17: volunteer base and all of our neighbors and folks who
Speaker 17: are coming from all over LA to figure out together
Speaker 17: what does that look like. So that looks like putting
Speaker 17: on Instagram, Hey, we need to find somewhere that can
Speaker 17: take these supplies because we don't have the space or
Speaker 17: we can't distribute it efficiently. And giving people space to
Speaker 17: come into our community and tell us what needs to
Speaker 17: be done and where things need to go. Between the
Speaker 17: three of us, I think we've all spoken to like
Speaker 17: hundreds of people in the last few days, and so
Speaker 17: there's the really logical part of responding to every message
Speaker 17: as much as we can, putting out mass communications as
Speaker 17: much as we can, and just letting people know that
Speaker 17: even if they're not able to sign up for a
Speaker 17: specific sealer shift right away. For example, we opened up
Speaker 17: shifts into February and March, which we normally wouldn't do yet,
Speaker 17: just to welcome this influx of people and let them
Speaker 17: know that this is going to be an ongoing need.
Speaker 17: We've been here for a long time, We're going to
Speaker 17: continue to be here, and letting them know that we
Speaker 17: want them here. This isn't the only way for them
Speaker 17: to support their neighbors. Yes, of course we want them
Speaker 17: out a shift where they're distributing water bottles and masks,
Speaker 17: like Sarah said, but they could also go outside and
Speaker 17: do that right now if they have the resources and
Speaker 17: feel safe to. And so just creating a place where
Speaker 17: we let people know that this feeling of community support
Speaker 17: that they are feeling and that they know. I think
Speaker 17: it's so amazing that they knew to come to Sila,
Speaker 17: that we've been able to build that community. They know
Speaker 17: we're here, but reminding them that this is happening all
Speaker 17: the time, and so that energy they feel there's always
Speaker 17: going to be a place for them to plug into
Speaker 17: their community, and just creating as much of an open
Speaker 17: door and as much of a space for education as
Speaker 17: we can.
Speaker 2: How do we kind of harness this energy, this inherent
Speaker 2: goodness to people and you know, extend it to educate
Speaker 2: them on these issues are ongoing and turn it into
Speaker 2: sustained work.
Speaker 10: You Know, something that I've been thinking about a lot,
Speaker 10: a lot over the past few days is it's been
Speaker 10: really empowering to see so many community members, folks who
Speaker 10: may have never volunteered for anything at all previously, they
Speaker 10: see this crisis very prominently happening in their community, and
Speaker 10: it's neighbors saying I need to take action. I want
Speaker 10: to do something to contribute to relieving the suffering of
Speaker 10: my fellow neighbors. And that's really what this is about.
Speaker 10: And that's what gives me a lot of hope and
Speaker 10: humanity throughout this crisis. Like it's a horrible, awful situation,
Speaker 10: but you know, this beautiful silver lining of actually seeing
Speaker 10: people come together, and I just hope that people recognize
Speaker 10: and I've been trying to share the message that this
Speaker 10: isn't just about dropping off bottles of water. This isn't
Speaker 10: just about dropping off snacks or you know, cleaning out
Speaker 10: your closet to drop off for folks. This is something
Speaker 10: that's going to be an ongoing need. It's going to
Speaker 10: be an ongoing need in the short term and in
Speaker 10: the long term, just in terms of the kinds of
Speaker 10: resources that people are going to need who have been
Speaker 10: immediately impacted by the fires, and people who were already
Speaker 10: experiencing homelessness and who are also being impacted by the
Speaker 10: fires in an environmental manner. So I just hope that
Speaker 10: the energy keeps up, and I hope that you know,
Speaker 10: people who have signed up to volunteer or you know,
Speaker 10: want to be at a drop in shelter or want
Speaker 10: to be at a donation center. I just want everyone
Speaker 10: to know that that is going to be something that
Speaker 10: there is going to be a need for for the
Speaker 10: foreseeable future. You know, we were talking to one of
Speaker 10: our program directors, you might know him Jamie. His name's Grant.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm going to carry that guy.
Speaker 10: And one of the things that you know, he brought
Speaker 10: up this great point that you know, people who have
Speaker 10: just lost their homes, they don't need a new wardrobe
Speaker 10: right now. That's something that they're going to be needing
Speaker 10: months down the road as they're beginning to resecure their housing.
Speaker 10: So just keeping in mind the kinds of donations that
Speaker 10: you're donating, and also just keeping in mind that you
Speaker 10: can help as a volunteer at a lot of these
Speaker 10: organizations such as CELA, but certainly not limited to CELA
Speaker 10: for the foreseeable future, and even once this disaster is
Speaker 10: totally recovered from, there's still going to be a need
Speaker 10: to help your neighbors. So there's always a way that
Speaker 10: you can make your community better just by bringing other
Speaker 10: people into community with you.
Speaker 13: My hope too, is that people see in this the
Speaker 13: power that they have. Right you talk about Cela's response,
Speaker 13: and the best part about CELA is that we have
Speaker 13: almost six hundred volunteers. Like, when you're talking about Cela's response,
Speaker 13: this is not a coordinated response of a large government
Speaker 13: entity or service provider, right, Like, what you're talking about
Speaker 13: is the fact that basically SEALA is just a conduit.
Speaker 13: SELA is just a place for everyday neighbors to hit
Speaker 13: their ceiling. What is it you're willing to do, What
Speaker 13: is it you want to do? How much would you
Speaker 13: like to have an impact on your community? We are
Speaker 13: a tool through which you can do that. But really
Speaker 13: it's like what makes CELA sealas the fact that Cela
Speaker 13: is just a bunch of neighbors who are getting together,
Speaker 13: housed and unhoused, to make a difference. And my hope
Speaker 13: would be that when we talk about that long term
Speaker 13: energy that people look at, people can come to SELA
Speaker 13: to volunteer and they don't just see, oh I helped
Speaker 13: out right. What they see is how much power they
Speaker 13: have to influence someone else's life permanently. And I think
Speaker 13: that's something they can take out into their every single
Speaker 13: day that.
Speaker 10: Actually reminds me of a story. I'd love to share
Speaker 10: something that happened this weekend that I feel like is
Speaker 10: just a prime example of that. A lot of my friends,
Speaker 10: you know, know that I work for CELA. They've been
Speaker 10: interested in what I do, but it really wasn't until
Speaker 10: this immediate crisis that a lot of them specifically reached
Speaker 10: out to me and said, Hey, I want to volunteer
Speaker 10: for CELA. I'm available these days. Let me know how
Speaker 10: I can help. You know, they want to be mobilized,
Speaker 10: and so part of what we do at CELA is
Speaker 10: really empower them to take action in the moments within
Speaker 10: the structure of CELA, but as you mentioned, like take
Speaker 10: that into their own hands and into their own neighborhoods,
Speaker 10: their own communities. Specifically a few of my friends, they
Speaker 10: came and we were able to on the fly totally
Speaker 10: organize a new shared warehouse space that Sela's Fortunes to
Speaker 10: be a part of. We're in partnership with Everyday Action,
Speaker 10: which is a wonderful food reallocation organization. They have basically
Speaker 10: allowed us to be in partnership in this warehouse and
Speaker 10: it's all nonprofits that are focused on food in security,
Speaker 10: housing and security, and we were able to organize a
Speaker 10: lot of these donations that came in and also donate
Speaker 10: forward donations that we knew were not going to be
Speaker 10: right for the kind of work that we do. After
Speaker 10: we did all of this organizing on Saturday, we ended
Speaker 10: up going out afterwards and we encountered a young queer person,
Speaker 10: probably in their early twenties.
Speaker 6: They were unhoused.
Speaker 10: Talking with them, you know, first of all, as they are,
Speaker 10: as they are a human being, they're one of our neighbors,
Speaker 10: and sort of destigmatizing the fact that this is a
Speaker 10: neighbor experiencing homelessness, but also engaging in the challenges that
Speaker 10: they've experienced over the past few days with the fires.
Speaker 10: And I watched as my friends decided on their own
Speaker 10: to try to find temporary housing for this complete stranger
Speaker 10: that they had just met, and it was so beautiful
Speaker 10: to watch, but it was also very disheartening to watch
Speaker 10: in real time somebody see how even when they want
Speaker 10: to help, how it can be very difficult to acquire
Speaker 10: temporary housing for people experiencing homelessness. Just sort of watching
Speaker 10: you know, them being excited to help, to then watching
Speaker 10: them realize how difficult the system is to work with
Speaker 10: to then taking action into their own hands and getting
Speaker 10: this person a hotel room for the night, to be
Speaker 10: able to relieve them from the you know, the smoky environment.
Speaker 10: And it was just a really beautiful thing to watch,
Speaker 10: just people coming together in community to take immediate action
Speaker 10: for community members. And I think that oftentimes the role
Speaker 10: of going governments can really create a bystander effect amongst
Speaker 10: neighbors where people are kind of always just waiting for
Speaker 10: somebody else to take action, waiting for somebody else to
Speaker 10: solve the problem, when we all know that, you know
Speaker 10: it takes a long time for governments to do things,
Speaker 10: like governmental agencies bureaucracy intentionally designed to work very slow.
Speaker 10: But when you pull together a few neighbors, you can
Speaker 10: make anything happen immediately.
Speaker 2: If you are someone in the LA area or outside
Speaker 2: of the LA Area that wants to immediately have a
Speaker 2: pragmatic and helpful affect the unhoused community, those who are
Speaker 2: recently displaced by the fires. What would you all recommend
Speaker 2: for those that are a little unsure of what to
Speaker 2: do right now?
Speaker 13: You know, we've been getting an influx of people who
Speaker 13: are interested in helping, and it's been it's been very
Speaker 13: interesting to see how people perceive help, right, how people
Speaker 13: perceive their own help. We had someone who had driven
Speaker 13: down with a truck full of clothes from Oregon and
Speaker 13: called us and was really dismayed and very upset to
Speaker 13: learn that that was not going to be the most
Speaker 13: useful thing at this moment for good reason. Right, that's
Speaker 13: someone who has put a lot of time and energy
Speaker 13: and thoughtfulness into what they have to offer and what
Speaker 13: they're able to do, and to be told this is
Speaker 13: not what we need is a challenge, right, Like it's
Speaker 13: all this like untapped energy. And so one of the
Speaker 13: things that we are really encouraging, and I say we
Speaker 13: as in the community based organizations right now that we
Speaker 13: are in partnership with, are really encouraging people to give
Speaker 13: monetarily if possible at this point, whether that's to SILA,
Speaker 13: whether that's to another organization. The two things that we
Speaker 13: have as humans in the society that we live in
Speaker 13: that are the most valuable resources our time and money.
Speaker 13: Those are the things we have. Where you decide to
Speaker 13: spend your time and where you decide to spend your
Speaker 13: money is going to have the greatest impact on your neighbors.
Speaker 13: So we, as Rachel, We'll mentioned have a bunch of
Speaker 13: volunteer opportunities. If you go to CELA, NHC dot org,
Speaker 13: forward slash volunteer, you can sign up to volunteer with us.
Speaker 13: Lots of other organizations are also looking for volunteers. Pick point,
Speaker 13: close your eyes, and point to an organization in Los Angeles.
Speaker 13: Sign up to be a volunteer, learn more about them.
Speaker 13: If you think that they are an organization that is
Speaker 13: having a direct impact on the community in a way
Speaker 13: that you would like to support, give them money because
Speaker 13: money gives them autonomy. It gives them the ability to
Speaker 13: be adaptive to what maybe spoke to about us adapting
Speaker 13: our programs. We are not able to adapt our programming
Speaker 13: with cartloads of clothing. We are able to adapt our
Speaker 13: programming as needed with money. Money is power. Money is
Speaker 13: also going to be what helps people recover. In the
Speaker 13: long term. There are going to be all sorts of
Speaker 13: side effects to this that we haven't begun to see. Right, So,
Speaker 13: temporary housing is going to be necessary when all of
Speaker 13: these emergency shelters close. All that temporary housing is going
Speaker 13: to take money. When all of this is quote unquote
Speaker 13: over and we're trying to rebuild, rents in LA are
Speaker 13: going to skyrocket. There are tons of people who were
Speaker 13: not housing secure when they lost their home. They don't
Speaker 13: have the opportunity to just buy or rent a new home.
Speaker 13: They're going to be facing homelessness for the very first time.
Speaker 13: Money can help that long term healthcare effect. The side
Speaker 13: effects of all of this the physical ones, for one,
Speaker 13: because of everything that people are inhaling, especially people who
Speaker 13: are housed and out in this smoke. Long term, that's
Speaker 13: going to be long term illness. We're going to have
Speaker 13: all sorts of healthcare needs that's going to take money.
Speaker 13: There's also going to be psychological needs that people are
Speaker 13: going to have. Mental health is really suffering. We're seeing
Speaker 13: this in our volunteer community with people who've now been
Speaker 13: displaced three or four times because of the different fires.
Speaker 13: Money is something like that, people have lost their cars,
Speaker 13: they don't have transportation. Money can help with that. Like
Speaker 13: it's I know people don't it's taboo to talk about money,
Speaker 13: and people tend to feel like it's not meaningful and
Speaker 13: they're not getting their hands in. But like, truly, money
Speaker 13: is love in a situation like this, and I just
Speaker 13: encourage people to take the resources that you've collected, host
Speaker 13: a yard sale, donate that money to an organization that
Speaker 13: you think is doing good. If you know someone who's
Speaker 13: directly impacted, they've lost their home, they've moved, they've been
Speaker 13: displaced three or four times, send them money.
Speaker 14: Yeah.
Speaker 13: I think that's that's really what we're encouraging.
Speaker 14: People.
Speaker 13: Give your time and give your money, and then if
Speaker 13: you're not sure what to do, reach out and ask
Speaker 13: and instead of saying I'm bringing you something, if there's
Speaker 13: an organization or an individual that you know you would
Speaker 13: like to have an impact on reach out and say
Speaker 13: what do you need and then listen to that. Right,
Speaker 13: that's I think we all really we jumped to help,
Speaker 13: and then just like that man who drove down with
Speaker 13: that cart load, the car load of clothing, he jumped
Speaker 13: to help without asking what was needed, and then was
Speaker 13: pretty hurt by the response that he wasn't helping in
Speaker 13: the way that he thought. So, yeah, ask people what
Speaker 13: they need.
Speaker 14: None of this is unusual.
Speaker 17: We see the center volunteers all the time, but it
Speaker 17: was in just these last couple of days just became
Speaker 17: so clear how so everybody, everybody lives the way they
Speaker 17: live as a SEALA volunteer all the time. Like the
Speaker 17: number of people who have connected us with other organizations,
Speaker 17: emails I've gotten from volunteers connecting me with the volunteer.
Speaker 14: Who might be able to help the specific need.
Speaker 17: It's just really beautiful to see how everybody is activated
Speaker 17: all the time, and I think it's just very This
Speaker 17: just shows how crucial it is to kind of find
Speaker 17: your community and figure out how to be a part
Speaker 17: of it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much again to Rachel Sarah, and maybe
Speaker 2: you can contribute to cila's ongoing efforts in the description
Speaker 2: of this episode. I particularly love their laundry program, so
Speaker 2: I hope this was helpful if you didn't know much
Speaker 2: about what is happening in this area, or you wanted
Speaker 2: to do more and didn't know where to start, or
Speaker 2: maybe you live here and you wanted to be reminded
Speaker 2: that there's hope and still a paradise of some kind
Speaker 2: to be built. There has been such tremendous loss, and
Speaker 2: I think a lot of organizers have smartly and directly
Speaker 2: connected it to the fact that the US is funding
Speaker 2: a genocide, willfully causing losses in Palestine every single day.
Speaker 2: The way that our systems are failing us are often
Speaker 2: to prop up violence elsewhere that is oppressing other people.
Speaker 3: Free Palestine.
Speaker 2: One of the moments that really made me emotional this
Speaker 2: week was seeing that a library in Pasadena had burned down.
Speaker 3: This beautiful historic library.
Speaker 2: And maybe I'm a hooked on Phonic's dork, but seeing
Speaker 2: a burned down library made me cry.
Speaker 3: It's such a loss.
Speaker 2: And the day after I saw that, I learned that
Speaker 2: there was a library that had made it, the Altadena
Speaker 2: Main Library. I first saw it in a friend's Instagram
Speaker 2: story from someone who lived in Altadena, and it was
Speaker 2: such a relief for them and then for me, even
Speaker 2: though I'd never been there, but everything I've been thinking about,
Speaker 2: everything that's been on my mind, all of these people
Speaker 2: who are left behind in these discussions around climate change
Speaker 2: and disasters like this are welcome in a library, everyone is,
Speaker 2: and seeing a space like that still standing around so
Speaker 2: much devastation.
Speaker 3: Was really special.
Speaker 2: And so as a bonus treat I reached out to
Speaker 2: one of my favorite presences in all of Internet history,
Speaker 2: Michael Threats, the librarian TikTok guy. So, I hope you
Speaker 2: enjoy our brief conversation, and yes, sixteenth Minute will be
Speaker 2: back next week with I promise a truly punishing three
Speaker 2: part TALKTUA series. So please enjoy my talk with Michael.
Speaker 2: And I'm pretty sure my cats were fighting through a
Speaker 2: lot of this recording.
Speaker 3: It's just been a hard week.
Speaker 6: Sure, my name is Michael Threets.
Speaker 16: More people know me as Michael Librarian, and far more
Speaker 16: people know me as the librarian Orbry Guys. So many
Speaker 16: people I meet you do not know that I have
Speaker 16: an actual name. I've been a librarian for close to
Speaker 16: eleven years. I'm no longer practicing librarian. But I'm still
Speaker 16: very much a huge supporter of libraries. I'm still paying
Speaker 16: suit loans, so I very much see myself as a librarian.
Speaker 16: I'm a library advocate, I'm a literacy advocate, a mental
Speaker 16: health advocate, and so much more. But I think I
Speaker 16: just really used the big library's biggest fan. I'm there's
Speaker 16: a person who's trying to cheerlead for human beings and
Speaker 16: co mids them that they should make it make it
Speaker 16: to tomorrow for hours at time.
Speaker 7: I mean, and are you currently based in California as well?
Speaker 6: I am, I'm in the Bay Area.
Speaker 2: Your work so clearly demonstrates not just the importance of
Speaker 2: libraries and keeping them funded, but the importance of libraries
Speaker 2: as communal spaces and community building tools. But I wanted
Speaker 2: to get started with you recently posted to Instagram sort
Speaker 2: of a list of books to explain wildfires and wildfire
Speaker 2: consequences to children. Could you tell me a little bit
Speaker 2: more about how you source that?
Speaker 16: So I shared recommending books for children and teens and
Speaker 16: for library able to talk with their kids and teens
Speaker 16: about this tragedy of the California wildfires. It was built
Speaker 16: from other various libraries from scenes around posts from people
Speaker 16: like the book Wrangler.
Speaker 6: And saying okay that here are some books.
Speaker 16: Let's let's broaden the Let's broaden it just a little bit,
Speaker 16: because I wanted to make sure that the list was
Speaker 16: able to it was a book.
Speaker 6: Was a booklist that was good.
Speaker 16: For kids, teens, and also for grunk so they could
Speaker 16: help their own their family, but also so that they
Speaker 16: could help themselves. It's a compilation of picture books, chapter
Speaker 16: of books for kids, graphic novels by a books, and
Speaker 16: even some books that adults would also really appreciate as well.
Speaker 2: Libraries are sort of this first line of defense on
Speaker 2: educating about climate change and about climate catastrophe, especially for
Speaker 2: younger people.
Speaker 16: Unfortunately, I've had my own experience with wildfires being a
Speaker 16: California native, to be prepared to seeking to seek a
Speaker 16: list like this the infamous wildfires in California. Even though
Speaker 16: I'm on the other side of California, We're still very
Speaker 16: much in support of you all in southern California. We're
Speaker 16: trying to seek ways to provide resources to help. I
Speaker 16: myself working currently with various people to provide books to
Speaker 16: increase the presence of literacy and with the loss of houses,
Speaker 16: with the loss of one major library in Pasadena. I
Speaker 16: think that was a big part of where I was
Speaker 16: coming from. And that's my experience as librarian and various
Speaker 16: mental health crisises COVID nineteen of that major California wildfire.
Speaker 16: But as California also know that we have these wildfires,
Speaker 16: what it feels like every single year, and also in
Speaker 16: response to all the areas disasters across the nation, and
Speaker 16: be at the various shootings that occur, be it the hurricanes,
Speaker 16: be at the earthquakes, tsunamis, with the Sudan whatever I may,
Speaker 16: these are things I'm trying to find resources to share
Speaker 16: with people. This is how we yeah that are as neighbors.
Speaker 16: I'm a person alway talks about mister Rogers. This is
Speaker 16: what mister Rogers would have encouraged us to do. So
Speaker 16: how do we build resources to get towards the journey
Speaker 16: towards recovery.
Speaker 2: You know, being a local of just seeing a library
Speaker 2: gone and not and seeing all of these community space
Speaker 2: has gone, these schools, these places that you don't really
Speaker 2: consider what life would be like without. One of the
Speaker 2: most emotional responses I've had all week is learning that
Speaker 2: the Altadna main branch somehow survived at the fires, and
Speaker 2: that their staff is already organizing to make sure that
Speaker 2: you know, even though the air quality isn't safe at
Speaker 2: the main branch, what are programs we can do for kids?
Speaker 2: And the importance of libraries as community spaces where all
Speaker 2: are welcome.
Speaker 6: Absolutely No, I'm still so shocking.
Speaker 16: I've been on social media talking about libraries and literacy
Speaker 16: and so much more for it feels like years now,
Speaker 16: but there's still so many people who don't know about
Speaker 16: the joys and the resources that the local libraries offer,
Speaker 16: especially in tough times, unprecedented times like these that were
Speaker 16: living in. There's so much money. The libraries are always
Speaker 16: going to be about books. We're always going to push books.
Speaker 16: But now there's Libby, There's Hoopa Digital for audiobooks and ebooks.
Speaker 16: There's Canopy for TV shows and movies. There's Mango languages
Speaker 16: to learn a new language. For the various people who
Speaker 16: are displaced and trying to figure out how do I
Speaker 16: find these tools amongst amongst these disasters, there's tools, there's
Speaker 16: tooling libraries, there's big break collections, there's Tredio printers, there's
Speaker 16: there truly is something for everybody at the library. And
Speaker 16: that's in a response to saying, yes, the library is
Speaker 16: very much a community hub. It's all about there's something
Speaker 16: for everybody, for every single neighbor, every single person who
Speaker 16: lived in your community got to his library exists for
Speaker 16: and that's what I've loved it. I've scoured social media
Speaker 16: for resources, seeking ways to help. I love the immediate
Speaker 16: aftermath after the California wild Fighters, the most recent ones
Speaker 16: first started.
Speaker 6: I didn't love it, but it was so like for me,
Speaker 6: it was so refreshing.
Speaker 16: This author friends and various friends in southern California at
Speaker 16: the library.
Speaker 6: The library was still standing.
Speaker 16: That's where they get out of the air, of the
Speaker 16: bad quality air. They were in the library. I believe
Speaker 16: the La the La County Library is currently offering n
Speaker 16: ninety five masks. So I saw some friends just charging
Speaker 16: their devices, charging their their chargers, their their their phones,
Speaker 16: their childlets, whatever may be at the local library. And
Speaker 16: that's that's why the library is always going to be
Speaker 16: a third space. You don't have to have a library
Speaker 16: car to do that. You can just be You can
Speaker 16: just ask for help at the local library. A library
Speaker 16: card is not required. To seek help, seek services.
Speaker 7: As a library.
Speaker 2: And I mean in terms of just bringing people together
Speaker 2: housed on house of all classes, what if you sort
Speaker 2: of noticed over the years in terms of bringing folks together.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think this is so much of what
Speaker 6: you just said.
Speaker 16: There's so much, so much as possible for every person,
Speaker 16: regardless of their background, regardless of their financial situation, where
Speaker 16: they can benefit from local library.
Speaker 6: That's the beauty of it. I mean, that's like so
Speaker 6: many of you.
Speaker 16: So many of the Southern California libraries are still standing,
Speaker 16: and goodness, but they are ones there are lost, and
Speaker 16: there are so many people who are coming together to
Speaker 16: support these libraries. There's so many schools that have been lost,
Speaker 16: there are so many classes that have been temporarily put
Speaker 16: on Paul because of the situation where students are not
Speaker 16: allowed are not able to imagine and grow as much
Speaker 16: as they should be able to. And that's why I
Speaker 16: love it that are campaigns by people like author have
Speaker 16: on a combine who's trying to trying to gather various
Speaker 16: funds to gather books in various forms of literacy to
Speaker 16: donate and gift to local schools and local libraries and
Speaker 16: all these people are coming together to collect books, to
Speaker 16: collect so many, so many resources for these schools and
Speaker 16: these libraries. And I think that's why I've learned over
Speaker 16: the years being a library library loving persons. There's so
Speaker 16: many people who are willing to support libraries to go
Speaker 16: to back for the community because of what the library
Speaker 16: means to them. That libraries are still on offering these programs.
Speaker 16: We're offering story times, we're offering homework help, We're offering
Speaker 16: a space for you to go to be to learn something,
Speaker 16: to take your tests, to apply for jobs. And it's
Speaker 16: so amazing to see. I think, I I I believe
Speaker 16: I love the un housed community most most of all,
Speaker 16: so very, so very much. I think since leaving the
Speaker 16: library full.
Speaker 4: Time, I love that I go to my local library.
Speaker 16: I see my former my former run house friends I
Speaker 16: used to see all the time.
Speaker 6: They're like, oh man, good to see you back, and sell.
Speaker 16: You down at the other at these other institutions. Are
Speaker 16: you helping people with them with housing full time now?
Speaker 16: And I'm like, no, I just happen to be there.
Speaker 6: I love it.
Speaker 16: That's what they bring up because that's what the library
Speaker 16: should be. It should be a place that welcomes the
Speaker 16: house that tries to find them resources. It says, yes,
Speaker 16: we may not be able to do everything for you,
Speaker 16: but we're going to help you to the best of
Speaker 16: our abilities. I think that's why That's why I discovered
Speaker 16: most of all in the last stud years, from the community,
Speaker 16: from the neighbors, from people across the world. Honestly, if
Speaker 16: they love having a library card, they really appreciate their library.
Speaker 16: They recognize how powerful books have been in their lives.
Speaker 16: But most of them, they recognize the presidence of the
Speaker 16: library always being there, being there for them even they
Speaker 16: didn't remember the library there yes on a Tuesday five
Speaker 16: years from now. People could say, oh, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 16: realize I need this library at the time, but now
Speaker 16: I really need it, and I'm so surprised that even
Speaker 16: though I haven't used it all the time, it's still there.
Speaker 6: It's still there for me.
Speaker 16: I think that is the lasting legacy of the library,
Speaker 16: that the library is always going to be there for you.
Speaker 2: For the average person, what is the best way to
Speaker 2: support your local library.
Speaker 16: Shouldn't I talk about social media This morning. I was
Speaker 16: offering anybody who loves libraries or who wants to love libraries,
Speaker 16: far ways to support, to support them and keep them going.
Speaker 16: And I think number one is to get just to
Speaker 16: get a library card. You don't have to you don't
Speaker 16: have to use that library card. Just get a library card.
Speaker 16: You do that library card every single.
Speaker 7: You probably will end uf using.
Speaker 16: Yeah, exactly at number two, which is to visit the
Speaker 16: library to typtically use that library card to borrow the materials.
Speaker 4: It's totally fine.
Speaker 6: If you're a digital library user. You are helping the library.
Speaker 16: By using Libby and Hoopla, using audio books and ebooks.
Speaker 16: It helps libraries more than you know with funding, with
Speaker 16: making libraries better for the community. Borrow those tools from
Speaker 16: the tooling library, the bakewere supplies from the bakewere collection
Speaker 16: borrow the manga, got his novels, comic books, anything. Library
Speaker 16: has something for everybody. At least once a year. Use
Speaker 16: that library card. See what's all about. And then number
Speaker 16: three is to not only visit the library, but to
Speaker 16: use the library and specifically the programs. Attend library programs,
Speaker 16: the art programs, the history programs, the author talks whenever
Speaker 16: you see it. Try to go as often as possible.
Speaker 16: The last one, number four is just tell everyone about
Speaker 16: the libry, and I think that's the best way to
Speaker 16: keep libraries going. Libraries, as much as we're under attack,
Speaker 16: as much as we're facing a lot of problems, we're
Speaker 16: still there. People are showing up more than ever four libraries,
Speaker 16: and we just want to keep it going so that
Speaker 16: we can keep on offering everything for the community and
Speaker 16: show people liberation through literacy.
Speaker 11: Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and
Speaker 11: Iheardware Apps.
Speaker 2: It is written, hosted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 11: Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans Hemas
Speaker 11: with Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Speaker 11: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen.
Speaker 3: Voice acting is from Grant, creator and Pet.
Speaker 11: Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my Kats Flee
Speaker 11: and Casper and my pet Rockberg, who will outlive us
Speaker 11: all Bye.