the LA Fires: who's being forgotten?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hello Jamie. Here two quick things before we get started. First,
before you even start listening to this episode, please go
check out the link at the very beginning of this
episode of the description to contribute to gofundmes to middle
and working class families who have lost their homes in
the recent LA fires. Any amount you're able to give

(00:24):
is wonderful. I've been giving consistently, and at this time
I'm hearing that direct.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Financial aid is what is needed. So go check those out.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
And once you've done that, self plug reminding you that
I have tickets on sale for our live show with
the Bechdel Cast in San Francisco on next Thursday, January
twenty third. We still have a couple of tickets in
the description. Our Portland show.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Is sold out.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Sorry, And with that a very special sixteenth Minute.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Six six.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Hello, Welcome to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we usually
do other things, but every four episodes or so, something
of historical consequence happens and so then we talk about
that instead. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and usually on
this show we take a look at and often speak
with the internet's characters of the day and see how

(02:06):
their moment affected them and what it says about us
and the Internet. And this week, originally we were going
to be talking about Haley Welch, the Hawk to a Girl,
and we will not today, But I have sixteen thousand
words and a separate Google doc that guarantees that we
will be talking about her for more than one week,

(02:28):
I promise. But this week in particular, I wasn't sure
if I was going to be able to get an
episode out in time. I've been sicker than I've been
in years, but there's something important that I would like
to talk to you about this week, and that is
the fires in southern California, where I've lived for the
last nine years or so. I want to tell you

(02:49):
a little bit about what's going on, and hopefully use
this space to spotlight the people and the efforts that
I feel that some of the present coverage of this
tragedy is leaving behind. But just to be clear of
what I'm trying to do here, I am so grateful
to the on the ground reporters who are collecting these

(03:10):
crucial accounts of families who have lost their home, their histories.
But what I'm trying to do here is zoom ount
a little bit and take a look at some of
the underemphasized elements that will, I think help continue to
liberate displaced communities. I'm talking about mutual aid organizers, local
investigative reporters, advocates for the unhoused community, and advocates for

(03:35):
crucial public gathering spaces like our public libraries. So if
you're not totally familiar with the situation, or you are
and you're not sure how best to get involved, I
hope this is a place to start. But first Jamie's
little monologue. Last week, the first week of twenty twenty

(03:55):
five wildfires tour across southern California, burning through thousands and
thousands of acres and counting. As I write this, these
fires are nowhere close to being completely contained and have
at present claimed twenty four lives, with seventeen people still
missing and not accounted for.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
And it's not just one fire.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
The largest was in the Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica
areas south of where I live, while other fires burned
north in Altadena and Pasadena and in the San Gabriel Valley.
So there was a moment this past Wednesday where there
were fires within ten miles in every direction that our
city was just not able to combat fast enough to

(04:38):
save people. What hasn't been discussed very much is that
while many wealthy neighborhoods have burned, like the Pacific Palisades
and Santa Monica, there are also middle class and working
class neighborhoods that have burned, mainly Alta, Dina, and Pasadena.

(05:00):
And we'll get into that later, but it is important.
But first I want to share the names of the
people who were lost in these fires. Palisade senior Annette Rosalie,
who stayed behind with her four pets in her home.
Anthony and Justin Mitchell, a father and son in Altadena,
Anthony being in a wheelchair, and Justin who had cerebral palsy.

(05:24):
Anthony's body was found at the foot of his son's bed.
There's Arlene Kelly, and Altadena senior who didn't want to
abandon her home of more than forty years. There's Victor Shaw,
an Altadena resident who died fighting the flames in his
home with a garden hose. There's Altadena resident Rodney Nickerson,
who'd lived in the neighborhood for over fifty years. There's

(05:46):
Rory Sykes, who also had cerebral palsy and whose mother
was not able to evacuate him to safety. He was
my age. There's Randy Meod, who died in his Malibu
home fighting the fire. Delise Curry, a nine five year
old Alta Dina resident. She was a known figure in
Old Black Hollywood and an extra in Ladies Sings the Blues.

(06:07):
There's longtime Alta Dina resident Evelyn McLendon, who died in
her bedroom. There's Arthur Seminu, who died in the Tapanga
home he'd built with his own hands. The majority of
the people lost in these fires were seniors, they were disabled,
or they were longtime black homeowners in the middle class
neighborhood of Altadena, California. The people that we have lost

(06:32):
were valuable and many were vulnerable, and many who have
survived these fires are valuable and vulnerable. In short, I
am tremendously lucky because as I record this, I'm in
my apartment with air purifiers wailing, And even as a
tremendously lucky person, last week was really scary because, as

(06:56):
I said, I was really sick. As the air quality
worsened in and in my area, a large fire started
in an area we could see from our neighborhood. I
felt that we had to leave if I was going
to be any use to anyone in the long term.
So we went to Long Beach, about thirty miles south
until the smoke blew far enough south that it made

(07:18):
more sense to try to buy the last air purifier
on Earth and drive back home. And I'll add in
case this is funny, because I was extremely sick and
my boyfriend was not sick at all.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
We slept in separate twin.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Beds in n ninety five masks in this hotel room,
like if Lucy and Ricky has survived.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
An atomic bomb.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
But as I sit recording this Monday night, the city
is in for two more days of wind advisories and
quote unquote particularly dangerous conditions. According to the government, there's
families losing everything on a scale like this.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Do you know anything about your house?

Speaker 4 (08:00):
Known?

Speaker 5 (08:00):
Everything, my kids, school, our community, our neighbors, houses, everything's
just pronowned, everything's gone.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
We were having dinner.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
I told my three year old my one year old
that I told them that we're having a fancy candleg
dinnerhistled power went out, and then we looked outside. We
saw a huge fire and we just packed whatever we
can and we ran out.

Speaker 6 (08:26):
It was chaos, but.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
They you know, to me, it's just it's sad to
say everything that we work for, everything that.

Speaker 7 (08:35):
We built here to just be gone in hours.

Speaker 8 (08:40):
We want here for today, So we know what happened.
And now's our chimney. We're Santa comes in. It's gone.
Now we can't get presents here anymore.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
I know a dozen people whose homes and belongings and
memories are just gone. And many of these people have
young kids, and these kids have lost their schools, their libraries,
their parks, everything that they remember. We weren't ready for this,

(09:13):
and the most vulnerable communities that are so often treated
as afterthoughts, are always the first to suffer. It's not
fair that I get to sit here with my dumb,
fucking stuff and they have to start over.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
It's not fair. But that's not how.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
I have seen this talked about online, and this is
an internet culture show. So I will say that I
noticed that many people were kind of clowning on houses,
particularly in the Pacific Palisades, burning, and you know, my
Boston instinct is to say to those people, kill yourself.

(09:49):
But rationally. It's hard to get too angry at any
one person when the way that these tragedies are represented
on national news lead with the tremendous privileged each and
every time. To make sure I wasn't losing my mind,
I asked my family in Massachusetts, who were checking in
with me, what they had seen on the news, And

(10:11):
it was only these very privileged neighborhoods that they saw spotlighted.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Zan this being the home of Hollywood, of course, it's
everyday Californians. But they are not only every day Californians
that are the victims. Along a fire scarred stretch of Malibu,
we met up with Milo vent Emilia, a forty seven
year old father to.

Speaker 9 (10:32):
Be for Miles Teller, who played a firefighter in Only
the Brave. This is all the remains of his Palisades home,
the top Gun. Maverick Star and his wife bought the
Cape cod style villa in twenty twenty three for seven
and a half million dollars. Behind me, what is left
of Billy Crystal's house. This is the place where he
raised his children and grandchildren, and now it's gone. But

(10:55):
this is also about more than just celebrity. It is
about everyday.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
People, and it is cruel to mock anyone who has
lost their memories and all of their possessions. But with
class disparity the way it is in the US, I
get that leading with people who are very likely to
be able to rebuild with their own money. It's a
hard cell to empathize for people who are really struggling.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
But I can't emphasize enough.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Most of my friends who lost their homes were regular people.
They didn't live in the Palisades. They lived in the
middle class town of Altadena up in the Valley, a
place that has a lot of history and is known
as one of the only places in the area where
middle class families have even a shot at owning a home.
Now to mention that Altadena is a very diverse area

(11:47):
due to horrifically racist redlining practices in the mid century,
making Altadena a rare oasis where black and brown families
could buy their own property and build generational wealth, and
so much of that is gone. But if you're seeing
gleeful posts that the homes of the rich are burning,
you're missing the forest for the trees in a huge way.

(12:10):
And that's stupid, because the forest and the trees burned down.
I would ask you to consider how widespread the effects
of a climate catastrophe event like this will cause. Even
in the Pacific Palisades, We're sure many of the wealthy
will be able to afford to rebuild. I have not

(12:30):
seen a lot of consideration of who cleans these people's
homes and is now out of either a job, lodging,
or both.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Who are the.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Nannies who care for their children that are now out
of work. Who are the weight staff at their favorite restaurants.
Who are the Amazon delivery drivers that recently allege they've
been kept on twenty hour shifts in spite of the
danger that these fires present. It's a situation where, even
if you're lucky enough to still have your home, if
your job burned to the ground, what are you supposed

(12:59):
to do? I'd ask you to consider who is fighting
these fires. One piece of information I have seen breakthrough
to the mainstream this week is that over thirty percent
of the firefighters combating this nightmare are incarcerated, people who
make no more than ten dollars a day, risking their
lives to keep the rest of us safe.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
And many of them are young. I hope.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
I don't need to tell you what a racket American
incarceration is and how brutally it targets men of color.
And this in a state where California quite literally voted
to keep slave labor policies present in prisons just a
couple months ago. And what's worse, because of how felony
laws work in California, these same incarcerated firefighters will not

(13:42):
be eligible to be hired as firefighters professionally upon their release.
Twitch streamer Hassan Piker was able to interview some of
these firefighters the other night.

Speaker 10 (13:53):
Here's a clip cal fires kind of just a cover
up for it, you know, And we get out there
and we do.

Speaker 6 (13:59):
The hard work. Yeah, but shout out to those people.
Those people do work too, you know, but we get
the rough and tough and of the state.

Speaker 11 (14:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (14:07):
If you heard of the word institutionalized, right, it's the
word institutionalized. I've heard that work before, institutionalized. Like so
now I've been I've only did it for like twelve
years and thirteen years. But the point is, I'm about
to get home.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Home next month.

Speaker 12 (14:19):
So you go from the cell to this right here,
it's like it's culture shocking. So now I guess like
the fire camp, bringing back lights to the fire camp, right,
it does help you because now you start like like
get mingling with the public, with you guys, the civilians, right,
which is I feel foreign with you guys because it
feels like I'm part of the prison.

Speaker 9 (14:37):
That's who I was.

Speaker 12 (14:38):
So they allotted me to be, right, Yeah, so they
wanted me to be so like now they want you
to get out here and then go to a fire
camp and then act like if you're a firefighter when
we do get like minimum training, right, So how is
it that you do that? How can I become a
better civilian?

Speaker 13 (14:53):
A citizens?

Speaker 12 (14:54):
And you're coming from prison to this, Like maybe you
guys know something about that.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
If you're interested in learning more, or you can also
send money directly to commissary for these firefighters at the
link in the description. But I can't emphasize enough we
have teenage prisoners fighting fires at slave wages. Consider the
air something that I can say for a fact people
are really confused about because I'm really fucking confused about it.

(15:21):
If I look at my phone right now, Apple says the.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Air quality is good.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
But Apple doesn't take into consideration the kind of chemicals
that are released into the air when over ten thousand buildings,
some of which are very old, burn nearby.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
My phone is like, go outside, queen.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
But when I go outside, the confetti that we released
on New Year's Eve is on our neighbor's porch covered
in ash. Consider how unregulated our housing market is. There's
a number of thankfully eagle eyed people tracking how reeltors
and landlords have been increasing rent prices by a lot
overnight in order to take advantage of these displays families.

(16:00):
And if these aren't reported and there aren't rent and
eviction moratoriums put in place, this will inevitably displace renters
who are priced out of their longtime neighborhoods to be
replaced by these families. And while we have heard so
many devastating accounts of families who are newly unhoused or
housing insecure, there has been little to no consideration or

(16:24):
conversation about people who have lived on the streets of
Los Angeles for years. Many unhoused people in the area
now have access to n ninety five masks, but in
a polluted environment that no one quite understands. Yet, unhoused
people are as always on the front lines of the
climate crisis, living in a city that is always hostile

(16:47):
to them. A climate scientist at UCLA named Daniel Swam,
who is a very respected local source, said that a
tragedy like this was inevitable at this stage of climate crisis.
He says, when you have bone dry, critically dry vegetation,
fifty to ninety mile an hour winds with highly flammable

(17:08):
structures densely intermixed with vegetation, there isn't a lot to
stop the aggressive chemical reaction that is the combustion process
of an intense wind driven fire, and so to some
degree there's only so much the city and state can do.
But this city is historically hostile to the unhoused. It's
a place where the forty one to eighteen code states

(17:30):
that the unhoused are prohibited from quote sitting, lying or sleeping,
or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property in the
public right.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Of way unquote.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Basically, it's illegal to be unhoused, and this has continued
now at a national level. Last summer, the Supreme Court
passed the Grant's past decision one that makes it quite
literally an arrestable offense to be unhoused, and what tragedies
like these fires demonstrate is a time I'm honored truth.

(18:01):
You can do everything right, but if something unprecedented happens,
if something happens to your home, if you get sick
and your insurance won't cover something, it is very possible
that you would find yourself unhoused and subject a nationally
sanctioned brutality. It is all legal, every climate catastrophe, and

(18:23):
they will continue lay bare the ways in which systems
have failed us and encouraged us to turn against one another.
Isn't this episode fun? Are we having fun?

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (18:37):
One last thing, even in the middle of this scary time,
I do think that there is still a lot to
be grateful for. Something I've been thinking about a lot
is I read a book a few years ago, at
the recommendation of one Robert Evans, called A Paradise Built
in Hell by Rebecca Solnet, one that takes a look

(18:57):
at some of the most devastating no disasters in the
last century plus of North American history, and its central
thesis is that when disaster strikes, it's inhuman nature, across class, racial,
gender boundaries, to be there for your community. Even though

(19:17):
plenty of media would have us believe that normal people
go Lord of the flies and turn against each other,
we don't, soul Net illustrates. She uses examples ranging from
the San Francisco earthquake of nineteen oh six to Hurricane
Katrina in New Orleans in two thousand and five in
great detail to show that mutual aid and wanting to
help our neighbors during a disaster appears to be a

(19:39):
natural instinct. This inherent desire to help others is so
much of what I've seen in the last four days.
My point is not to go full Randy on you,
but I love la, I love it. I just wanted
to share a passage from a paradise built in house

(20:00):
that frames disaster as a devastating and painful opportunity to
view the world differently. Disasters provide an extraordinary window into
social desire and possibility and what manifests their matters elsewhere.
In ordinary times and in other extraordinary times, in the

(20:20):
wake of an earthquake, a bombing, or a major storm,
most people are altruistic, urgently engaged in caring for themselves
and those around them, strangers and neighbors, as well as
friends and loved ones. The image of the selfish, panicky,
or regressively savage human being in times of disaster has
little truth to it. Decades of meticulous sociological research on

(20:42):
behavior and disasters have demonstrated this, but belief lacks behind,
and often the worst behavior in the wake of a
calamity is on the part of those who believe that
others will behave savagely and that they themselves are taking
defensive measures against barbarism. Disaster doesn't sort us out by preferences.

(21:03):
It drags us into emergencies that require we act or
act altruistically, bravely, and with initiative in order to survive
or save the neighbors. No matter how we vote or
what we do for a living, the positive emotions that
arise in those unpromising circumstances demonstrate that social ties and
meaningful work are deeply desired, readily improvised, and intensely rewarding.

(21:27):
Horrible in itself, disaster is sometimes a back door into paradise,
the paradise at least in which we are who we
hope to be, do the work we desire, and are
each our sisters and brothers keeper, and when we come
back a few talks with the people who have been
shedding light on their forgotten.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
People of these disasters. See you after these scary ads.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Welcome back to sixteenth minute, No little jokes today. It's
a serious one. One of the many things that I
believe I can turn any innocuous conversation into is a
belabored point about the desperate need for local journalism, and.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
This episode is no exception.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
It's the local reporters who know the city like the
back of their hand, who know the massive diversity and
richness of experience and problems that exist within it, that
can really get to the heart of the issues that
the average.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Angelina is facing right now.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
And I cannot overstate how much I admire our first
interviewee today.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Alissa Walker.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
It was the podcast that she co hosts, LA podcast
about local issues that really woke me up to the
inner machinations of our city and had a big part
in activating me as a part of my own community.
She is an amazing reporter who has long written about
public transportation. She's written for Curbed and most recently launched
her own own newsletter, Torched. Here's Alyssa Walker.

Speaker 14 (23:03):
My name's Alyssa Walker.

Speaker 15 (23:04):
I'm a journalist who writes the newsletter Torch, which has
a rather appropriate name, which is covering LA's mega event era,
including the twenty twenty eight Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Speaker 7 (23:18):
There's so many things I want to talk to you about.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
I know you've been reporting on the LA area for
such a long time now, and particularly I mean you
might go to in terms of transportation in particular, and
that you lived in the area. You're a parent, There's
all of these intersecting issues in your life. When it
became clear these fires were going to have a serious
impact on our area. What was your first instinct as
a parent, and what was your first instinct as a journalist.

Speaker 15 (23:41):
I put a story out last week, a few days
after the fires began, and the first thing that was
wild was after the first really bad night, LAUSD hadn't
canceled schools.

Speaker 14 (23:52):
They have really big.

Speaker 15 (23:54):
Aversion to, you know, telling parents who you know, of
course rely on the school to be able to go
to work, that they're going to cancel school. So you
have you see all this real hesitation about why an't
we going to close them? How do we provide services
like meals to kids, you know, who rely on them.
And then of course, like we have staff members who
are impacted, you know, evacuating or maybe you know, having

(24:18):
to travel far distances on dangerous roads. So that first morning,
actually school was not canceled. We went to school. And
one of the reasons I took my kids in school
was because the smell of smoke was so strong inside
our house.

Speaker 14 (24:32):
And I know that their.

Speaker 15 (24:33):
School building got upgraded filtration systems during growing.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Right, Right, that didn't even accorded to me, but like
that makes total sense that.

Speaker 7 (24:41):
It might be safe for there.

Speaker 15 (24:43):
Right, they just messaged that, you know, they would try
to keep the kids inside and we should bring them.
And you know, for a lot of people, I think
that sounded like a better deal than being in their well. Me,
I have this like leaky, drafty house. So we took
them a and then within a few hours, I think
it was very clear how bad the situation was and

(25:06):
we had to go scoop them up and they went back.
Today today's Monday.

Speaker 14 (25:09):
I'm glad they're back.

Speaker 15 (25:10):
You know, a lot of schools, some schools burned to
the ground, Some schools are really close to evacuation zones.
Some have extenuating circumstances, and I'm sure a lot of
parents don't feel good about sending kids back, especially when
we have this second windstorm coming through. But for the meantime,
you know, that was my biggest concern, was, you know,
worrying about a lot of people have to travel through

(25:32):
the region to get to places, and I think lausd
offers a good signal that people should stay home and
get prepared and take care of their families and check
in on loved ones. So I was glad that the
schools were closed because at least it sends that message
that's very powerful.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
And I think that this ties into a larger point
you made in your most recent piece, where there was
just very clunky communication on the city's part on the whole,
because I've seen so much black and white debate of
like is this a failure of city officials or is
it just the inevitable consequence of climate change? And I

(26:10):
feel sure the answer is somewhere in the gray area.
As such a close observer of city politics, what could
have been done better here?

Speaker 15 (26:18):
So this is where I'll turn to the scientists first
instead of that, instead of the politicians. I've been watching
the live streams of Daniel swayin cla climate scientists and
like a climate messenger, kind of like studies about how
we do communication related to these types of disasters. Always
a fascinating person to talk to someone I always call when.

Speaker 14 (26:40):
I have a question. And that's basically what he said.

Speaker 15 (26:43):
The second part, you know of your thought that this
is an unprecedented situation because of the situations we have created,
because we worship fossil fuels in the city and this
society and this country and this planet, and there's really
at a certain point nothing you can do when you're
faced with these types of conditions. They kept calling it

(27:03):
the perfect storm. That being said, there are a lot
of things that we could do. The Palisades fire started
in a neighborhood that is in the city of la
but it's like tucked up into the mountains of Malibu.
We can talk about why it started later. I'm sure

(27:24):
they're figuring that out. There's a lot of things to
discuss there. But the fact that we are building in
areas that need to burn, continue to burn have burned traditionally,
creates a catastrophic and dangerous situation for everyone else that
lives in the city. And until we want to confront
that this.

Speaker 14 (27:44):
Is going to keep happening.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
What if the Olympics were happening right now? You ask
yourself this every day, as you say.

Speaker 14 (27:51):
Like I said, it terrifies me.

Speaker 15 (27:52):
I literally walk around the city every single day and
think that I think about it on one hundred and
ten degree days when we have like pout major power.
You know, I'm at a loss for words right now
because it's like, this is kind of the worst thing
I ever considered happening while it was happening. But in
a way, the thing I'm worried the most about is

(28:13):
more people being here. It doesn't sound very considerate of
the residents, but like adding millions of tourists to the evacuations,
people who don't understand how those alerts come through on
their phones, Like do we are we gonna tell people
when they land in lax to lax to like download

(28:33):
all the different warning systems and the earthquake early warning system.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Right, and like introducing more language barriers and just oh
my gosh, such a good point.

Speaker 15 (28:42):
And people staying in hotels that don't have access to cars,
and that's the instinct to getting your car and evaccuat.

Speaker 14 (28:48):
Even though it might not be the best idea.

Speaker 15 (28:49):
You might need to get out a different way. So actually,
what you know, what terrifies me the most is having
people who aren't familiar with the city here. That was
always in my mind. This is still look for the
worst case scenario though. Yeah, I wrote a story for
Curved after the Woldy fire with those it's the same
images we see every time, just the cars backed up
on the pch of people trying.

Speaker 7 (29:11):
To get out.

Speaker 15 (29:12):
And that was during the same time as the campfire,
which is you remember in Paradise, which is the deadliest
fire in Califerni history. Hopefully we do not get close
to those numbers here. Many of those deaths were caused
by people who were trying to evacuate in their car,
who got stuck in traffic trying to get out as
the flames were kind of coming too fast. Again a

(29:33):
situation where you can't drive fast enough in some of
these cases to outrun these fire, these new fires that
we've created, and to talk to experts, especially after that fire,
saying in the wolseyfire in LA just saying, like, you know,
have a bike in your garage, like have another way
to get out.

Speaker 14 (29:52):
Just come up with it.

Speaker 15 (29:53):
One one alternate that's not a car, because all sorts
of things can prevent you from getting out in a car.
And when there was evacuation, the evacuation of Hollywood the
other night there was the sunset fire that was in
Running Canyon.

Speaker 16 (30:07):
You know, the.

Speaker 15 (30:08):
Fastest way to get out, we'd have probably been walking
down to the Hollywood Highland Metro Station. Trains were running,
trains were free, and just put yourself to safety, like
just yeah, yet far away as far away as you can.
That was not something that our city leaders were promoting.

Speaker 7 (30:27):
Without the laboring the point.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
I mean, I think about how as you've written about
quite a bit that the La Olympics in twenty twenty
eight are predicated on, will be a Carliss city by then.

Speaker 15 (30:38):
What is the likelihood is that actually every venue is
actually every venue? Yeah, I mean, it's it's a funny that,
Like I said, that was the first thing I thought
of when the fire started, when it was very small
and you had Steve Gutenberg, you know, out there telling
people not to leave their keys in their car when
they were abandoning their vehicles because and then they come
through with the they came through the bouldo or to

(31:00):
move like all these like Porsches and Teslas and Mercedes
like get out. I mean, it was very comical in
the early moments of the fire, because this is this
is our this is how the life we've chosen is.
You might have to leave your car behind as you're
getting out because you get stuck in traffic. But it's
the same issue when I go back to the way

(31:21):
we've decided to design our communities right, like, you do
need two different ways out.

Speaker 14 (31:27):
You do need to be able to.

Speaker 15 (31:28):
Walk to a place where maybe a shuttle can come
pick you up and evacuate you safely if you don't
have a car. In Altadena, there was there are multiple
instances of people who were disabled or who were elderly
who were left behind. This is usually what happens in
these types of disasters. I believe in the campfire three

(31:52):
fourths of the victims where elderly or disabled. In the
median age was something like seventy five or something like that.
So we have not done a good job with that
aspect of our evacuation plan. I mean, yes, we say
chicken on your neighbors, get yourself ready, we always say
pack the car, But like if you look at other
cities that have been through these types of disasters, like

(32:13):
New Orleans, they do have like a public evacuation system
in place where you're making sure that everyone can get out.
And that's I mean, that's what shouldn't happen in a
place like Pacific Palisades, right. You just don't imagine that
that a wealthy community like that would have deaths because
people got left behind.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
As a journalist, what stories are not being looked at
that should be looked at in the mainstream coverage of
this event. Who are releading behind? What stories are releading behind?

Speaker 15 (32:44):
I would love to see more about why people were
physically left behind. But really the story they said this
morning on the news on Monday morning, I think they
said seventeen people were still missing. I hope we won't
reach these very high numbers where we have this massive
loss of life. But for the most part, we do
do an okay job, you know, getting people to safety,

(33:08):
but there are these big gaps, and not just you know,
the physical of you know, being able to transport people,
but the messaging systems. I'm seeing so many different ways
that people were told to leave and who told them
to leave and who they listened to, and even the
risk that people know about when they buy a home,
and that many people had moved into places that they

(33:30):
didn't fully understand had burned recently. So how can we
continue to explain to people how dangerous this is. I
think people get earthquake drilled into their head a lot
and they think about that a lot. But these are
fires that are coming down into neighborhoods sometimes that aren't burning,

(33:51):
haven't burned before. So we really need to have a
deeper conversation about messaging and disclosures. I guess is in
one sense, if you rent to the place, would you
know the same way that a homeowner? Did you know
what kind of what kind of risk?

Speaker 3 (34:06):
You read?

Speaker 15 (34:06):
All these questions I have? Yeah, maybe just like situational
awareness about your neighborhood, your particular home. You know, we
shouldn't be forced to learn all these things.

Speaker 14 (34:18):
But this is kind of a new.

Speaker 15 (34:20):
Reality we all need to face together. If a fire
starts tonight, you know, during the second windstorm event, it
doesn't really matter where you are in the city. It's
not going to be put out right away because the
resources are a stretch thin and everything could go up
in flance. But just being prepared, talking to your neighbors,

(34:41):
getting everything packed up, even if you're going on foot,
this is what we have to do. Yeah, well, thank
you so much, Thank you, Jamie, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
So much to Alissa, and particularly if you're a local,
I highly encourage you to subscribe to her newsletter torched
in the description. So my next conversation is with a
close colleague and friend of mine named Theo Henderson. And
if you don't listen to his show on iHeart Podcasts,
you have to get your act together. It's called We
the Unhoused, and it began back in twenty nineteen when

(35:16):
THEO himself was living on the streets of Los Angeles.
These days, he's brought the show to iHeart and continues
to be one of the only major platforms where stories
about and that concern the unhoused are told and centered
around the unhoused. And I was really eager to hear
what Theo had been hearing within the unhoused community and
how he felt about the media cycle around this climate disaster.

Speaker 7 (35:40):
Theo Henderson, Hello.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Hello, thank you for having me on your show. It's
like turn about as by a play.

Speaker 7 (35:47):
I know the tables have turned.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
I'm so glad that you're doing all right. This, I mean,
just observationally, is another huge example of the mainstream media
kind of wing it. So I'm curious, as you've been
observing how the coverage of this has been versus the
lived reality, what's been on your mind.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
I've seen some misfires in the communication about the newly
displaced and the existing displays of unhoused community members, and
how the narrative has been framed. In the beginning, the
narrative was framed as they were looking at rich people's homes,
which brought out a response where there was a lot
of cynicism and sarcasm and a lot of Gallows type

(36:33):
of humor, which people took umbrage with because of the
fact that anybody can lose, no matter what kind of
economic status that they have, can lose things and can
feel things. And I think the point was made on
the moment was missed is because of the fact that
media does what media does, mainstream media in particular, they

(36:54):
always try to reach out for the elite or the
oligard in the ways we have to feel empathy and
sympathy for them. But we missed the point where the
people the rich people that are being displaced, there were
people that work for rich people that are being displaced.
There were rich people, There are people working class people

(37:14):
that have to survive, provide the services and all of
the accouterments that are necessary for the wealthy to upkeep
their lives. But we also miss out on another major
incident that when we talk about how marabas Has does
a duplicious type of service, is that during the cars,
during all of the panic and the chaos and the

(37:36):
pandemonium was going, they were sweet still being held. There
were sweeps being on simultaneously and the same day on
the same time, where people were being asked to move.
Whether it's spot clean or whether it was a deep
intensive or whether it was the way of just forcibly
removing on house people from areas when a such a

(37:57):
volatile situation was occurring. They're still coming at every Thursday.
They come sweep on house people every Thursday. It's just
so much that many unhoused people's self ef thatt it
is when I was on housed, I briefly stay here,
but the antipathy against unhoused people here is so strong,
and they hide it with political correctness, and they don't

(38:19):
really you don't really see the veil come off unless
you are really entrenched in it and you are impacted.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
All of the immediate coverage went to these wealthy people,
which is the media's tendency, and also just like those
discordant any solidarity to the working class that makes LA work.
I haven't seen anything about, you know, the domestic workers
in the palis Ades. I haven't seen anything about you know,
the weaighte staff that works in this area, people who

(38:46):
may not have lost their homes but definitely lost their jobs.
And I mean there's just such a wide gradient in
a way that I feel like minimizes the issue and
makes it seem like, oh good, these rich people lost
their homes, Because are all of these people, I mean
thousands of people who are either newly housing, insecure or

(39:06):
unhoused themselves now overnight. I feel like it really just
further demonstrates that this could happen to anyone. Everyone is
far closer to being unhoused than they think. But in
the media, I've noticed that there's a clear delineation between well,
they were housed last week, so we don't need to
treat them like we do unhoused people in the media.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
That's the agual conversation point that we have is that
for example, the worthy un housed and the unworthy on house.
You see, the narrative has been always put out because
which is why the unintended consequences always is. I guess
it is oxymoronic if you want to be being really clear,
is the fact that the narrative has always been pushed

(39:51):
about unhoused people are drug addicted, mentally ill, they don't
want help. It's it's effective because it turns the working
class that could be an ally to you against you.
Now we have to sift through all of the misinformation,
but also sift through what the apparatus that's in place
that when we talk about houselessness, when we talk about

(40:14):
housing insecurity, we must be honest with our communities and
what are different walks of life to understand that this
is a declear example of climate exchange. I want to
point out one more thing about climate change as well.
Climate injustice is what is going on and the first
line of defensive people that are affected, the frontline workers

(40:35):
are unhoused people. You know, many people could put on
a mask, But the mask is still not necessarily effective
enough if you're sitting in a stationery position outside on
the street, where there's debris, where there's falling ash, where
there's breathing metals and all of the other things that
are going on. It only gives you a certain rescipite

(40:57):
if you're going into maybe another layer of protection, like
you can go into a building, close the door and
not be able to ingest that for it maybe a
temporary period of time. But can unhouse people do that
on a sustaining level. No, not particularly. There are not
enough shelters. There are not enough places where they can
be able to find a respite. On the weekend, like Sunday,

(41:19):
the libraries are closed, so where they're going to go.

Speaker 16 (41:22):
You know?

Speaker 4 (41:22):
So I think we there is so much of the
environmental issues to be considered. I personally, it affects me,
like but I got affected with all of the asking
my damn. I But yeah, like the breathing quality, It's
like when I was out living when they have brush fires,
it is very difficult to try to sleep, and it's

(41:44):
very difficulty if you have health issues. I have health issues.
It affects my my chart. It affects my breathing. So
I know I'm not the only one. I know I'm
not the only unhused person that has other medical issues
that have to contend with where there maybe having people
that may have medical issues and other issues that they're
in a house environment to be able to get the
appropriate medical care. Many in house people missed that they

(42:07):
still state type of services.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
I know you speak to this every week on Webian House,
which I'm going to plug the hell out of throughout
this show.

Speaker 7 (42:18):
How you know this is a.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
California example of the of a house people being on
the front lines of climate injustice.

Speaker 7 (42:25):
But you cover stories like this all the time.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
I mean, you've talked about Florida and North Carolina and
these are problems that aren't going to go away.

Speaker 4 (42:34):
Well also too that climate change affects us maybe a
little bit a different lead. They have a different recipe
because we're dealing with brush fires. But I also want
to point out the climate changes that are going on
in the Midwest and the colder places where there are
migrant on house families are living out in in elements
it's very cold. We're going to get a cold snap

(42:55):
coming up very soon. So on house people here are
going to be dealing with that issue. But I also
want to point out most hypothermic depths are usually here
in California, but particularly because I believe most when I
was in the house in Chicago and those Midwest places,
they do have places where warming centers and things, and
California does, and Los Angeles in particular does a very

(43:18):
piss for job and getting the word out creating services
to get vans or trolleys or things of that nature
to get unhouse people to and fro places and have
it may be a commiss you kind of are kind
of warming centers where there's not stringent requirements for them
to be in places that I think that's where one

(43:40):
of the things that many of the things that Los
Angeles misses demark on during the season, there are various
stages of climate injustice and incidents that are happening to
unhouse people.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
The answers to this, I know will be fairly obvious,
but for the sake of asking it, what is the
City of Los Angeles and the state, by extension, what
should they be doing for unhoused and housing insecure folks
right now that they are not doing?

Speaker 4 (44:06):
We need another eviction and rent more moratorium. The second
thing is that we need is another facilities opened up
that are extended for unhoused people to have a sustained
place to live, may hotels, but also places where we
can be able to get unhoused people inside. And in
two we need to upgrade our medical facilities because again

(44:29):
unhoused people, you're going to see many more. It's going
to be an uptick of medical emergencies, particularly probably from
unhoused people, because they're going to be in sustained environmentively
disastrous kind of areas. There was an unhoused person that
I was in contact with that was impacted. They voluntarily
evacuated because the area that they were at was starting

(44:51):
to burn and so they had to leave because they
were in hiding. And why were they in hiding. It's
because of the aggressiveness of the Grands past that and
then the forty one eighteen kind of things.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Just for listener clarity, I know we talk about this
every single day. What is Grant's past for those who
are not in the.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
Know, Yes, well, you know, as you know, Jay, I
know it exasperates everybody, but I've been on the book box.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
I'm sorry, No get back on the subdox.

Speaker 7 (45:19):
This is the time.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
So well, I'm going to do a very quick synopsis
because I can go in on and on on like
I'm on a pool pill. So the launch. In short
of it, what Grant's Past is done is given the
right for state city workers and leaders to criminalize unhoused
people without any solutions, without any kind of appropriate follow

(45:42):
up to get them off the streets. In short, it
is basically they have to write it they see an
unhoused person to put them in jail or do other
criminalized ticket them, or make themselves evict or evict them
from the area. Because many of the cities would use
that as the rallying cry or the whipping poles to

(46:03):
justify that. They claim that they couldn't do anything because
the state is giving the and how so many rights
or you hear Heaven forbid that on house people between
like human beings instead of the detriatis that they want
to treat them as. So Grant's Past is the vehicle
that is used to justify different horristic examples. One of

(46:24):
the things that I do think too, we were making
a very good point too about with COVID about where
one shelter had one hundred percent of the entire staff
and residents had COVID because they were bunched in together.
But also one of the improving things that I think
encouraging is that and this is not from the city,
but I noticed from our citizenry the mutual aid response.

(46:47):
I think that was the perfect proving ground or the
perfect testing ground and case and a point that I
want to point out, and I've been interviewing some of
the neutral eight groups myself that stating some of the
city leaders are asked for resources from the mutual groups.
We've been asking for the assistance the city is what
they always do is throw money at the problem for

(47:09):
criminalization or propaganda propaganda campaign to delineate or to blame
the victims for their problems, but in the same on
the certain turf token that they want service this from us.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
That is I think one of the major positive takeaways
of the last week is I feel like it's proven
time and time again, and I think we saw this
during COVID as well, is when times are horrible, it
is human instinct to come together and want to provide support.
I'm curious how you have seen the mutual aids sort

(47:45):
of roll out, but how do we sustain it? You know,
I mean I worry about flashing the pan moments and
then and then I'll fall off.

Speaker 4 (47:53):
Well, yeah, that's one of the legitimate concern One of
the things that I noticed when I first started my
podcast during the time hy pandemic, everyone was concerned. Everyone
wanted to dial in to understand about houselessness and housing
and security because they realized on that clear example that
they were on their way out on the street, there

(48:14):
were some that were on this way on street. But
also it also created a sense of bond hominge or
a sense of empathy that is fleeting. And one of
the things that I've noticed on what really irritates is
why there was such a generation of gallows humor and
starcasm about this current situation is because of the flashing

(48:34):
the plan or the spotty kind of empathy that it is.
It's like, one of the things that we need is frankly,
most mutual aids need now is money, because this is
a problem that's going to have unintended consequences. There was
a recent article that was talking about people are competing
now that had would recently house and trying to find housing. Now,

(48:58):
I want you to consider for a moment, looking into
the vista on what this is going to look like
for the newly unhoused. They are now going to be
susceptible to Grant's pass. They're now going to be susceptible
to being swept. They're now going to be susceptible to
forty one eighteen. Because the money is going to only
sustain terminal one that lived on the house and had
to go through the steps before I became completely unhoused.

(49:21):
You're going to be on this hamster wheel that you
won't be able to get off unless you have some
kind of community organized support to be able to get
you out of that and to sustain you when you
are not financially at the best place, or you're going
to end up falling through the cracks like many of
the young house currently are. And you're going to see
the effects on how the city has very limited empathy

(49:45):
or sympathy towards your condition, even though you've gone through
the pandemic or you've gone through the fires. We're going
to see more of that. We're going to see more
of the politician is going to come in and look
at unhoused trying to hope with the stresses and traumas
of losing everything and trying to use the coping mechanisms
that they can, and they're going to make a video

(50:06):
and make it sound like this is where your money
is going. They're coddling on house people they don't want
help and things like that, and then now we're going
to be faced in the same hostile kinds of response
to the houseless crisis.

Speaker 7 (50:19):
Is there anything I didn't ask that you wanted to
touch on?

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Also to really lean into the mutual aids start financially
being much more sustainable in helping the unhoused currently as
well as the enduring on housed as well as well
as looking at TO and both of our podcasts and
learning more of the matter because I'm going to be
covering the fires as well and the multitude of different

(50:44):
responses that I've heard, and I wanted to be able
to say that thank you, thank.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
You so much to the amazing THEO Henderson, and please
subscribe to be the Unhoused as you will continue to
cover the fallout of the fires in the unhoused community,
which is definitely something to keep your eye on. And
we will be right back with mutual aid and organizational
tips with three pros. See you after all these ads.

(51:27):
Welcome back to sixteenth minute with more interviews with the
folks who are shedding light on those who aren't being
centered in these conversations about the Southern California fires. My
next conversation is with the executive director, operations manager, and
volunteer coordinator with an unhoused nonprofit coalition in my neighborhood
called SILA. Sarah Maybe and Rachel are such wonderful people,

(51:51):
and as they are very experienced organizers, I wanted to
ask them what this week has been like with increased
demand for services and how they would advise new organizers
who want to get involved. Here's our talk.

Speaker 10 (52:03):
Hey, everybody, my name is Maybe, the operations manager for CELA,
and my pronouns are she her, and they them.

Speaker 16 (52:10):
Hi.

Speaker 13 (52:10):
My name is Sarah Mayis. I'm the executive director of
sela neighborhood homeless coalition, and my pronouns are she her.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
We're recording this interview on the afternoon of Monday the thirteenth,
and I know it has been a very heartening and
also chaotic weekend over at CELA. How's everybody doing.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Good?

Speaker 13 (52:33):
Can you tell by our silence we're good. I'll let
I'll let everyone else speak to about to their mental
health and energy. But I think we are. We're overwhelmed
and in all the best possible ways. But yeah, overall good, Yeah,
do it.

Speaker 10 (52:49):
All right, both physically and emotionally, recovering from the past
few days.

Speaker 14 (52:54):
I definitely feel similarly.

Speaker 17 (52:56):
Something that I know all of us are feeling that
I think speaks to how much I love everybody here
is that we all are dealing with our own personal
anxieties with fire and our own homes and our friends' homes,
and that we're all still able to come together and
focus on each other is beautiful and also of course tiring.

Speaker 14 (53:15):
But we all have so much support.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
For those listening who are uninitiated. What does a normal
week look like at CELA in terms of mission and programs,
and then we'll talk about what has been adjusted and
expanded in the past week.

Speaker 13 (53:29):
Absolutely so. Our vision statement at SELA Neighborhood Homeless Coalition
is a community where every neighbor thrives. That's sort of
what we're working towards, is this ideal community where homelessness
is not something that we're confronting, because everyone has a
home and the resources they need to thrive in their
world in their lives. We do that by activating a

(53:51):
coalition of participants and sister organizations and working in lockstep
with social services and city services to host a couple
of different program types. So first and foremost, we have
our drop in programs at the Silver Lake in Silver
Lake in Hollywood and in Echo Park. Those drop in

(54:12):
programs are every single week, and they provide things like
bike repair and ID support and meals, and some of
them have movie screenings. But really fundamentally, what they are
is a place for people to come and be in
community and know that just because they are existing without
homes at this moment, that does not make them anything

(54:33):
other than our neighbors and valued members of our community.
And those are our drop in programs. Our outreach programs
run in tandem with many of our drop in programs. Again,
those happen multiple times every single week across Northeast LA,
and we do things by starting with material aid, like
handing out water bottles at encampments. Right now, we're doing masks.
We can talk about some of our emergency response a

(54:54):
little bit later, but handing out meals handing out harm
reduction supplies and getting to know people and really truly
fundamentally listening to what is the experience of our neighbors
who are living on the street and what is it
that they need, and educating our house neighbors and elevating
the voices of our unhoused neighbors to make sure that
we're all working in unison to create that community where
every neighbor thrives.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
You're such a well oiled machine of being able to
show up, not to show up for your own house neighbors,
but also build sustaining relationships, build connections in the neighborhood
that can assist your unhoused neighbors, whether that be medical
or veterinary services, whether that be social services, whether that
be connecting with transportation or caseworkers, or whatever.

Speaker 7 (55:38):
The need may be.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
In a situation like this last week, where all of
a sudden there is a new population of people who
are either housing insecure or houseless, what was it like
as sort of the leaders of this organization of figuring
out how do we respond to this and how do
we expand on the programs and systems we arelready have

(56:00):
in place.

Speaker 10 (56:01):
You know, I think one of the things that helped
us to be prepared for something that was not necessarily
immediately foreseeable is the fact that we do this week
in week out, year round, year after year. So our
organization exists to respond to people in crisis. And so
given that, you know, I feel like we were just

(56:21):
a little more prepared than you know, somebody who doesn't
work with a volunteer organization or is not immediately familiar with,
you know, working with people who are neighbors in crisis.
So because we already had our programs in place, we
basically had to adapt our existing programs to meet the
conditions of the day. And so, you know, we had

(56:43):
our Wednesday program. At first, we thought about canceling the
program because you know, we were nervous about having our
volunteers have to be outside, nervous about our participants having
to be outside during these you know, this these smoky conditions.
So basically we ended up adapting the program. We brought
it inside, and we open it up to the entire community.
Anybody that needed to come in to charge their devices

(57:06):
if their power was out, if they're housed, or if
they needed to just get out of the smoky air,
basically just opening it up to everybody. So a lot
of adaptation, but because we already have systems in place,
it was we were able to adapt to the situation.

Speaker 9 (57:21):
You know.

Speaker 10 (57:21):
One of the other things is, you know, we've been
overwhelmed in such a positive way, with so many people
wanting to help in so many different kinds of ways,
whether that be through material donations or through volunteering, and
so I think even just you know, having to figure
out how to utilize in a very quick manner, how
to effectively take in these donations and you know, empower

(57:47):
volunteers to be able to take action, which I think
Rachel you can probably speak about that.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
I know that there was already sort of a huge
influx of volunteers late in the year, and now I
would imagine that there's no other wave of volunteers. How
as a volunteer coordinator do you make that work with
I mean, I think, like the beautiful problem of so
many people who want to help.

Speaker 17 (58:09):
Yes, the energy is so it feels so monumental, and
I think everybody feels how important this moment is. Of course,
we've all been working with our neighbors in this capacity,
like maybe just said, but you can feel the the
it's just everything so compounded. You can feel the urgency
that people have. And so one of the things that

(58:30):
we had to figure out right away is you spoke
to the well oiled machine nature of everything. And part
of that has been, like there's a sign up process.

Speaker 14 (58:39):
We've figured out.

Speaker 17 (58:40):
Roles that are very specifically needed, and we make sure
there's shifts for those roles. And we kind of had
to change that in the moment where it was just
our doors are open, if you can help, come here.
We'll figure out what that help looks like when you're here.
And so it was sending out a lot of mass
communication by our emails, via our Instagram, texting people I know,

(59:04):
maybe brought some friends to join that they can speak
more to. And it was literally things as specific as
figuring out what is inaccessible on our website because I
know so many people are on the website, and it
was just making it so that anybody knew that they
could just show up. And then part of that in
real time, when you're welcoming people to join you, you

(59:24):
have to give them everybody space in the communication and
the guidance to figure out what being on site looks
like in this emergency.

Speaker 14 (59:32):
So that was letting.

Speaker 17 (59:33):
People know when they got here, Hey, we just had
a bunch of people come to move these supplies. We're
kind of figuring out our next move. We don't know
what it is yet, can you just be here? And
people were so willing to just be there and figure
out what the next steps were, and our volunteers, our participants,
our community decides how this organization moves forward. And so

(59:54):
I think it was a really important opportunity for us
all to be in a physical space with our usual
volunteer base and all of our neighbors and folks who
are coming from all over LA to figure out together
what does that look like. So that looks like putting
on Instagram, Hey, we need to find somewhere that can
take these supplies because we don't have the space or
we can't distribute it efficiently. And giving people space to

(01:00:17):
come into our community and tell us what needs to
be done and where things need to go. Between the
three of us, I think we've all spoken to like
hundreds of people in the last few days, and so
there's the really logical part of responding to every message
as much as we can, putting out mass communications as
much as we can, and just letting people know that

(01:00:37):
even if they're not able to sign up for a
specific sealer shift right away. For example, we opened up
shifts into February and March, which we normally wouldn't do yet,
just to welcome this influx of people and let them
know that this is going to be an ongoing need.
We've been here for a long time, We're going to
continue to be here, and letting them know that we

(01:00:58):
want them here. This isn't the only way for them
to support their neighbors. Yes, of course we want them
out a shift where they're distributing water bottles and masks,
like Sarah said, but they could also go outside and
do that right now if they have the resources and
feel safe to. And so just creating a place where
we let people know that this feeling of community support

(01:01:22):
that they are feeling and that they know. I think
it's so amazing that they knew to come to Sila,
that we've been able to build that community. They know
we're here, but reminding them that this is happening all
the time, and so that energy they feel there's always
going to be a place for them to plug into
their community, and just creating as much of an open
door and as much of a space for education as
we can.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
How do we kind of harness this energy, this inherent
goodness to people and you know, extend it to educate
them on these issues are ongoing and turn it into
sustained work.

Speaker 10 (01:01:56):
You Know, something that I've been thinking about a lot,
a lot over the past few days is it's been
really empowering to see so many community members, folks who
may have never volunteered for anything at all previously, they
see this crisis very prominently happening in their community, and
it's neighbors saying I need to take action. I want

(01:02:16):
to do something to contribute to relieving the suffering of
my fellow neighbors. And that's really what this is about.
And that's what gives me a lot of hope and
humanity throughout this crisis. Like it's a horrible, awful situation,
but you know, this beautiful silver lining of actually seeing
people come together, and I just hope that people recognize

(01:02:39):
and I've been trying to share the message that this
isn't just about dropping off bottles of water. This isn't
just about dropping off snacks or you know, cleaning out
your closet to drop off for folks. This is something
that's going to be an ongoing need. It's going to
be an ongoing need in the short term and in
the long term, just in terms of the kinds of

(01:03:00):
resources that people are going to need who have been
immediately impacted by the fires, and people who were already
experiencing homelessness and who are also being impacted by the
fires in an environmental manner. So I just hope that
the energy keeps up, and I hope that you know,
people who have signed up to volunteer or you know,
want to be at a drop in shelter or want

(01:03:22):
to be at a donation center. I just want everyone
to know that that is going to be something that
there is going to be a need for for the
foreseeable future. You know, we were talking to one of
our program directors, you might know him Jamie. His name's Grant.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Oh yeah, I'm going to carry that guy.

Speaker 10 (01:03:41):
And one of the things that you know, he brought
up this great point that you know, people who have
just lost their homes, they don't need a new wardrobe
right now. That's something that they're going to be needing
months down the road as they're beginning to resecure their housing.
So just keeping in mind the kinds of donations that
you're donating, and also just keeping in mind that you
can help as a volunteer at a lot of these

(01:04:02):
organizations such as CELA, but certainly not limited to CELA
for the foreseeable future, and even once this disaster is
totally recovered from, there's still going to be a need
to help your neighbors. So there's always a way that
you can make your community better just by bringing other
people into community with you.

Speaker 13 (01:04:21):
My hope too, is that people see in this the
power that they have. Right you talk about Cela's response,
and the best part about CELA is that we have
almost six hundred volunteers. Like, when you're talking about Cela's response,
this is not a coordinated response of a large government
entity or service provider, right, Like, what you're talking about

(01:04:42):
is the fact that basically SEALA is just a conduit.
SELA is just a place for everyday neighbors to hit
their ceiling. What is it you're willing to do, What
is it you want to do? How much would you
like to have an impact on your community? We are
a tool through which you can do that. But really
it's like what makes CELA sealas the fact that Cela
is just a bunch of neighbors who are getting together,

(01:05:03):
housed and unhoused, to make a difference. And my hope
would be that when we talk about that long term
energy that people look at, people can come to SELA
to volunteer and they don't just see, oh I helped
out right. What they see is how much power they
have to influence someone else's life permanently. And I think

(01:05:25):
that's something they can take out into their every single
day that.

Speaker 10 (01:05:28):
Actually reminds me of a story. I'd love to share
something that happened this weekend that I feel like is
just a prime example of that. A lot of my friends,
you know, know that I work for CELA. They've been
interested in what I do, but it really wasn't until
this immediate crisis that a lot of them specifically reached
out to me and said, Hey, I want to volunteer
for CELA. I'm available these days. Let me know how

(01:05:49):
I can help. You know, they want to be mobilized,
and so part of what we do at CELA is
really empower them to take action in the moments within
the structure of CELA, but as you mentioned, like take
that into their own hands and into their own neighborhoods,
their own communities. Specifically a few of my friends, they
came and we were able to on the fly totally

(01:06:11):
organize a new shared warehouse space that Sela's Fortunes to
be a part of. We're in partnership with Everyday Action,
which is a wonderful food reallocation organization. They have basically
allowed us to be in partnership in this warehouse and
it's all nonprofits that are focused on food in security,

(01:06:32):
housing and security, and we were able to organize a
lot of these donations that came in and also donate
forward donations that we knew were not going to be
right for the kind of work that we do. After
we did all of this organizing on Saturday, we ended
up going out afterwards and we encountered a young queer person,
probably in their early twenties.

Speaker 6 (01:06:53):
They were unhoused.

Speaker 10 (01:06:54):
Talking with them, you know, first of all, as they are,
as they are a human being, they're one of our neighbors,
and sort of destigmatizing the fact that this is a
neighbor experiencing homelessness, but also engaging in the challenges that
they've experienced over the past few days with the fires.
And I watched as my friends decided on their own
to try to find temporary housing for this complete stranger

(01:07:17):
that they had just met, and it was so beautiful
to watch, but it was also very disheartening to watch
in real time somebody see how even when they want
to help, how it can be very difficult to acquire
temporary housing for people experiencing homelessness. Just sort of watching
you know, them being excited to help, to then watching

(01:07:38):
them realize how difficult the system is to work with
to then taking action into their own hands and getting
this person a hotel room for the night, to be
able to relieve them from the you know, the smoky environment.
And it was just a really beautiful thing to watch,
just people coming together in community to take immediate action
for community members. And I think that oftentimes the role

(01:07:59):
of going governments can really create a bystander effect amongst
neighbors where people are kind of always just waiting for
somebody else to take action, waiting for somebody else to
solve the problem, when we all know that, you know
it takes a long time for governments to do things,
like governmental agencies bureaucracy intentionally designed to work very slow.

(01:08:21):
But when you pull together a few neighbors, you can
make anything happen immediately.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
If you are someone in the LA area or outside
of the LA Area that wants to immediately have a
pragmatic and helpful affect the unhoused community, those who are
recently displaced by the fires. What would you all recommend
for those that are a little unsure of what to
do right now?

Speaker 13 (01:08:46):
You know, we've been getting an influx of people who
are interested in helping, and it's been it's been very
interesting to see how people perceive help, right, how people
perceive their own help. We had someone who had driven
down with a truck full of clothes from Oregon and
called us and was really dismayed and very upset to

(01:09:09):
learn that that was not going to be the most
useful thing at this moment for good reason. Right, that's
someone who has put a lot of time and energy
and thoughtfulness into what they have to offer and what
they're able to do, and to be told this is
not what we need is a challenge, right, Like it's
all this like untapped energy. And so one of the
things that we are really encouraging, and I say we

(01:09:30):
as in the community based organizations right now that we
are in partnership with, are really encouraging people to give
monetarily if possible at this point, whether that's to SILA,
whether that's to another organization. The two things that we
have as humans in the society that we live in
that are the most valuable resources our time and money.

(01:09:51):
Those are the things we have. Where you decide to
spend your time and where you decide to spend your
money is going to have the greatest impact on your neighbors.
So we, as Rachel, We'll mentioned have a bunch of
volunteer opportunities. If you go to CELA, NHC dot org,
forward slash volunteer, you can sign up to volunteer with us.
Lots of other organizations are also looking for volunteers. Pick point,
close your eyes, and point to an organization in Los Angeles.

(01:10:13):
Sign up to be a volunteer, learn more about them.
If you think that they are an organization that is
having a direct impact on the community in a way
that you would like to support, give them money because
money gives them autonomy. It gives them the ability to
be adaptive to what maybe spoke to about us adapting
our programs. We are not able to adapt our programming

(01:10:34):
with cartloads of clothing. We are able to adapt our
programming as needed with money. Money is power. Money is
also going to be what helps people recover. In the
long term. There are going to be all sorts of
side effects to this that we haven't begun to see. Right, So,
temporary housing is going to be necessary when all of

(01:10:55):
these emergency shelters close. All that temporary housing is going
to take money. When all of this is quote unquote
over and we're trying to rebuild, rents in LA are
going to skyrocket. There are tons of people who were
not housing secure when they lost their home. They don't
have the opportunity to just buy or rent a new home.
They're going to be facing homelessness for the very first time.

(01:11:18):
Money can help that long term healthcare effect. The side
effects of all of this the physical ones, for one,
because of everything that people are inhaling, especially people who
are housed and out in this smoke. Long term, that's
going to be long term illness. We're going to have
all sorts of healthcare needs that's going to take money.
There's also going to be psychological needs that people are
going to have. Mental health is really suffering. We're seeing

(01:11:39):
this in our volunteer community with people who've now been
displaced three or four times because of the different fires.
Money is something like that, people have lost their cars,
they don't have transportation. Money can help with that. Like
it's I know people don't it's taboo to talk about money,
and people tend to feel like it's not meaningful and
they're not getting their hands in. But like, truly, money
is love in a situation like this, and I just

(01:12:01):
encourage people to take the resources that you've collected, host
a yard sale, donate that money to an organization that
you think is doing good. If you know someone who's
directly impacted, they've lost their home, they've moved, they've been
displaced three or four times, send them money.

Speaker 14 (01:12:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:12:17):
I think that's that's really what we're encouraging.

Speaker 14 (01:12:19):
People.

Speaker 13 (01:12:20):
Give your time and give your money, and then if
you're not sure what to do, reach out and ask
and instead of saying I'm bringing you something, if there's
an organization or an individual that you know you would
like to have an impact on reach out and say
what do you need and then listen to that. Right,
that's I think we all really we jumped to help,
and then just like that man who drove down with

(01:12:40):
that cart load, the car load of clothing, he jumped
to help without asking what was needed, and then was
pretty hurt by the response that he wasn't helping in
the way that he thought. So, yeah, ask people what
they need.

Speaker 14 (01:12:52):
None of this is unusual.

Speaker 17 (01:12:54):
We see the center volunteers all the time, but it
was in just these last couple of days just became
so clear how so everybody, everybody lives the way they
live as a SEALA volunteer all the time. Like the
number of people who have connected us with other organizations,
emails I've gotten from volunteers connecting me with the volunteer.

Speaker 14 (01:13:12):
Who might be able to help the specific need.

Speaker 17 (01:13:14):
It's just really beautiful to see how everybody is activated
all the time, and I think it's just very This
just shows how crucial it is to kind of find
your community and figure out how to be a part
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
Thank you so much again to Rachel Sarah, and maybe
you can contribute to cila's ongoing efforts in the description
of this episode. I particularly love their laundry program, so
I hope this was helpful if you didn't know much
about what is happening in this area, or you wanted
to do more and didn't know where to start, or
maybe you live here and you wanted to be reminded

(01:13:48):
that there's hope and still a paradise of some kind
to be built. There has been such tremendous loss, and
I think a lot of organizers have smartly and directly
connected it to the fact that the US is funding
a genocide, willfully causing losses in Palestine every single day.

(01:14:10):
The way that our systems are failing us are often
to prop up violence elsewhere that is oppressing other people.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
Free Palestine.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
One of the moments that really made me emotional this
week was seeing that a library in Pasadena had burned down.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
This beautiful historic library.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
And maybe I'm a hooked on Phonic's dork, but seeing
a burned down library made me cry.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
It's such a loss.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
And the day after I saw that, I learned that
there was a library that had made it, the Altadena
Main Library. I first saw it in a friend's Instagram
story from someone who lived in Altadena, and it was
such a relief for them and then for me, even
though I'd never been there, but everything I've been thinking about,

(01:15:02):
everything that's been on my mind, all of these people
who are left behind in these discussions around climate change
and disasters like this are welcome in a library, everyone is,
and seeing a space like that still standing around so
much devastation.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
Was really special.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
And so as a bonus treat I reached out to
one of my favorite presences in all of Internet history,
Michael Threats, the librarian TikTok guy. So, I hope you
enjoy our brief conversation, and yes, sixteenth Minute will be
back next week with I promise a truly punishing three

(01:15:42):
part TALKTUA series. So please enjoy my talk with Michael.
And I'm pretty sure my cats were fighting through a
lot of this recording.

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):
It's just been a hard week.

Speaker 6 (01:15:53):
Sure, my name is Michael Threets.

Speaker 16 (01:15:55):
More people know me as Michael Librarian, and far more
people know me as the librarian Orbry Guys. So many
people I meet you do not know that I have
an actual name. I've been a librarian for close to
eleven years. I'm no longer practicing librarian. But I'm still
very much a huge supporter of libraries. I'm still paying
suit loans, so I very much see myself as a librarian.

(01:16:16):
I'm a library advocate, I'm a literacy advocate, a mental
health advocate, and so much more. But I think I
just really used the big library's biggest fan. I'm there's
a person who's trying to cheerlead for human beings and
co mids them that they should make it make it
to tomorrow for hours at time.

Speaker 7 (01:16:31):
I mean, and are you currently based in California as well?

Speaker 6 (01:16:34):
I am, I'm in the Bay Area.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
Your work so clearly demonstrates not just the importance of
libraries and keeping them funded, but the importance of libraries
as communal spaces and community building tools. But I wanted
to get started with you recently posted to Instagram sort
of a list of books to explain wildfires and wildfire

(01:16:56):
consequences to children. Could you tell me a little bit
more about how you source that?

Speaker 16 (01:17:00):
So I shared recommending books for children and teens and
for library able to talk with their kids and teens
about this tragedy of the California wildfires. It was built
from other various libraries from scenes around posts from people
like the book Wrangler.

Speaker 6 (01:17:16):
And saying okay that here are some books.

Speaker 16 (01:17:17):
Let's let's broaden the Let's broaden it just a little bit,
because I wanted to make sure that the list was
able to it was a book.

Speaker 6 (01:17:23):
Was a booklist that was good.

Speaker 16 (01:17:25):
For kids, teens, and also for grunk so they could
help their own their family, but also so that they
could help themselves. It's a compilation of picture books, chapter
of books for kids, graphic novels by a books, and
even some books that adults would also really appreciate as well.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
Libraries are sort of this first line of defense on
educating about climate change and about climate catastrophe, especially for
younger people.

Speaker 16 (01:17:50):
Unfortunately, I've had my own experience with wildfires being a
California native, to be prepared to seeking to seek a
list like this the infamous wildfires in California. Even though
I'm on the other side of California, We're still very
much in support of you all in southern California. We're
trying to seek ways to provide resources to help. I

(01:18:11):
myself working currently with various people to provide books to
increase the presence of literacy and with the loss of houses,
with the loss of one major library in Pasadena. I
think that was a big part of where I was
coming from. And that's my experience as librarian and various
mental health crisises COVID nineteen of that major California wildfire.

(01:18:37):
But as California also know that we have these wildfires,
what it feels like every single year, and also in
response to all the areas disasters across the nation, and
be at the various shootings that occur, be it the hurricanes,
be at the earthquakes, tsunamis, with the Sudan whatever I may,
these are things I'm trying to find resources to share

(01:18:58):
with people. This is how we yeah that are as neighbors.
I'm a person alway talks about mister Rogers. This is
what mister Rogers would have encouraged us to do. So
how do we build resources to get towards the journey
towards recovery.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
You know, being a local of just seeing a library
gone and not and seeing all of these community space
has gone, these schools, these places that you don't really
consider what life would be like without. One of the
most emotional responses I've had all week is learning that
the Altadna main branch somehow survived at the fires, and

(01:19:33):
that their staff is already organizing to make sure that
you know, even though the air quality isn't safe at
the main branch, what are programs we can do for kids?
And the importance of libraries as community spaces where all
are welcome.

Speaker 6 (01:19:49):
Absolutely No, I'm still so shocking.

Speaker 16 (01:19:51):
I've been on social media talking about libraries and literacy
and so much more for it feels like years now,
but there's still so many people who don't know about
the joys and the resources that the local libraries offer,
especially in tough times, unprecedented times like these that were
living in. There's so much money. The libraries are always
going to be about books. We're always going to push books.
But now there's Libby, There's Hoopa Digital for audiobooks and ebooks.

(01:20:14):
There's Canopy for TV shows and movies. There's Mango languages
to learn a new language. For the various people who
are displaced and trying to figure out how do I
find these tools amongst amongst these disasters, there's tools, there's
tooling libraries, there's big break collections, there's Tredio printers, there's
there truly is something for everybody at the library. And
that's in a response to saying, yes, the library is

(01:20:36):
very much a community hub. It's all about there's something
for everybody, for every single neighbor, every single person who
lived in your community got to his library exists for
and that's what I've loved it. I've scoured social media
for resources, seeking ways to help. I love the immediate
aftermath after the California wild Fighters, the most recent ones
first started.

Speaker 6 (01:20:57):
I didn't love it, but it was so like for me,
it was so refreshing.

Speaker 16 (01:20:59):
This author friends and various friends in southern California at
the library.

Speaker 6 (01:21:05):
The library was still standing.

Speaker 16 (01:21:07):
That's where they get out of the air, of the
bad quality air. They were in the library. I believe
the La the La County Library is currently offering n
ninety five masks. So I saw some friends just charging
their devices, charging their their chargers, their their their phones,
their childlets, whatever may be at the local library. And

(01:21:27):
that's that's why the library is always going to be
a third space. You don't have to have a library
car to do that. You can just be You can
just ask for help at the local library. A library
card is not required. To seek help, seek services.

Speaker 7 (01:21:40):
As a library.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
And I mean in terms of just bringing people together
housed on house of all classes, what if you sort
of noticed over the years in terms of bringing folks together.

Speaker 6 (01:21:49):
I mean, I think this is so much of what
you just said.

Speaker 16 (01:21:51):
There's so much, so much as possible for every person,
regardless of their background, regardless of their financial situation, where
they can benefit from local library.

Speaker 6 (01:22:00):
That's the beauty of it. I mean, that's like so
many of you.

Speaker 16 (01:22:03):
So many of the Southern California libraries are still standing,
and goodness, but they are ones there are lost, and
there are so many people who are coming together to
support these libraries. There's so many schools that have been lost,
there are so many classes that have been temporarily put
on Paul because of the situation where students are not
allowed are not able to imagine and grow as much

(01:22:24):
as they should be able to. And that's why I
love it that are campaigns by people like author have
on a combine who's trying to trying to gather various
funds to gather books in various forms of literacy to
donate and gift to local schools and local libraries and
all these people are coming together to collect books, to
collect so many, so many resources for these schools and

(01:22:45):
these libraries. And I think that's why I've learned over
the years being a library library loving persons. There's so
many people who are willing to support libraries to go
to back for the community because of what the library
means to them. That libraries are still on offering these programs.
We're offering story times, we're offering homework help, We're offering
a space for you to go to be to learn something,

(01:23:10):
to take your tests, to apply for jobs. And it's
so amazing to see. I think, I I I believe
I love the un housed community most most of all,
so very, so very much. I think since leaving the
library full.

Speaker 4 (01:23:23):
Time, I love that I go to my local library.

Speaker 16 (01:23:26):
I see my former my former run house friends I
used to see all the time.

Speaker 6 (01:23:31):
They're like, oh man, good to see you back, and sell.

Speaker 16 (01:23:34):
You down at the other at these other institutions. Are
you helping people with them with housing full time now?
And I'm like, no, I just happen to be there.

Speaker 6 (01:23:42):
I love it.

Speaker 16 (01:23:43):
That's what they bring up because that's what the library
should be. It should be a place that welcomes the
house that tries to find them resources. It says, yes,
we may not be able to do everything for you,
but we're going to help you to the best of
our abilities. I think that's why That's why I discovered
most of all in the last stud years, from the community,
from the neighbors, from people across the world. Honestly, if

(01:24:05):
they love having a library card, they really appreciate their library.
They recognize how powerful books have been in their lives.
But most of them, they recognize the presidence of the
library always being there, being there for them even they
didn't remember the library there yes on a Tuesday five
years from now. People could say, oh, yeah, I didn't
realize I need this library at the time, but now

(01:24:27):
I really need it, and I'm so surprised that even
though I haven't used it all the time, it's still there.

Speaker 6 (01:24:32):
It's still there for me.

Speaker 16 (01:24:33):
I think that is the lasting legacy of the library,
that the library is always going to be there for you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
For the average person, what is the best way to
support your local library.

Speaker 16 (01:24:43):
Shouldn't I talk about social media This morning. I was
offering anybody who loves libraries or who wants to love libraries,
far ways to support, to support them and keep them going.
And I think number one is to get just to
get a library card. You don't have to you don't
have to use that library card. Just get a library card.
You do that library card every single.

Speaker 7 (01:25:03):
You probably will end uf using.

Speaker 16 (01:25:04):
Yeah, exactly at number two, which is to visit the
library to typtically use that library card to borrow the materials.

Speaker 4 (01:25:13):
It's totally fine.

Speaker 6 (01:25:14):
If you're a digital library user. You are helping the library.

Speaker 16 (01:25:16):
By using Libby and Hoopla, using audio books and ebooks.
It helps libraries more than you know with funding, with
making libraries better for the community. Borrow those tools from
the tooling library, the bakewere supplies from the bakewere collection
borrow the manga, got his novels, comic books, anything. Library

(01:25:37):
has something for everybody. At least once a year. Use
that library card. See what's all about. And then number
three is to not only visit the library, but to
use the library and specifically the programs. Attend library programs,
the art programs, the history programs, the author talks whenever
you see it. Try to go as often as possible.
The last one, number four is just tell everyone about

(01:25:59):
the libry, and I think that's the best way to
keep libraries going. Libraries, as much as we're under attack,
as much as we're facing a lot of problems, we're
still there. People are showing up more than ever four libraries,
and we just want to keep it going so that
we can keep on offering everything for the community and
show people liberation through literacy.

Speaker 11 (01:26:25):
Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and
Iheardware Apps.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
It is written, hosted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 11 (01:26:32):
Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans Hemas
with Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Our theme song is by Sad thirteen.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
Voice acting is from Grant, creator and Pet.

Speaker 11 (01:26:46):
Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my Kats Flee
and Casper and my pet Rockberg, who will outlive us
all Bye.

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Host

Jamie Loftus

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