January 28, 2025 • 58 mins
Theo takes a closer look at how the recent fires in Los Angeles affected the city's unhoused community, who the mainstream media and the city continued to ignore. He speaks with returning guest Roof Lesser about her experience being unhoused close to the fires, and with restaurateur and activist Philip Hirose, co-owner of Azay in Little Tokyo.
Follow Roof Lesser here: https://www.instagram.com/rooflessr/
Follow Azay Restaurant here: https://www.azaylittletokyo.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Weedy in House, I saw that the Black
Panther Party was an organization that was doing something about
treat them and liberation and black people. As time went on,
I learned what the Black Panther Party was doing. I
learned how they were feeding children breakfast programs, and they
were fighting for our liberation. So I did ultimately join
(00:24):
the Black Panther Party.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The only way we ever get anything, any kind of
social or political justice. As we fight in the street.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
We struggle in the streets.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We struggled in front of the rich people's palaces, we
struggled in front of the government buildings. We have never
gotten anything, any single thing that didn't require struggle.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We've never been given anything by this government. Welcome back
to Weedy in House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. This
episode is pretty straightforward. We're going to be diving into
(01:08):
the effects of the recent devastating Los Angeles fires head
on communities. Here, I'll be speaking with a mutual aid
Western Tear and a returning unhoused guest who chronicles their
experiences evacuating and rebuilding. But first, Unhouse News. Our first
(01:29):
story is about the weather. As weather forecast includes cold
snaps and places like Missouri, New York, Chicago, Washington, North Carolina,
and Michigan, to name a few. In Missouri, for instance,
bands are transporting the end House to pop up shelters.
Peter and Paul Community Center says anyone who comes through
(01:52):
their doors will be given at warm bed, food and support.
This is a developing story. For further information, have a
look at the list of cold weather shelters at the
link in the description. Our next story is an update
on the consequences of the Grants Pass ruling. Grands Pass
(02:13):
Oregon City Council voted to revoke funding but a low
barrier shelter on Redwood Highway. Citizens and advocates expressed alarm
and concern that houselessness will increase in the area. The
city council voted five to two to revoke funding. The
new city council also plans on proposing limiting camping hours
(02:36):
at the resting site of seven to twelve Northeast seventh
Street and closing entirely seven to fifty five Southeast j
Street resting site. Our next story a moment of silence
for Cornelius Taylor, an unhoused man who was run over
by Atlanta City Workers. It cannot be more ironic that
(03:04):
he was run over across the street from the church
that the King preached at, Ebenezer Baptist Church. The effort
was to visually sanitize the area in the wake of
activities surrounding Doctor King's holiday. Another moment of silence for
the unhoused man, mister Kevin Smith, who died in the
(03:26):
Los Angeles fire. Our last story. Recently, at a gas
station in Los Angeles on Hunterson Drive, a black Infinity
car pulled up to an arcle gas station and used
a paint gun machine gun on an unhoused man Onlookers
(03:50):
noted the stress and trauma the unhoused man exhibited trying
to flee from the car who was following and continued
shooting at him. License plates and other identifying infrat is
presently unknown if community members in the area near the
Hunting and Drive gas station ARCO see the young house
man and which to offer support. Is usually there and
is willing to help recycling and washing car windows. And
(04:15):
that's on House News. When we come back, we'll speak
with Philip Hit'llsey, mutual aid organizer and co owner of
ASEA in Little Tokyo. Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm
(04:35):
THEO Henderson. I want you to drink in. What started
out as a dispassionate fire warner, which is normal by
any California standards. We are fully aware of brush fires
and their propensity for destruction. What we had not counted
on was the magnitude of the destruction. Please listen in
(04:56):
how the story developed from the beginning, and then will
we begin the conversation.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
He its a brush fire breaking out in the hills
above Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Assignment manager Mark lou Is at the desk with the video.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
Mark, how does it look out there?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Not good, Christina, but.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
It is a totally different windstorm than when we're typically
used to seeing with the sant Anah.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Went late to night, another fast moving fire exploded. This
time it was in Altadina's emcam. So if you're in
any of these foothill communities right along that urban wildland interface,
you need to have a go bag ready.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
He just drove up into the hills of Pacific Palisades,
where as you say, these fires are pretty much out
of control. Thirty thousand people under mandatory evacuation orders.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
And then we looked outside.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
We saw a huge fire and we just packed whatever
we can and we ran out of his chaos.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
We thought we're gonna come.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Back tomorrow, so we didn't even back anything. We had nothing.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
My dear year old kids asking me, are we gonna go?
Do you regret coming the fire department budget by millions
of dovers mountain?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?
Speaker 6 (06:06):
We do have breaking news on the two major fires.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
We've just learned the overall depth toll has climbed to
twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I'm standing out in front of the Pasadena Job Center
here on the outskirts of the Eden fire, where hundreds
of volunteers have gathered to assist in the bre clean
of efforts.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'm here doing blood pressure checks, wood care, diabetes.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
We're dispensing medications, blankets, clothes.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
What we say is solidari it's not try. We're all
here like dealing with.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
The same issue.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
We want to make sure that people know that there's
no shaming coming here in the time of need and
getting what they need.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Our first guest today is Philip here to say, the
co owner of a restaurant in Little Tokyo who's been
involved in mutual aid in the aftermath of the fire.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
Here's his story jokingly say, I am my parents' associates
or ambassador as seen as the fires happened. I think
there was definitely a moment of shock to understand the
size of this devastating natural disaster. Los Angeles County has
(07:10):
had brush fires support, but never to this magnitude. We
had no idea how it was going to be this devastating.
It did start in the early evening in which there
were high winds. The following day, it was just very
clear that this isn't normal, and how yeah, how much
(07:31):
of an impact it had on people who were living
close by house and unhoused. And I think as yeah,
especially with you know, the commination of high winds and
the dry climate, we understood that this, yeah, this wasn't normal.
And even with us being I have a terrible sense
(07:52):
of distance, but I think we're like twenty twenty miles
away from the fire.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Twenty thirty miles away.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Well, I mean even say, because that was not just
a fire, because breash fires happened, but we had multiple
fires simultaneously.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
Exactly, Yes, fires simultaneously from both ends, from the east
and to the west. And yeah, this was a public
safety issue because it was contaminating, contaminating.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
The air that we were breathing.
Speaker 7 (08:22):
And if it was bad here, I couldn't have imagined
how bad it was for the immediate communities.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
One of the things too, I wanted to point out,
because there was always armchair quarterbackers stating some things that
this needs to be disabused of, is that issues is
evacuate and that statement doesn't really put full scope on
it because people were evacuating, but people there was a
log jam of cars. And then two, because the fires
(08:51):
and predictability in the winds, the fires come in another direction,
they're telling you to evacuate another area, so there's another
log jam. So it wasn't that simple to just listen
to what people were because you know, and some people
didn't have access like some house people didn't have access
to phone to be able to dial in anyway, or
wasn't able to physically to just speed off and just
into the night and move into another location.
Speaker 7 (09:14):
Right exactly like in these instances, there's no very clear
and methodical ways to do things because of the urgency
of the issue with the fires and the high winds
being so violent and We're always thinking about the responsibility
for the community, responsibility for employers wellbeing also includes their
(09:38):
financial wellbeing, and then also just I think at the
end of the day, we just want to feed people.
I think in hospitality we're very mindful and sometimes can
be obsessed with wanting to make.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
People happy and nourished.
Speaker 7 (09:54):
And you know, we checked in on each other first
to see if anybody lived in the area, and then
we went straight into the pantry and to see what
good do we had these to just start cooking up,
packaging and sending it to those who are running towards
the fires to help other people, and then those who
are running away from the fires, and then also for
(10:16):
the people who are unable to attain shelter, because I
think the assumption is that their shelter for everyone, but
we know the reality is that there isn't and wanted
to be very clear about that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Even though I was minimally impacted in this with my eyes.
But the thing but it is that where people could
go into shelters to be able to minimize the toxic
effects of the fire fires, many on the house people
had to sit and ingest that for its sustaining period
of time, because the libraries wasn't open, and you know
at nights on the weekend, it's like Sunday, it is
(10:53):
not open. And these shelters that they offered, so if
they did offer was not out of what they had
to stay day and then they had to leave, and
then they had two up in their whole lives. On
top of that, mayorbas was conducting sweeps against unhoused people
while these fires were going on. To juxtapose the spiritus
people that are being displaced instantly through no fault of
(11:16):
their own by a fire, there are people that are
still follow their own affected by the fire, that are
on housed out year, and they are being targeted in
the same horrific way that Los Angeles usually do with
forty one eighteen and the grants pass ruling to justify
their venom and their aggressiveness toward vulnerable people.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
Right, No, exactly, Yeah, And at the end of the day,
this is a form of displacement and I think it
is something.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
That we are not all immune from.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
Because you know, a natural disaster could have happened anywhere
in which a threat in itself is not your natural disaster,
but capitalism in itself being a threat to enacting displacement itself.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Well, that brings me to the beginning center. My point
is that what I noticed that you guys started cooking meals.
How many meals if you prepare and where would they
go up?
Speaker 7 (12:15):
So we were able to provide a thousand meals, which
which we think was really great, And we wanted to
specifically target people who were all affected by the fire,
with the understanding that there are degrees in which people
are affected by the fire. As a stack, we were
(12:36):
very We understood that we are all affected because there
that we breathe, but some more than others. Like for
those who have places to live that weren't affected, didn't
be evacuated, it is less than those who had had
to evacuate, is less than those who had to evacuate
and don't have shelter. So wanting to target those who
(12:57):
are most vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Not forget the people that were conducting or fighting the
fires or providing egg to people in it. You know,
they may have had a place to stay.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
No exactly, Yeah, like there are firefighters themselves in which
we all knew that there are incarcerated people fighting the
fires themselves. In the form of modern day slavery in
which they're not compensated. So we wanted to provide nourishment
through comfort, provide nourishment as a means for energy to
(13:28):
continue fighting fires, as nourishment to help others, to be
able to help others.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
So we're also including.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
People who have received people to provide temporary shelter because
we also understand that, you know, they need to be
helped as well. So like if there's a couple who
was displaced and they're living with someone, we're going to
give them three meals and settages two because I think
the people who are showing displays of mutual aid, they
(13:57):
also need to keep going so that the work can continue.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
That's an excellent point about the scarcity mindset that sometimes
people think when you see people getting a little extra,
they don't understand the first circumstances. We are not all
in this. We're in the same ocean, but we're not
in the same boat, and people may need to plan
meals in a way. Like a perfect example, like Saturday,
a musual aid people are hungry and like I said,
(14:23):
your meals came in to save the day. What did
you see with the un house community there on the weekend.
Speaker 7 (14:29):
Well, what was interesting as we saw that there is
a disconnect of communication, as I heard through one of
our dear friends, Philip in that people here don't have
the information that they need to be safe, especially when
it comes to the air quality. And so we did
see how the fire does directly and indirectly affect us.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
And you know, with the many things that we.
Speaker 7 (14:56):
Learned through power through j Town, through me Ado, just
talking to the stuff about and people about. You should
only do any things that you would want to receive,
and you need to be thoughtful about the conditions in
which they're receiving things. So like what good is a
bag of romain lettuce gonna do if a person doesn't
(15:17):
have a kitchen, right, if they don't have the means
to prepare food, they should be eating somethings that are
ready to eat. So yeah, just just wanting to at
least avoid a lot of inefficiencies that places are expensing
right now.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
And I have because I'm a foodie, but I have
to point out, like some of the meals that you
preferred were ready to eat but also already warmed, which
also is a big thing, which is a contested thing
that I have being on house knowing how EBT is
being used. Now they're having abt allow hot food, but
the public's did have been hated that unhouse people won't
have the hot food, so you had to use the
(15:56):
cash to the day, which was not that much to use.
How food unless we were on a program that you
had to find with restaurants were friendly to eat the sea.
But one of the things that was really I know
is appreciated when you have every weekend. We've tried to
provide hot meals along a diversity of food, but mostly
importantly hot meals so they can at least have a
(16:18):
hot meal full at least for one period of time
in their existence.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Right, Yeah, no, exactly hot food.
Speaker 7 (16:25):
It takes a lot of work, but it's also something
that we all deserve and it's something that provides that
actual step of nourishment that a cold sandwich may not.
I mean, I think especially with our weather dipping in
like the high forties in the evenings, it makes me
think of a lot about chefs and how you know,
(16:47):
they're not only people who cook food at restaurants, but
they're they're masters at knowing how to nourish people. I
know how to scale up because I know that thing
is really difficult. People can make a meal for four people,
but how do you make meals for hundreds of people?
That is definitely a skill that a chef is able
(17:08):
to do. And being mindful about food safety, what food
can be warmer, longer, how food deteriorates as it travels.
These are things as chefs are so wonderfully talented skilled ota.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
One of the things I want to point out as
well is that we all impacted by what's going on
at what's continuing the apper effects And one of the
things we've mentioned is that you know, people from the
places that I've gone, even a grocery stores, it's not
the same intensity of people. People are still a little
the skittish to go out and be skilled about to eat.
You have now offered to.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Meet that eat.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
What are the services that people want to either donate
to as a to or to get the meals and
they are a little bit hesitants to come out and
ing just you know the air right now.
Speaker 7 (17:58):
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the real barriers and
challenges that we're facing is there's the element of people
feeling ashamed to want to receive help or food to connect,
and so we're trying to meet people where they're at
by wanting to go to them directly, of course, you know,
(18:21):
with the consent and with a established relationship, because people are,
especially in traumatic situations, they're so vulnerable and it's really scary.
And so instead of just dropping it things off to
a distribution center, we are trying to target and be
(18:42):
more intentional and wanting to have a higher rate of
people receiving the help because I can't imagine going to
the evac center and you know that itself is such
an operation, it could be scary, it could be so
much so ones that are a little more local or
cent I think would be more effective. Yeah, and then
(19:02):
we're we've been also very mindful and that we don't
want to deter people from donating directly to people affect
it because at the end of the day, like the
restaurant is okay, even though we are bleeding money on top,
it is okay. So we you know, we don't openly
just say that works like donations because we want that
(19:25):
support to go directly to people. And we're also very
mindful in that Altadena has a history of it being
a black community, so we don't want to extract more
attention and support from there, but how do we channel.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Our supporters into that direction? If anything, they're a.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Good question, and they're a good point. Altadena is not
getting the bread is of help. And the stories that
I hear out there are heartbreaking us personally what the
history is going on. Many people, any walks of lives
have been impacted, some restaurants, from homes, from just basically
just employment in order to be employed in the area,
and they are not having the best of times. But
(20:05):
also is much more of an added hardship as well
because of the heavy police or law enforcement presence there
to intimidate and to terrorize the community that has had
the history of police brutality and violence, so that meets
has not been overlooked. And in addition as well, there
are as the communities are impacted, is like the Altadena
(20:26):
but not it's on the severe end like that as
of course unhoused black people. You heard that probably with death.
And like I said, pointing out, our mayor has opted
instead of just suspending these kinds of sanitation and at
least the sweet kind of purposes, she sends the message
inadvertently or deliberately that your branch of houselessness is to
(20:49):
be criminalized and dehumanized. And these people that have houselessness
over Pacific palisays, you know, which is a tragedty in itself.
But for many of the people here, like many of
the unhoused recently, what I've seen Racefule, they have to
start from scratch and they're going to be subjected to
the same laws and things that are the current on
house people are usually I dealing with. And that's another
(21:12):
thing that it's not talked about, but these things on
the books unintended consequences that maybe people that were for
these kind of things, but forgetting that we all are
much more closer to being unhoused and not building it.
And all it takes is, like you said, you can
be doing everything, you're supposed to have a mansion or
(21:32):
have a big billionaire or rich, and then all of
a sudden, it's a spurning ember that turns something that
destroys everything.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
And for black folks, I feel like in Altadena, for
many people like this was a way in which they
could become homeowners once that re learning was lifted. However,
many decades ago and there are patterns of displacement through
natural disasters like this, and displacement of folk communities like yeah,
(22:01):
just went to a conference in New Orleans and their
neighborhoods that have changed forever since Katrina that were historically black.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Neighborhoods and no longer are.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
So this is not yeah, like an isolated incident or
it's just Los Angeles.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
But it is everywhere. That is, I mean, it's really everywhere.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
The natural disasters are maybe unique in that earthquakes may
not happen in Servis will but you know, yeah, as
powder as a displacement or yeah, let's not.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Forget what recently happened over North Carolina. They didn't have
a brushfire, they had a very traumatic hurricane, and there
are people that are now living out intents or living
and its displacement type of displacement rich environment where we're
going on to the beginning tale of adding on to
more displaced people in our city. So now our environment
(22:53):
fails us, all of us, and we have to contend
with the reality of that. Thank you for your time,
and I know you're busy and I kind of intruded
on your time, but I easily.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Get Italian yeah, thank you again.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Thank you so much to Philip for his time. You
can learn more about AAY at their website Azay Little
Tookyo dot com. And when we come back, we were
here returning guests and journalist Ruth Lesser's story. Welcome back
(23:33):
to c CEO Henderson with Weedian House for our final
interview today a returning guest direct experience of the forest fires.
Most unhoused people's stories are left in the ashes of
indifference and the ugly falling down the wall crying of
losing rich people's mansion. Here Ruth Lesser talks about witnessing
(23:55):
and experiencing firsthand effects of the fire.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Well, yeah, I grew I go by Roofless on social
media and I have an iPhone. I live in public
in the city of la I continuously lived that way
since twenty seventeen. But I was first displaced in two
thousand and three unexpectedly because of TV.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
TV is domestic violence, So so people know domestic violence,
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yes, domestic violence between my parents At the time, I
was in middle school, Okay, and yeah, so that was
like unexpected, but my first kind of experience of being
displaced and I didn't realize that a lot of other
people were going through this too. I thought it was
just me, and then I kind of learned that this
is a problem not just in our society and in America,
(24:51):
but globally it's a huge problem of displacement. So I
try to align with, you know, the globally landless people.
I do displacement spaces every Sunday night, or I try
to if I have a battery charge, and it's like
a Twitter spaces where people come live. Sometimes in person,
they come to my spot and sometimes virtually and we
(25:15):
just kind of talk about anything related to displacement. That's
kind of the community. Like I've tried to foster. It's
you know, it's obviously tech isn't completely equitable, but it's
been a cool way to meet people in Palestine and
the UK and Africa. And the one before the last one,
(25:39):
like I had one last night and a week before
I had two inmate firefighters, one in person and one
virtually for the State of California, talking about how they
were inmates. One of them was a juvenile inmate. He
was seventeen, and they were defending other people's houses on
the front line.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Wow, that's the perfect segue into the conversation. The fires
affected everyone. Unfortunately, the media was hyper focused on people's
mansions and not understanding the other walks of life that
was impacted. People that were working jobs or had struggling
to work jobs for the rich, people that have lost
(26:21):
the houses, or people that are in housing secure and
we always forget about talking about how the unhoused community
were impacted. So what was your experience when the fires happened?
Where were you and how did you survive in this
kind of the environment that was happening.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Well, it got pretty real really fast. I'm used to
the elements, like I've done hurricanes and you know, atmospheric
rivers and you know all those things. But the winds
were really strong, like my roof blew off, and transformers
were exploding near me. There was power lines that were down.
(26:58):
There was palm fronts, those sharp, dried out ones that
were like really whipping around like in the air, and
one hit like right outside of my little door, and
that scared me a lot because there was like I
looked up and there was like thousands of them on
this huge palm tree that was like swaying like a
pendle of it was dust in the air, and I
(27:21):
couldn't tell if it was dust or smoke or what,
but the combination of all those elements was really intense
for me. And I hid out in this little cubby
like where I was able to shelter, and then I
put up on my Twitter that I was looking to
voluntarily evacuate and Bakeically, a Displacement Spaces participant who I'd
(27:45):
never met, happened to be a ridehare driver came by
and scooped me up. So I had a really cool
experience of actually being elsewhere. I never leave my area
usually I stay around here. But yeah, I was wished
out of trouble and returned on Saturday afternoon. So while
(28:08):
I was gone, there was a named fire literally visible
from my house, like right across the street. It was
a smaller named fire, but it was. Yeah. I was
really glad not to be breathing all that in as
it was happening live.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, it's like, you know, even when I was walking
down the street, I was impacted by the ash. My eyes,
of course, was dry but swollen. I had to really
do some rehabilitation in the breathing like these wildfires. What
I've noticed when I was staying out in the park
when we had brushfires before. It really impacts the breathing,
particularly because not only just as the smoke and the ash,
(28:46):
but also the debris like what they were saying they
had arsidic in the air and other kind of metals
that's going on that was being moved into different other
places where they might not have had a fire per se,
but they had the remnants of the backlash or the
backwash if you will, of those things.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Oh. Yeah, it's not my first experience with fire for sure.
Like I was trapped in a fire in twenty eighteen
under a bridge and I was targeted by an arsonist
in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
But when I had that bridge fire experience, I remember
kind of having the realization later with my friends who
also escaped, that, you know, all the things that we lost,
Like we had bicycles basically turned into piles of ash
with just like a derailer on top of it because
their carbon fiber. We realized that we were breathing in bicycles,
(29:40):
we were breathing in you know, all those things like
that's all in our you know, in our lungs. And yeah,
I definitely had lasting impacts from that because I breathed
in a lot of heavy suit I remember, I was
not the same. I don't think I've ever really been
the same like I have asthma though. So I learned
that asma is a higher prevalence in the unhoused population,
(30:03):
and I find that interesting. I'm not sure if it's
like a cause.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Or effect, you know, but it seems like that would
be a direct causal result of living in the elements.
When I was living on the street, I noticed like
my eyes were much more bloodshot, and one of my
former martial arts students thought I was on drinking or
on drugs, and I was like, no, it's just because
of we take it for granted the air quality that's
going on out here. Just because it's sunny doesn't mean
(30:30):
air is not polluted and thick with harmful contaminants, and
it seeps in everything. And this person is housed, they're
mostly in a stationary position because they don't want the
things taken or they have found a spot that they
don't want it taken up or discovered, or however, so
they keep centrally to their place of occupancy, just most
(30:53):
like anyone would do if they had a house.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Actually, while I was going, somebody moved
into my spot or a few people and thin give
it back. You know, they found my roof, they put
my roof back on, they found my park somewhere down
the road or something, and then they gave it act.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
But see, and you know that's the thing too. You know,
we all understand as in the house, how it is.
And once you get a spot, you know, we try
to hold on as long as we can. And you
know that we get when someone comes back to their spot,
oh well you know, here it is, and yeah, you know,
this is it. And that's that. I wanted to talk
to you about some of the struggles that you have
been going on, not only with the fires, but with Jay.
(31:35):
Can you talk a little bit about Jay if you want,
tell us a little bit about his situation and his
story and what would you like to see to help ja.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Yeah, it's a really tough one. We've been together since
twenty seventeen and he's amazing. He's a partner and right
now he's in men Central Jail in the LGBTQ plus section.
They call it the powder Blues because they wear like
light blue colored scrubs. I guess in Men's central deal
(32:04):
that signals that they call it alternative lifestyles or whatever,
but it's a different population than general population. And I
haven't heard from him since well, we last spoke on
the fifth, briefly sink about twenty minutes. He got housed
right in the summer. He got permanent supportive housing, which
(32:27):
we thought was the best thing that could ever happen.
I didn't believe it was real, Like I mean, I
think I'm still in disbelief a little bit because I
just never had a housing opportunity, actually material life like that.
Like I observed his After eight months of working with
the MH Home teams, he was given a permanent supportive
(32:48):
housing unit in the Valley in Panorama City. And he
was doing good, like he was starting to spend time
there and you know, grocery shops up and cooked and
you know, pay his rent. And I was seeing a
little less of him. But I was happy about that,
like because you know, he's doing great. And then he
(33:14):
got arrested. I thought he was at his house before
I knew it, he was declared incompetent to stand trial
on Christmas Eve. I didn't know that this whole legal loophole.
I'm perceiving it as existed that I thought that the
sixth Amendment guaranteed you a steedee trial a jury of
your peers in the jurisdiction that you were accused. But
(33:38):
apparently if you are a person with mental illness and
a public defender or a judge or a prosecutor questions
your competency and a hearing, you can get diverted to
this whole competency restoration process, which it takes place in
(34:01):
the state hospitals. There's five of them. I think it's
NAPA Patent Metropolitan tasked Darrow or something, and Toilano I think,
or something like that, and they're talking about putting him
in one of thout. Tomorrow is his placement hearing, and
they're estimating two years. And this is all pre trial.
(34:26):
He hasn't actually a trial for any crime. So it
was really harsh to have my partner since twenty seventeen
just lisked out of my life and have nothing I
can do about it. He's being forcibly medicated. Yeah, I
haven't been able to tell him that I evacuated and
returned his apartment key and his EBT card and stuff
(34:49):
are in his property up the jail because he was
grocery shopping when he was apprehended, and I haven't been
able to access it because well, my friend went to
on the second, but they didn't release the property for
some reason. So if I had his key, I could
have sheltered from the fire in his apartment. I could
have paid his rent. It's his money order is in
(35:11):
the apartment for December. All these things are unraveling and
there's nothing he can do about it, and there's nothing
really anyone except for maybe his public defenders and the
prosecutors can do about it. But I guess at any
point they can declare him competent again. But it's such
an arbitrary concept. In competence to stand trial means, and
(35:35):
that's the specific reason they are holding him. It's not
just general and competence, it's in competence to stand trial.
That's basically an educational issue, not a medication issue. But
the only treatment he's getting is for some medication. He's
not getting time in a courtroom like observing a trial,
(35:57):
for discussions with legal people, you know, people who know
the laws, or even there's a legal library in men
Central Jail. He has not been given access to it,
so I don't understand how he's supposed to be getting
more competent to stand trial through this forced medication. It
(36:20):
seems really humiliating and really traumatic, Like it's hard for
me to go through this. From my perspective, I can't
imagine what condition he's in because I feel like I
would just feel hopeless, like I'm stuck in this basically
lead box because he hasn't been able to have visits,
to phone calls, and the only way out is through
this bureaucratic process. In any way you go, it's years
(36:44):
just to get back to where you were. And you know,
I'm trying to save his apartment so he has a
place to come home to. That's my main concern because
I know when those conversations do start eventually, if I'd
be in two years, but he is going to need
a place to come home to and to tell the
(37:04):
judge and the prosecutor and everything that he's going to
be able to be stable at. And it just seems
like they're sending him backwards. And you know, his permanent
support of housing took eight months working with the case
managers to get after being homeless for decades, and he
didn't even have it for like maybe six months at
the most. He was supposed to spend his holidays there.
(37:28):
He had his fiftieth birthday on New Year's Eve in
the jail, And yeah, it's just really sad because now
his apartment's just sitting empty, and he's sitting in a
jail cell and I'm sitting outside and it's really depressing.
I'm sorry to like sound funny, but he has been
hearing tomorrow, so it's top of mind. And from what
(37:51):
I understand, there's probably about one hundred Jonathan in La
right now.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Wow, it sounds like a whirlwind case that it is
hard to put the head around. And also my heart
goes out to you and trying to stay strong into
this kind of uncertainty. You know, there's so much this
uncertain in the conversation with this going on that you
don't know which direction is. And I can only imagine
what Day is going through with all of the challenges
(38:17):
and trying to cope to a life where you know,
he's being medicated, in a place that he's in where
they're dealing with separated from society and any kind of
positive contact. So what is the goal for him, is
he to go to court tomorrow they're going to sentence him,
or if they are going to release him into state
(38:39):
custody for in the hospital, or what is their plan.
Do they have a plan.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
It's so hard to know. I feel like it would
be great news if they would just send him back
to criminal court, because like last time I spoke with him,
he said, I feel like I should have just put guilty,
like even though that's not the disposition he wanted to
go with, Like he said, you know, I feel like
I would have gotten a sentence. I would have a timer,
(39:03):
you know, I would know when I was coming home.
I would not be yet stressed out. There would be
so much less unknown, you know. And it's weird that
our mental health diversions, which most people I think just
like instinctually think it's kinder and nicer and softer, it
really seems like it's way meaner and way more traumatizing
(39:28):
and way less clear. Like there's no communications. He hasn't
been able to speak with a public defender. There's only
one working phone in the section he's in, and that's
been since he got there, So everybody in that unit
where he's house is sharing one phone. The only time
(39:48):
he's ever been able to call me has been in
the middle of the night. And his public defender, who
I've been calling during the day, and his son has
been calling, and you know, we've been trying to get
in touch with all year. I just found out that
he was on vacation basically last year and won't return
until tomorrow. So while Jonathan's been spending the holidays in
(40:13):
jail getting forcebly medicated, his public defender has been not answering.
His phone hasn't even been ringing when we call it,
and we've been trying to talk to him, and he's
just been on vacation, like killing and it just seems
unfair that, you know, his whole future is basically in
(40:34):
this person's hands and they can't even answer a phone call.
His DNAH worker, who he was in constant contact for
more than a year because they're the ones who helped him,
haven't even answered a text. I said, are you still
Jay's caseworkers, I'll stop texting you if you're not, could
you please just let me know? And they didn't answer.
(40:54):
They last texted me before his hearing on the twenty fourth,
before he was declared competent to scan trials. So it's
just been really bleak. Like I would like to tell
him that, you know, I'm safe, that I evacuated and
I came back. He'd be probably super impressed, you know
that I'm doing all right. It's hard eating a woman outside.
(41:16):
You know, I'm sheltered and I have a lot of
good people around me. But it's not ideal, and I
don't see how this helped anyone or is helping anybody
at all. He doesn't have victims. Just to get to
his criminal case really quick, Like in April, he was
accused of felony vandalism, but the details of that case
(41:39):
were that he is thought to have been drawing on
a parking space with chalk, but there were no witnesses.
There's no business or victims or anything that's trying to
avenge this. It's snowballed from there. So it's amazing how
such a petty little thing can turn into years of
(42:01):
your life.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
That's the thing too, is that anything can happen, just
what we just witnessed with the wildfires. People had established
homes at homes and now they're out on they're out
in the cold.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Yeah, exactly right out here with us. Yeah, and just
when you think the bottom can't fall out, like you
know it does, do you think you're you can't get
any worse than this, and then you know you just
plung fire or whatever?
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Right, will finish this conversation after the break and we're back.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Yeah, we did just have at least twelve three hundred
people joining us in homelessness, or at least twelve thousand,
three hundred homes get destroyed. So whoever was in those homes,
like the probably more people than once per Some of
those homes were vacant too, though that's kind of a
phoat I have to pick with that situation, Like a
lot of those homes were baked and they're more flammable.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well not only that too, is like you know, you know,
there's so much disinformation going on about people looting and
all of that nonsense. And then, like I say, it
was to how this whole story has been framed with
the elite losing their homes. There are people that are
struggling and going to be struggling for years to come
and going to be falling prey to the legal rapifications
(43:19):
that other in house people. Do you know while this
was going on, other in house people were being swept
in other parts of the city.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
So yeah, they were. Yeah, people were losing everything and
they didn't have to be. It was unnecessary, as you know,
people were having their homes burning killed. I said for
a long time that, you know, until a week ago,
I would always say La has more homes than it's
ever had. You know, we've never had more homes, and
(43:46):
so to still have homelessness up to a week ago,
when we had more homes than we've ever had and
will have for a few years at least until we
rebuild twelve thousand filings at least. And so what are
we going to do to change that? Like if we rebuild,
are we going to cheap that? Like are we going
to keep units vacant again? You know, we still have
(44:08):
vacant home tees. I'm still next to a two hundred
room hotel that's been vacant for years that used to
be a room key. You know, we should occupy every unit,
like any empty unit should be considered a nuisance and
the hazard.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Honestly something to think on. So now we've got we've
covered the fires, We've covered the Jay's situation, what's next
for you? What stories are you hoping to cover?
Speaker 4 (44:32):
I think I'm trying to get Eva's story out there.
She wasn't Vennis. She rented an apartment for twenty years
and she went through a breakup, she lost, you know,
family support. She's an older lady and she's got, you know,
some struggles, like with disabilities, and she saw this coming
(44:53):
from a mile away, that her living situation wasn't sustainable.
She downsides to a zero bedroom from a one bedroom
in the same building, which is funny because many years
prior she had upsides to accommodate a long term relationship.
She was in a zero bedroom, and then she was
in a one bedroom, and then she was in a
zero bedroom again, all in the same red control building Inventors.
(45:15):
And she got a notice to vacate in November. The
date that she was supposed to meet by was Veterans Day,
and so on the Tuesday, the twelfth, she figured that
the sheriffs would be at her door first thing in
the morning. And I was trying to explain to her that,
you know, there's.
Speaker 8 (45:34):
A lot of people on that eviction list every month,
like you might have some time, and she kind of
started to realize it after you know, several days went
by and there was no one trying to physically remove her.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
I said, stay as long as you can. You don't
have anywhere else to go, you know, stay as well,
like until they remove you, basically, or until you get
another place to go. So we've been applying for everything,
and there's so many resources in her neighborhood that on
the west side, she's got home Key Ramata that's been empty.
(46:10):
It's had so much money go into it that they
could have built a whole new hotel. It's only thirty
three units, but Tracy Park is not opening it. It
was supposed to open last month and they don't have
an estimated opening date, but the media had reported December
twenty twenty four. So I've just been trying to help her.
She's a really nice lady. I don't want to have
(46:32):
to live with her outside. If I can help it,
I don't let her have to go through that adjustment
of her age. But with the Bridge Home closed in
in Venice and then the Dell Affordable housing project stalled,
and I think the AHHH apartments near her are not accessible,
like she can't just apply for them for some reason.
(46:54):
I guess it's the CEES thing. She has to basically
win the lottery to get in. It's very convoluted. Yeah,
she can't really access anything, and she's just looking for
sustainable housing that she can afford. In the process of
researching this, I learned that her zip code paid four
million dollars into United to House LA, but they were
exempted from the assistance that was supposed to provide. And
(47:18):
with the fires, I'm wondering how many of those mansions
don't exist anymore that paid those taxes, and what the
revenues for that is going to look like now that
we've had the fire. I'm sure the projections are all
going to change. But the issue was that they had
a located funding for a improme assistance program for seniors
(47:39):
and disabled people who owed back rent. Her back rent
was the exact average amount in the study they did
in the data for this program that's part of ULA,
and they never funded it. In twenty twenty four, they
just rolled all the funds over to twenty twenty five,
so implementation never happened, but eviction still happened. And she's
(48:00):
become a really motivated public commenter, and I love that
but I do wish I had some better news as
far as where she's going to stay when she gets
kicked out. I would love to do like an action
at that Ramata to pressure of Tracy Parks into opening it,
because otherwise I don't think she.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Ever will Well, she's basically listens into the nimbies anyway,
which I when I covered story, is a very bizarre
kind of thing there. We've got activists there that speaks out,
but we've got pseudo activists that are trying to do
the riding. They're both fenced kind of thing. It's a
very bizarre ecosystem there. But the bottom line is they
don't want unhouse people there and they do every slippery
(48:41):
type of tactic to make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
That's true. Yeah, the West Side has got a very
hostile vibe to unhouse people. But I do have to
say they pay most of the mansion taxes in the
West Side, so they've paid large sums of money, some
of the personally and seen no results because there's been
no implementation. Their anger and shouldn't be targeted at the
(49:06):
unhelped people because they're the people who didn't get helped.
You know, the city got the money, has been collecting
interest on it, I'm sure, But I have noticed amazingly
that there is five partisan or across the spectrum support
for occupying these empty hotels, like nobody wants to see
them sit there empty. And the reason I realized that
(49:28):
was because of a right wing newspaper investigated it and
called it out and did a great piece on it. Actually,
so I do think that, you know, we we got
to find common ground sometimes for the sake of common goal.
Like occupying an empty hotel that's gotten twenty million dollars
invested into it and it's just been sitting vacant since
(49:48):
twenty twenty two is a really good way to come
together and demand that Tracy Parks do something about it,
because she's the one in control there.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Well, that's something to think on one of the things. Also,
Venice is very unique because it's a tourist attraction, so
that's another part of the tension that's been going on
with residents. And it has a history of its own
as well that's not completely talked about, but it's interesting
how that spirals into the interaction and who suffers the
(50:23):
most is the un housed community. That's the bottom line,
you know.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, Yeah, it's got a fascinating history. Venis and become
almost an on club where there's not very many disabled people.
It's not a very diverse place, like and do they
want that? It's like, I.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
Don't see why the country has always has been that way.
And it's not an accident. It's not an accident.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
But yeah, yeah, but the history there on the canals
and everything, you would think that. I don't know, Like
I liked Bond and the era. I thought I had hope,
you know, I thought, you know, things were going to
go better. And I still support like his council file.
I was still trying to get it past it died
last November to create a Lived Experience Commission on homelessness
(51:19):
because our city really needs to hear from people, you
know us kid Row, and hear from people on the
river Wash, and hear from people you know in RV's
and use those people's voices to guide policy. And we're
still struggling to be heard about anything. Meanwhile, the fire victims,
(51:41):
they're getting three years of free parking without having to
worry about tickets if they get an RV or a trailer.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
What begs the question too, will they be susceptible to
forty one eighteen in the grant's pass right, because that's
the thing too that we're not talking about. But not
everyone's going to know that they're from the fire. So
unless they now or they have some kind of identifying
kind of idea of something with that.
Speaker 4 (52:03):
Nature exactly, Yeah, how do you know?
Speaker 3 (52:06):
So how are you going to know? Right?
Speaker 4 (52:09):
And if you think about it, with the first line
of defense, the normally a FEMA solution would be a
bunch of RV's right, a bunch of FEMA trailers. Yeah,
but we know our city is possible to that. We
got I think six hundred and fifty of them back
in twenty twenty that we're supposed to be for homeless people,
and believe it or not, a few dozen of those
(52:31):
came from campfire victims that were living in them. And
eventually FEMA or whoever was like, hey, we need you
to pay rent on those trailers and if you can't,
you need to give it back. And then they took
them back and they were like, Okay, we need to
give them to the homeless people in LVA. So campfire
(52:51):
victims were made homeless again so that we could get
these things we never got, and now we need them,
you know. Now there's a need for thousands more than
we got, and what are we gonna do. We can't
come up with a parking lot, a public parking lot,
whereas LAPD has tons of LATD garages. If you want
to toe an RV somewhere, LATD will find a place
(53:15):
to toe it. But they can never find a place
where you can just park it.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
You know, I say, sometimes you just shake your hand
and just say, well, what else is crazier in this planet?
But you know then there's always something else.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Always something else. It always yet just when you think
it could get any weirder. Uh, Yeah, I did dis
places spaces last night. I had my friend here and
we we found out about something just really sad that
happened in Atlanta. Did you hear about the sweet the.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
Deadly sweep about the unhoused guy got run over?
Speaker 4 (53:53):
Oh my gosh, and they're having we're like snowbreat there
right now.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Yeah, But also too, there was also here there was
a couple of unhoused people that passed away through the
through the fires as a result of the fires too
that I was brought up to attention too, So from.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
The fires, I didn't know that. That's awful. Yeah, well, yeah,
there's been a kind of an ongoing issue in our
city with r D fires and things like that, where
the coroners had a lot of unidentified paces for a
few years, and I always feel really sad about those
(54:30):
because it's hard. I've actually been able to identify a
few people this year through just talking to people and
getting information together, trying to get everybody their name back,
but it's really chad. There's I believe there's a lot
of people still missing too.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
Right, yes, yes, yes, And it's very difficult to sometimes
the track on house people particular because we're very nomadic,
so if we're on the move with the fire and things,
chances are are some places they're not allowed to go
back because they're still being recovered or is destroyed entirely.
Speaker 4 (55:06):
So yeah, yeah, And two of my friends that live
in houses, two of my closest friends, Zach who's been
on the show, and my other friends are displaced. Their
homes did not burn down, but there their neighbors did,
like on either sides of him, like within two houses
I think or four houses. Yeah, so Jack last I
(55:29):
spoke to him. He was still displaced down the county.
I'm like, you want to come stay with me?
Speaker 3 (55:34):
You know? Yeah. I was going to ask how is
Zach was doing as well. He's another independent journalist.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
He was just he was doubly displaced. He's displaced from
Alpadina and Pasadena.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that.
Speaker 4 (55:47):
Yeah, so he escaped the county. I don't know when
they'll be back. I think they're finally opening back up
to residence from what I heard and emails and stuff.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Now, and I'm so sorry to hear that. Well, I
think this is where we can cut it. And I
wanted to thank you again for taking the time to
show up and not show but also to tell us
what's been going on with you as well as your
partner and what you're working on. So is there anything
else that I missed that you want to say?
Speaker 4 (56:18):
Thank you so much for asking.
Speaker 9 (56:21):
I want to shed light on what's going on at
the VA because the veterans were displaced doubly and they
were living in tiny sheds right and they.
Speaker 4 (56:31):
Were told in the middle of the night that they
had to get up and leave, even though their area
wasn't mandatory evacuated and I don't think they've been allowed
back yet last night checked. So definitely concerned about our
veterans at the VA in West LA. And yeah, that's
something that's interesting. But thank you so much for caring
about Jay. He asked court tomorrow at eleven am, Department
(56:56):
two O three in Hollywood. That's Tuesday, the first. So
all right, the only thing I can think to do
is invite people to go and show the judge that
people in LA care about him and don't want him
tipped around the state for the next two years.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
We want to keep him here in his community absolutely,
And again, thank you for your contributions and staying is
the person that you are.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
OK.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Thank you again to Ruth. You can support their work
by following Instagram at Ruth Lesser and more at the
links in the description. Thank you all for listening and
to the experiences that are not usually uplifted or only uplifted. Briefly,
Weedian hows would be making an effort to cover more
stories such as the aftermath and fallout of the fire
(57:47):
in an Alta Dina. If you know or feel of
a person's story who's been affected by the fire. Please
reach out to Wdianhows at gmail dot com, a Widian
house on Instagram. Thanks again for listening, and may we
again meet in the light of understanding. Wheedian Howes is
(58:10):
a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted, and created
by me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie Loftus, Kaye Fager,
Katie Fischal, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Wand
and our loco art is also by Katie Ficial. Thanks
for listening.
Previously on Weedy in House, I saw that the Black
Panther Party was an organization that was doing something about
treat them and liberation and black people. As time went on,
I learned what the Black Panther Party was doing. I
learned how they were feeding children breakfast programs, and they
were fighting for our liberation. So I did ultimately join
(00:24):
the Black Panther Party.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The only way we ever get anything, any kind of
social or political justice. As we fight in the street.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
We struggle in the streets.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We struggled in front of the rich people's palaces, we
struggled in front of the government buildings. We have never
gotten anything, any single thing that didn't require struggle.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We've never been given anything by this government. Welcome back
to Weedy in House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. This
episode is pretty straightforward. We're going to be diving into
(01:08):
the effects of the recent devastating Los Angeles fires head
on communities. Here, I'll be speaking with a mutual aid
Western Tear and a returning unhoused guest who chronicles their
experiences evacuating and rebuilding. But first, Unhouse News. Our first
(01:29):
story is about the weather. As weather forecast includes cold
snaps and places like Missouri, New York, Chicago, Washington, North Carolina,
and Michigan, to name a few. In Missouri, for instance,
bands are transporting the end House to pop up shelters.
Peter and Paul Community Center says anyone who comes through
(01:52):
their doors will be given at warm bed, food and support.
This is a developing story. For further information, have a
look at the list of cold weather shelters at the
link in the description. Our next story is an update
on the consequences of the Grants Pass ruling. Grands Pass
(02:13):
Oregon City Council voted to revoke funding but a low
barrier shelter on Redwood Highway. Citizens and advocates expressed alarm
and concern that houselessness will increase in the area. The
city council voted five to two to revoke funding. The
new city council also plans on proposing limiting camping hours
(02:36):
at the resting site of seven to twelve Northeast seventh
Street and closing entirely seven to fifty five Southeast j
Street resting site. Our next story a moment of silence
for Cornelius Taylor, an unhoused man who was run over
by Atlanta City Workers. It cannot be more ironic that
(03:04):
he was run over across the street from the church
that the King preached at, Ebenezer Baptist Church. The effort
was to visually sanitize the area in the wake of
activities surrounding Doctor King's holiday. Another moment of silence for
the unhoused man, mister Kevin Smith, who died in the
(03:26):
Los Angeles fire. Our last story. Recently, at a gas
station in Los Angeles on Hunterson Drive, a black Infinity
car pulled up to an arcle gas station and used
a paint gun machine gun on an unhoused man Onlookers
(03:50):
noted the stress and trauma the unhoused man exhibited trying
to flee from the car who was following and continued
shooting at him. License plates and other identifying infrat is
presently unknown if community members in the area near the
Hunting and Drive gas station ARCO see the young house
man and which to offer support. Is usually there and
is willing to help recycling and washing car windows. And
(04:15):
that's on House News. When we come back, we'll speak
with Philip Hit'llsey, mutual aid organizer and co owner of
ASEA in Little Tokyo. Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm
(04:35):
THEO Henderson. I want you to drink in. What started
out as a dispassionate fire warner, which is normal by
any California standards. We are fully aware of brush fires
and their propensity for destruction. What we had not counted
on was the magnitude of the destruction. Please listen in
(04:56):
how the story developed from the beginning, and then will
we begin the conversation.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
He its a brush fire breaking out in the hills
above Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Assignment manager Mark lou Is at the desk with the video.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
Mark, how does it look out there?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Not good, Christina, but.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
It is a totally different windstorm than when we're typically
used to seeing with the sant Anah.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Went late to night, another fast moving fire exploded. This
time it was in Altadina's emcam. So if you're in
any of these foothill communities right along that urban wildland interface,
you need to have a go bag ready.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
He just drove up into the hills of Pacific Palisades,
where as you say, these fires are pretty much out
of control. Thirty thousand people under mandatory evacuation orders.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
And then we looked outside.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
We saw a huge fire and we just packed whatever
we can and we ran out of his chaos.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
We thought we're gonna come.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Back tomorrow, so we didn't even back anything. We had nothing.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
My dear year old kids asking me, are we gonna go?
Do you regret coming the fire department budget by millions
of dovers mountain?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?
Speaker 6 (06:06):
We do have breaking news on the two major fires.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
We've just learned the overall depth toll has climbed to
twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I'm standing out in front of the Pasadena Job Center
here on the outskirts of the Eden fire, where hundreds
of volunteers have gathered to assist in the bre clean
of efforts.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'm here doing blood pressure checks, wood care, diabetes.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
We're dispensing medications, blankets, clothes.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
What we say is solidari it's not try. We're all
here like dealing with.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
The same issue.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
We want to make sure that people know that there's
no shaming coming here in the time of need and
getting what they need.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Our first guest today is Philip here to say, the
co owner of a restaurant in Little Tokyo who's been
involved in mutual aid in the aftermath of the fire.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
Here's his story jokingly say, I am my parents' associates
or ambassador as seen as the fires happened. I think
there was definitely a moment of shock to understand the
size of this devastating natural disaster. Los Angeles County has
(07:10):
had brush fires support, but never to this magnitude. We
had no idea how it was going to be this devastating.
It did start in the early evening in which there
were high winds. The following day, it was just very
clear that this isn't normal, and how yeah, how much
(07:31):
of an impact it had on people who were living
close by house and unhoused. And I think as yeah,
especially with you know, the commination of high winds and
the dry climate, we understood that this, yeah, this wasn't normal.
And even with us being I have a terrible sense
(07:52):
of distance, but I think we're like twenty twenty miles
away from the fire.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Twenty thirty miles away.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Well, I mean even say, because that was not just
a fire, because breash fires happened, but we had multiple
fires simultaneously.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
Exactly, Yes, fires simultaneously from both ends, from the east
and to the west. And yeah, this was a public
safety issue because it was contaminating, contaminating.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
The air that we were breathing.
Speaker 7 (08:22):
And if it was bad here, I couldn't have imagined
how bad it was for the immediate communities.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
One of the things too, I wanted to point out,
because there was always armchair quarterbackers stating some things that
this needs to be disabused of, is that issues is
evacuate and that statement doesn't really put full scope on
it because people were evacuating, but people there was a
log jam of cars. And then two, because the fires
(08:51):
and predictability in the winds, the fires come in another direction,
they're telling you to evacuate another area, so there's another
log jam. So it wasn't that simple to just listen
to what people were because you know, and some people
didn't have access like some house people didn't have access
to phone to be able to dial in anyway, or
wasn't able to physically to just speed off and just
into the night and move into another location.
Speaker 7 (09:14):
Right exactly like in these instances, there's no very clear
and methodical ways to do things because of the urgency
of the issue with the fires and the high winds
being so violent and We're always thinking about the responsibility
for the community, responsibility for employers wellbeing also includes their
(09:38):
financial wellbeing, and then also just I think at the
end of the day, we just want to feed people.
I think in hospitality we're very mindful and sometimes can
be obsessed with wanting to make.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
People happy and nourished.
Speaker 7 (09:54):
And you know, we checked in on each other first
to see if anybody lived in the area, and then
we went straight into the pantry and to see what
good do we had these to just start cooking up,
packaging and sending it to those who are running towards
the fires to help other people, and then those who
are running away from the fires, and then also for
(10:16):
the people who are unable to attain shelter, because I
think the assumption is that their shelter for everyone, but
we know the reality is that there isn't and wanted
to be very clear about that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Even though I was minimally impacted in this with my eyes.
But the thing but it is that where people could
go into shelters to be able to minimize the toxic
effects of the fire fires, many on the house people
had to sit and ingest that for its sustaining period
of time, because the libraries wasn't open, and you know
at nights on the weekend, it's like Sunday, it is
(10:53):
not open. And these shelters that they offered, so if
they did offer was not out of what they had
to stay day and then they had to leave, and
then they had two up in their whole lives. On
top of that, mayorbas was conducting sweeps against unhoused people
while these fires were going on. To juxtapose the spiritus
people that are being displaced instantly through no fault of
(11:16):
their own by a fire, there are people that are
still follow their own affected by the fire, that are
on housed out year, and they are being targeted in
the same horrific way that Los Angeles usually do with
forty one eighteen and the grants pass ruling to justify
their venom and their aggressiveness toward vulnerable people.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
Right, No, exactly, Yeah, And at the end of the day,
this is a form of displacement and I think it
is something.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
That we are not all immune from.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
Because you know, a natural disaster could have happened anywhere
in which a threat in itself is not your natural disaster,
but capitalism in itself being a threat to enacting displacement itself.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Well, that brings me to the beginning center. My point
is that what I noticed that you guys started cooking meals.
How many meals if you prepare and where would they
go up?
Speaker 7 (12:15):
So we were able to provide a thousand meals, which
which we think was really great, And we wanted to
specifically target people who were all affected by the fire,
with the understanding that there are degrees in which people
are affected by the fire. As a stack, we were
(12:36):
very We understood that we are all affected because there
that we breathe, but some more than others. Like for
those who have places to live that weren't affected, didn't
be evacuated, it is less than those who had had
to evacuate, is less than those who had to evacuate
and don't have shelter. So wanting to target those who
(12:57):
are most vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Not forget the people that were conducting or fighting the
fires or providing egg to people in it. You know,
they may have had a place to stay.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
No exactly, Yeah, like there are firefighters themselves in which
we all knew that there are incarcerated people fighting the
fires themselves. In the form of modern day slavery in
which they're not compensated. So we wanted to provide nourishment
through comfort, provide nourishment as a means for energy to
(13:28):
continue fighting fires, as nourishment to help others, to be
able to help others.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
So we're also including.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
People who have received people to provide temporary shelter because
we also understand that, you know, they need to be
helped as well. So like if there's a couple who
was displaced and they're living with someone, we're going to
give them three meals and settages two because I think
the people who are showing displays of mutual aid, they
(13:57):
also need to keep going so that the work can continue.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
That's an excellent point about the scarcity mindset that sometimes
people think when you see people getting a little extra,
they don't understand the first circumstances. We are not all
in this. We're in the same ocean, but we're not
in the same boat, and people may need to plan
meals in a way. Like a perfect example, like Saturday,
a musual aid people are hungry and like I said,
(14:23):
your meals came in to save the day. What did
you see with the un house community there on the weekend.
Speaker 7 (14:29):
Well, what was interesting as we saw that there is
a disconnect of communication, as I heard through one of
our dear friends, Philip in that people here don't have
the information that they need to be safe, especially when
it comes to the air quality. And so we did
see how the fire does directly and indirectly affect us.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
And you know, with the many things that we.
Speaker 7 (14:56):
Learned through power through j Town, through me Ado, just
talking to the stuff about and people about. You should
only do any things that you would want to receive,
and you need to be thoughtful about the conditions in
which they're receiving things. So like what good is a
bag of romain lettuce gonna do if a person doesn't
(15:17):
have a kitchen, right, if they don't have the means
to prepare food, they should be eating somethings that are
ready to eat. So yeah, just just wanting to at
least avoid a lot of inefficiencies that places are expensing
right now.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
And I have because I'm a foodie, but I have
to point out, like some of the meals that you
preferred were ready to eat but also already warmed, which
also is a big thing, which is a contested thing
that I have being on house knowing how EBT is
being used. Now they're having abt allow hot food, but
the public's did have been hated that unhouse people won't
have the hot food, so you had to use the
(15:56):
cash to the day, which was not that much to use.
How food unless we were on a program that you
had to find with restaurants were friendly to eat the sea.
But one of the things that was really I know
is appreciated when you have every weekend. We've tried to
provide hot meals along a diversity of food, but mostly
importantly hot meals so they can at least have a
(16:18):
hot meal full at least for one period of time
in their existence.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Right, Yeah, no, exactly hot food.
Speaker 7 (16:25):
It takes a lot of work, but it's also something
that we all deserve and it's something that provides that
actual step of nourishment that a cold sandwich may not.
I mean, I think especially with our weather dipping in
like the high forties in the evenings, it makes me
think of a lot about chefs and how you know,
(16:47):
they're not only people who cook food at restaurants, but
they're they're masters at knowing how to nourish people. I
know how to scale up because I know that thing
is really difficult. People can make a meal for four people,
but how do you make meals for hundreds of people?
That is definitely a skill that a chef is able
(17:08):
to do. And being mindful about food safety, what food
can be warmer, longer, how food deteriorates as it travels.
These are things as chefs are so wonderfully talented skilled ota.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
One of the things I want to point out as
well is that we all impacted by what's going on
at what's continuing the apper effects And one of the
things we've mentioned is that you know, people from the
places that I've gone, even a grocery stores, it's not
the same intensity of people. People are still a little
the skittish to go out and be skilled about to eat.
You have now offered to.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Meet that eat.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
What are the services that people want to either donate
to as a to or to get the meals and
they are a little bit hesitants to come out and
ing just you know the air right now.
Speaker 7 (17:58):
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the real barriers and
challenges that we're facing is there's the element of people
feeling ashamed to want to receive help or food to connect,
and so we're trying to meet people where they're at
by wanting to go to them directly, of course, you know,
(18:21):
with the consent and with a established relationship, because people are,
especially in traumatic situations, they're so vulnerable and it's really scary.
And so instead of just dropping it things off to
a distribution center, we are trying to target and be
(18:42):
more intentional and wanting to have a higher rate of
people receiving the help because I can't imagine going to
the evac center and you know that itself is such
an operation, it could be scary, it could be so
much so ones that are a little more local or
cent I think would be more effective. Yeah, and then
(19:02):
we're we've been also very mindful and that we don't
want to deter people from donating directly to people affect
it because at the end of the day, like the
restaurant is okay, even though we are bleeding money on top,
it is okay. So we you know, we don't openly
just say that works like donations because we want that
(19:25):
support to go directly to people. And we're also very
mindful in that Altadena has a history of it being
a black community, so we don't want to extract more
attention and support from there, but how do we channel.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Our supporters into that direction? If anything, they're a.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Good question, and they're a good point. Altadena is not
getting the bread is of help. And the stories that
I hear out there are heartbreaking us personally what the
history is going on. Many people, any walks of lives
have been impacted, some restaurants, from homes, from just basically
just employment in order to be employed in the area,
and they are not having the best of times. But
(20:05):
also is much more of an added hardship as well
because of the heavy police or law enforcement presence there
to intimidate and to terrorize the community that has had
the history of police brutality and violence, so that meets
has not been overlooked. And in addition as well, there
are as the communities are impacted, is like the Altadena
(20:26):
but not it's on the severe end like that as
of course unhoused black people. You heard that probably with death.
And like I said, pointing out, our mayor has opted
instead of just suspending these kinds of sanitation and at
least the sweet kind of purposes, she sends the message
inadvertently or deliberately that your branch of houselessness is to
(20:49):
be criminalized and dehumanized. And these people that have houselessness
over Pacific palisays, you know, which is a tragedty in itself.
But for many of the people here, like many of
the unhoused recently, what I've seen Racefule, they have to
start from scratch and they're going to be subjected to
the same laws and things that are the current on
house people are usually I dealing with. And that's another
(21:12):
thing that it's not talked about, but these things on
the books unintended consequences that maybe people that were for
these kind of things, but forgetting that we all are
much more closer to being unhoused and not building it.
And all it takes is, like you said, you can
be doing everything, you're supposed to have a mansion or
(21:32):
have a big billionaire or rich, and then all of
a sudden, it's a spurning ember that turns something that
destroys everything.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
And for black folks, I feel like in Altadena, for
many people like this was a way in which they
could become homeowners once that re learning was lifted. However,
many decades ago and there are patterns of displacement through
natural disasters like this, and displacement of folk communities like yeah,
(22:01):
just went to a conference in New Orleans and their
neighborhoods that have changed forever since Katrina that were historically black.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Neighborhoods and no longer are.
Speaker 7 (22:13):
So this is not yeah, like an isolated incident or
it's just Los Angeles.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
But it is everywhere. That is, I mean, it's really everywhere.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
The natural disasters are maybe unique in that earthquakes may
not happen in Servis will but you know, yeah, as
powder as a displacement or yeah, let's not.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Forget what recently happened over North Carolina. They didn't have
a brushfire, they had a very traumatic hurricane, and there
are people that are now living out intents or living
and its displacement type of displacement rich environment where we're
going on to the beginning tale of adding on to
more displaced people in our city. So now our environment
(22:53):
fails us, all of us, and we have to contend
with the reality of that. Thank you for your time,
and I know you're busy and I kind of intruded
on your time, but I easily.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Get Italian yeah, thank you again.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Thank you so much to Philip for his time. You
can learn more about AAY at their website Azay Little
Tookyo dot com. And when we come back, we were
here returning guests and journalist Ruth Lesser's story. Welcome back
(23:33):
to c CEO Henderson with Weedian House for our final
interview today a returning guest direct experience of the forest fires.
Most unhoused people's stories are left in the ashes of
indifference and the ugly falling down the wall crying of
losing rich people's mansion. Here Ruth Lesser talks about witnessing
(23:55):
and experiencing firsthand effects of the fire.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Well, yeah, I grew I go by Roofless on social
media and I have an iPhone. I live in public
in the city of la I continuously lived that way
since twenty seventeen. But I was first displaced in two
thousand and three unexpectedly because of TV.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
TV is domestic violence, So so people know domestic violence,
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yes, domestic violence between my parents At the time, I
was in middle school, Okay, and yeah, so that was
like unexpected, but my first kind of experience of being
displaced and I didn't realize that a lot of other
people were going through this too. I thought it was
just me, and then I kind of learned that this
is a problem not just in our society and in America,
(24:51):
but globally it's a huge problem of displacement. So I
try to align with, you know, the globally landless people.
I do displacement spaces every Sunday night, or I try
to if I have a battery charge, and it's like
a Twitter spaces where people come live. Sometimes in person,
they come to my spot and sometimes virtually and we
(25:15):
just kind of talk about anything related to displacement. That's
kind of the community. Like I've tried to foster. It's
you know, it's obviously tech isn't completely equitable, but it's
been a cool way to meet people in Palestine and
the UK and Africa. And the one before the last one,
(25:39):
like I had one last night and a week before
I had two inmate firefighters, one in person and one
virtually for the State of California, talking about how they
were inmates. One of them was a juvenile inmate. He
was seventeen, and they were defending other people's houses on
the front line.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Wow, that's the perfect segue into the conversation. The fires
affected everyone. Unfortunately, the media was hyper focused on people's
mansions and not understanding the other walks of life that
was impacted. People that were working jobs or had struggling
to work jobs for the rich, people that have lost
(26:21):
the houses, or people that are in housing secure and
we always forget about talking about how the unhoused community
were impacted. So what was your experience when the fires happened?
Where were you and how did you survive in this
kind of the environment that was happening.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Well, it got pretty real really fast. I'm used to
the elements, like I've done hurricanes and you know, atmospheric
rivers and you know all those things. But the winds
were really strong, like my roof blew off, and transformers
were exploding near me. There was power lines that were down.
(26:58):
There was palm fronts, those sharp, dried out ones that
were like really whipping around like in the air, and
one hit like right outside of my little door, and
that scared me a lot because there was like I
looked up and there was like thousands of them on
this huge palm tree that was like swaying like a
pendle of it was dust in the air, and I
(27:21):
couldn't tell if it was dust or smoke or what,
but the combination of all those elements was really intense
for me. And I hid out in this little cubby
like where I was able to shelter, and then I
put up on my Twitter that I was looking to
voluntarily evacuate and Bakeically, a Displacement Spaces participant who I'd
(27:45):
never met, happened to be a ridehare driver came by
and scooped me up. So I had a really cool
experience of actually being elsewhere. I never leave my area
usually I stay around here. But yeah, I was wished
out of trouble and returned on Saturday afternoon. So while
(28:08):
I was gone, there was a named fire literally visible
from my house, like right across the street. It was
a smaller named fire, but it was. Yeah. I was
really glad not to be breathing all that in as
it was happening live.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, it's like, you know, even when I was walking
down the street, I was impacted by the ash. My eyes,
of course, was dry but swollen. I had to really
do some rehabilitation in the breathing like these wildfires. What
I've noticed when I was staying out in the park
when we had brushfires before. It really impacts the breathing,
particularly because not only just as the smoke and the ash,
(28:46):
but also the debris like what they were saying they
had arsidic in the air and other kind of metals
that's going on that was being moved into different other
places where they might not have had a fire per se,
but they had the remnants of the backlash or the
backwash if you will, of those things.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Oh. Yeah, it's not my first experience with fire for sure.
Like I was trapped in a fire in twenty eighteen
under a bridge and I was targeted by an arsonist
in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
But when I had that bridge fire experience, I remember
kind of having the realization later with my friends who
also escaped, that, you know, all the things that we lost,
Like we had bicycles basically turned into piles of ash
with just like a derailer on top of it because
their carbon fiber. We realized that we were breathing in bicycles,
(29:40):
we were breathing in you know, all those things like
that's all in our you know, in our lungs. And yeah,
I definitely had lasting impacts from that because I breathed
in a lot of heavy suit I remember, I was
not the same. I don't think I've ever really been
the same like I have asthma though. So I learned
that asma is a higher prevalence in the unhoused population,
(30:03):
and I find that interesting. I'm not sure if it's
like a cause.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Or effect, you know, but it seems like that would
be a direct causal result of living in the elements.
When I was living on the street, I noticed like
my eyes were much more bloodshot, and one of my
former martial arts students thought I was on drinking or
on drugs, and I was like, no, it's just because
of we take it for granted the air quality that's
going on out here. Just because it's sunny doesn't mean
(30:30):
air is not polluted and thick with harmful contaminants, and
it seeps in everything. And this person is housed, they're
mostly in a stationary position because they don't want the
things taken or they have found a spot that they
don't want it taken up or discovered, or however, so
they keep centrally to their place of occupancy, just most
(30:53):
like anyone would do if they had a house.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Actually, while I was going, somebody moved
into my spot or a few people and thin give
it back. You know, they found my roof, they put
my roof back on, they found my park somewhere down
the road or something, and then they gave it act.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
But see, and you know that's the thing too. You know,
we all understand as in the house, how it is.
And once you get a spot, you know, we try
to hold on as long as we can. And you
know that we get when someone comes back to their spot,
oh well you know, here it is, and yeah, you know,
this is it. And that's that. I wanted to talk
to you about some of the struggles that you have
been going on, not only with the fires, but with Jay.
(31:35):
Can you talk a little bit about Jay if you want,
tell us a little bit about his situation and his
story and what would you like to see to help ja.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Yeah, it's a really tough one. We've been together since
twenty seventeen and he's amazing. He's a partner and right
now he's in men Central Jail in the LGBTQ plus section.
They call it the powder Blues because they wear like
light blue colored scrubs. I guess in Men's central deal
(32:04):
that signals that they call it alternative lifestyles or whatever,
but it's a different population than general population. And I
haven't heard from him since well, we last spoke on
the fifth, briefly sink about twenty minutes. He got housed
right in the summer. He got permanent supportive housing, which
(32:27):
we thought was the best thing that could ever happen.
I didn't believe it was real, Like I mean, I
think I'm still in disbelief a little bit because I
just never had a housing opportunity, actually material life like that.
Like I observed his After eight months of working with
the MH Home teams, he was given a permanent supportive
(32:48):
housing unit in the Valley in Panorama City. And he
was doing good, like he was starting to spend time
there and you know, grocery shops up and cooked and
you know, pay his rent. And I was seeing a
little less of him. But I was happy about that,
like because you know, he's doing great. And then he
(33:14):
got arrested. I thought he was at his house before
I knew it, he was declared incompetent to stand trial
on Christmas Eve. I didn't know that this whole legal loophole.
I'm perceiving it as existed that I thought that the
sixth Amendment guaranteed you a steedee trial a jury of
your peers in the jurisdiction that you were accused. But
(33:38):
apparently if you are a person with mental illness and
a public defender or a judge or a prosecutor questions
your competency and a hearing, you can get diverted to
this whole competency restoration process, which it takes place in
(34:01):
the state hospitals. There's five of them. I think it's
NAPA Patent Metropolitan tasked Darrow or something, and Toilano I think,
or something like that, and they're talking about putting him
in one of thout. Tomorrow is his placement hearing, and
they're estimating two years. And this is all pre trial.
(34:26):
He hasn't actually a trial for any crime. So it
was really harsh to have my partner since twenty seventeen
just lisked out of my life and have nothing I
can do about it. He's being forcibly medicated. Yeah, I
haven't been able to tell him that I evacuated and
returned his apartment key and his EBT card and stuff
(34:49):
are in his property up the jail because he was
grocery shopping when he was apprehended, and I haven't been
able to access it because well, my friend went to
on the second, but they didn't release the property for
some reason. So if I had his key, I could
have sheltered from the fire in his apartment. I could
have paid his rent. It's his money order is in
(35:11):
the apartment for December. All these things are unraveling and
there's nothing he can do about it, and there's nothing
really anyone except for maybe his public defenders and the
prosecutors can do about it. But I guess at any
point they can declare him competent again. But it's such
an arbitrary concept. In competence to stand trial means, and
(35:35):
that's the specific reason they are holding him. It's not
just general and competence, it's in competence to stand trial.
That's basically an educational issue, not a medication issue. But
the only treatment he's getting is for some medication. He's
not getting time in a courtroom like observing a trial,
(35:57):
for discussions with legal people, you know, people who know
the laws, or even there's a legal library in men
Central Jail. He has not been given access to it,
so I don't understand how he's supposed to be getting
more competent to stand trial through this forced medication. It
(36:20):
seems really humiliating and really traumatic, Like it's hard for
me to go through this. From my perspective, I can't
imagine what condition he's in because I feel like I
would just feel hopeless, like I'm stuck in this basically
lead box because he hasn't been able to have visits,
to phone calls, and the only way out is through
this bureaucratic process. In any way you go, it's years
(36:44):
just to get back to where you were. And you know,
I'm trying to save his apartment so he has a
place to come home to. That's my main concern because
I know when those conversations do start eventually, if I'd
be in two years, but he is going to need
a place to come home to and to tell the
(37:04):
judge and the prosecutor and everything that he's going to
be able to be stable at. And it just seems
like they're sending him backwards. And you know, his permanent
support of housing took eight months working with the case
managers to get after being homeless for decades, and he
didn't even have it for like maybe six months at
the most. He was supposed to spend his holidays there.
(37:28):
He had his fiftieth birthday on New Year's Eve in
the jail, And yeah, it's just really sad because now
his apartment's just sitting empty, and he's sitting in a
jail cell and I'm sitting outside and it's really depressing.
I'm sorry to like sound funny, but he has been
hearing tomorrow, so it's top of mind. And from what
(37:51):
I understand, there's probably about one hundred Jonathan in La
right now.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Wow, it sounds like a whirlwind case that it is
hard to put the head around. And also my heart
goes out to you and trying to stay strong into
this kind of uncertainty. You know, there's so much this
uncertain in the conversation with this going on that you
don't know which direction is. And I can only imagine
what Day is going through with all of the challenges
(38:17):
and trying to cope to a life where you know,
he's being medicated, in a place that he's in where
they're dealing with separated from society and any kind of
positive contact. So what is the goal for him, is
he to go to court tomorrow they're going to sentence him,
or if they are going to release him into state
(38:39):
custody for in the hospital, or what is their plan.
Do they have a plan.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
It's so hard to know. I feel like it would
be great news if they would just send him back
to criminal court, because like last time I spoke with him,
he said, I feel like I should have just put guilty,
like even though that's not the disposition he wanted to
go with, Like he said, you know, I feel like
I would have gotten a sentence. I would have a timer,
(39:03):
you know, I would know when I was coming home.
I would not be yet stressed out. There would be
so much less unknown, you know. And it's weird that
our mental health diversions, which most people I think just
like instinctually think it's kinder and nicer and softer, it
really seems like it's way meaner and way more traumatizing
(39:28):
and way less clear. Like there's no communications. He hasn't
been able to speak with a public defender. There's only
one working phone in the section he's in, and that's
been since he got there, So everybody in that unit
where he's house is sharing one phone. The only time
(39:48):
he's ever been able to call me has been in
the middle of the night. And his public defender, who
I've been calling during the day, and his son has
been calling, and you know, we've been trying to get
in touch with all year. I just found out that
he was on vacation basically last year and won't return
until tomorrow. So while Jonathan's been spending the holidays in
(40:13):
jail getting forcebly medicated, his public defender has been not answering.
His phone hasn't even been ringing when we call it,
and we've been trying to talk to him, and he's
just been on vacation, like killing and it just seems
unfair that, you know, his whole future is basically in
(40:34):
this person's hands and they can't even answer a phone call.
His DNAH worker, who he was in constant contact for
more than a year because they're the ones who helped him,
haven't even answered a text. I said, are you still
Jay's caseworkers, I'll stop texting you if you're not, could
you please just let me know? And they didn't answer.
(40:54):
They last texted me before his hearing on the twenty fourth,
before he was declared competent to scan trials. So it's
just been really bleak. Like I would like to tell
him that, you know, I'm safe, that I evacuated and
I came back. He'd be probably super impressed, you know
that I'm doing all right. It's hard eating a woman outside.
(41:16):
You know, I'm sheltered and I have a lot of
good people around me. But it's not ideal, and I
don't see how this helped anyone or is helping anybody
at all. He doesn't have victims. Just to get to
his criminal case really quick, Like in April, he was
accused of felony vandalism, but the details of that case
(41:39):
were that he is thought to have been drawing on
a parking space with chalk, but there were no witnesses.
There's no business or victims or anything that's trying to
avenge this. It's snowballed from there. So it's amazing how
such a petty little thing can turn into years of
(42:01):
your life.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
That's the thing too, is that anything can happen, just
what we just witnessed with the wildfires. People had established
homes at homes and now they're out on they're out
in the cold.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Yeah, exactly right out here with us. Yeah, and just
when you think the bottom can't fall out, like you
know it does, do you think you're you can't get
any worse than this, and then you know you just
plung fire or whatever?
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Right, will finish this conversation after the break and we're back.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Yeah, we did just have at least twelve three hundred
people joining us in homelessness, or at least twelve thousand,
three hundred homes get destroyed. So whoever was in those homes,
like the probably more people than once per Some of
those homes were vacant too, though that's kind of a
phoat I have to pick with that situation, Like a
lot of those homes were baked and they're more flammable.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well not only that too, is like you know, you know,
there's so much disinformation going on about people looting and
all of that nonsense. And then, like I say, it
was to how this whole story has been framed with
the elite losing their homes. There are people that are
struggling and going to be struggling for years to come
and going to be falling prey to the legal rapifications
(43:19):
that other in house people. Do you know while this
was going on, other in house people were being swept
in other parts of the city.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
So yeah, they were. Yeah, people were losing everything and
they didn't have to be. It was unnecessary, as you know,
people were having their homes burning killed. I said for
a long time that, you know, until a week ago,
I would always say La has more homes than it's
ever had. You know, we've never had more homes, and
(43:46):
so to still have homelessness up to a week ago,
when we had more homes than we've ever had and
will have for a few years at least until we
rebuild twelve thousand filings at least. And so what are
we going to do to change that? Like if we rebuild,
are we going to cheap that? Like are we going
to keep units vacant again? You know, we still have
(44:08):
vacant home tees. I'm still next to a two hundred
room hotel that's been vacant for years that used to
be a room key. You know, we should occupy every unit,
like any empty unit should be considered a nuisance and
the hazard.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Honestly something to think on. So now we've got we've
covered the fires, We've covered the Jay's situation, what's next
for you? What stories are you hoping to cover?
Speaker 4 (44:32):
I think I'm trying to get Eva's story out there.
She wasn't Vennis. She rented an apartment for twenty years
and she went through a breakup, she lost, you know,
family support. She's an older lady and she's got, you know,
some struggles, like with disabilities, and she saw this coming
(44:53):
from a mile away, that her living situation wasn't sustainable.
She downsides to a zero bedroom from a one bedroom
in the same building, which is funny because many years
prior she had upsides to accommodate a long term relationship.
She was in a zero bedroom, and then she was
in a one bedroom, and then she was in a
zero bedroom again, all in the same red control building Inventors.
(45:15):
And she got a notice to vacate in November. The
date that she was supposed to meet by was Veterans Day,
and so on the Tuesday, the twelfth, she figured that
the sheriffs would be at her door first thing in
the morning. And I was trying to explain to her that,
you know, there's.
Speaker 8 (45:34):
A lot of people on that eviction list every month,
like you might have some time, and she kind of
started to realize it after you know, several days went
by and there was no one trying to physically remove her.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
I said, stay as long as you can. You don't
have anywhere else to go, you know, stay as well,
like until they remove you, basically, or until you get
another place to go. So we've been applying for everything,
and there's so many resources in her neighborhood that on
the west side, she's got home Key Ramata that's been empty.
(46:10):
It's had so much money go into it that they
could have built a whole new hotel. It's only thirty
three units, but Tracy Park is not opening it. It
was supposed to open last month and they don't have
an estimated opening date, but the media had reported December
twenty twenty four. So I've just been trying to help her.
She's a really nice lady. I don't want to have
(46:32):
to live with her outside. If I can help it,
I don't let her have to go through that adjustment
of her age. But with the Bridge Home closed in
in Venice and then the Dell Affordable housing project stalled,
and I think the AHHH apartments near her are not accessible,
like she can't just apply for them for some reason.
(46:54):
I guess it's the CEES thing. She has to basically
win the lottery to get in. It's very convoluted. Yeah,
she can't really access anything, and she's just looking for
sustainable housing that she can afford. In the process of
researching this, I learned that her zip code paid four
million dollars into United to House LA, but they were
exempted from the assistance that was supposed to provide. And
(47:18):
with the fires, I'm wondering how many of those mansions
don't exist anymore that paid those taxes, and what the
revenues for that is going to look like now that
we've had the fire. I'm sure the projections are all
going to change. But the issue was that they had
a located funding for a improme assistance program for seniors
(47:39):
and disabled people who owed back rent. Her back rent
was the exact average amount in the study they did
in the data for this program that's part of ULA,
and they never funded it. In twenty twenty four, they
just rolled all the funds over to twenty twenty five,
so implementation never happened, but eviction still happened. And she's
(48:00):
become a really motivated public commenter, and I love that
but I do wish I had some better news as
far as where she's going to stay when she gets
kicked out. I would love to do like an action
at that Ramata to pressure of Tracy Parks into opening it,
because otherwise I don't think she.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Ever will Well, she's basically listens into the nimbies anyway,
which I when I covered story, is a very bizarre
kind of thing there. We've got activists there that speaks out,
but we've got pseudo activists that are trying to do
the riding. They're both fenced kind of thing. It's a
very bizarre ecosystem there. But the bottom line is they
don't want unhouse people there and they do every slippery
(48:41):
type of tactic to make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
That's true. Yeah, the West Side has got a very
hostile vibe to unhouse people. But I do have to
say they pay most of the mansion taxes in the
West Side, so they've paid large sums of money, some
of the personally and seen no results because there's been
no implementation. Their anger and shouldn't be targeted at the
(49:06):
unhelped people because they're the people who didn't get helped.
You know, the city got the money, has been collecting
interest on it, I'm sure, But I have noticed amazingly
that there is five partisan or across the spectrum support
for occupying these empty hotels, like nobody wants to see
them sit there empty. And the reason I realized that
(49:28):
was because of a right wing newspaper investigated it and
called it out and did a great piece on it. Actually,
so I do think that, you know, we we got
to find common ground sometimes for the sake of common goal.
Like occupying an empty hotel that's gotten twenty million dollars
invested into it and it's just been sitting vacant since
(49:48):
twenty twenty two is a really good way to come
together and demand that Tracy Parks do something about it,
because she's the one in control there.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Well, that's something to think on one of the things. Also,
Venice is very unique because it's a tourist attraction, so
that's another part of the tension that's been going on
with residents. And it has a history of its own
as well that's not completely talked about, but it's interesting
how that spirals into the interaction and who suffers the
(50:23):
most is the un housed community. That's the bottom line,
you know.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, Yeah, it's got a fascinating history. Venis and become
almost an on club where there's not very many disabled people.
It's not a very diverse place, like and do they
want that? It's like, I.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
Don't see why the country has always has been that way.
And it's not an accident. It's not an accident.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
But yeah, yeah, but the history there on the canals
and everything, you would think that. I don't know, Like
I liked Bond and the era. I thought I had hope,
you know, I thought, you know, things were going to
go better. And I still support like his council file.
I was still trying to get it past it died
last November to create a Lived Experience Commission on homelessness
(51:19):
because our city really needs to hear from people, you
know us kid Row, and hear from people on the
river Wash, and hear from people you know in RV's
and use those people's voices to guide policy. And we're
still struggling to be heard about anything. Meanwhile, the fire victims,
(51:41):
they're getting three years of free parking without having to
worry about tickets if they get an RV or a trailer.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
What begs the question too, will they be susceptible to
forty one eighteen in the grant's pass right, because that's
the thing too that we're not talking about. But not
everyone's going to know that they're from the fire. So
unless they now or they have some kind of identifying
kind of idea of something with that.
Speaker 4 (52:03):
Nature exactly, Yeah, how do you know?
Speaker 3 (52:06):
So how are you going to know? Right?
Speaker 4 (52:09):
And if you think about it, with the first line
of defense, the normally a FEMA solution would be a
bunch of RV's right, a bunch of FEMA trailers. Yeah,
but we know our city is possible to that. We
got I think six hundred and fifty of them back
in twenty twenty that we're supposed to be for homeless people,
and believe it or not, a few dozen of those
(52:31):
came from campfire victims that were living in them. And
eventually FEMA or whoever was like, hey, we need you
to pay rent on those trailers and if you can't,
you need to give it back. And then they took
them back and they were like, Okay, we need to
give them to the homeless people in LVA. So campfire
(52:51):
victims were made homeless again so that we could get
these things we never got, and now we need them,
you know. Now there's a need for thousands more than
we got, and what are we gonna do. We can't
come up with a parking lot, a public parking lot,
whereas LAPD has tons of LATD garages. If you want
to toe an RV somewhere, LATD will find a place
(53:15):
to toe it. But they can never find a place
where you can just park it.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
You know, I say, sometimes you just shake your hand
and just say, well, what else is crazier in this planet?
But you know then there's always something else.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Always something else. It always yet just when you think
it could get any weirder. Uh, Yeah, I did dis
places spaces last night. I had my friend here and
we we found out about something just really sad that
happened in Atlanta. Did you hear about the sweet the.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
Deadly sweep about the unhoused guy got run over?
Speaker 4 (53:53):
Oh my gosh, and they're having we're like snowbreat there
right now.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Yeah, But also too, there was also here there was
a couple of unhoused people that passed away through the
through the fires as a result of the fires too
that I was brought up to attention too, So from.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
The fires, I didn't know that. That's awful. Yeah, well, yeah,
there's been a kind of an ongoing issue in our
city with r D fires and things like that, where
the coroners had a lot of unidentified paces for a
few years, and I always feel really sad about those
(54:30):
because it's hard. I've actually been able to identify a
few people this year through just talking to people and
getting information together, trying to get everybody their name back,
but it's really chad. There's I believe there's a lot
of people still missing too.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
Right, yes, yes, yes, And it's very difficult to sometimes
the track on house people particular because we're very nomadic,
so if we're on the move with the fire and things,
chances are are some places they're not allowed to go
back because they're still being recovered or is destroyed entirely.
Speaker 4 (55:06):
So yeah, yeah, And two of my friends that live
in houses, two of my closest friends, Zach who's been
on the show, and my other friends are displaced. Their
homes did not burn down, but there their neighbors did,
like on either sides of him, like within two houses
I think or four houses. Yeah, so Jack last I
(55:29):
spoke to him. He was still displaced down the county.
I'm like, you want to come stay with me?
Speaker 3 (55:34):
You know? Yeah. I was going to ask how is
Zach was doing as well. He's another independent journalist.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
He was just he was doubly displaced. He's displaced from
Alpadina and Pasadena.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that.
Speaker 4 (55:47):
Yeah, so he escaped the county. I don't know when
they'll be back. I think they're finally opening back up
to residence from what I heard and emails and stuff.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Now, and I'm so sorry to hear that. Well, I
think this is where we can cut it. And I
wanted to thank you again for taking the time to
show up and not show but also to tell us
what's been going on with you as well as your
partner and what you're working on. So is there anything
else that I missed that you want to say?
Speaker 4 (56:18):
Thank you so much for asking.
Speaker 9 (56:21):
I want to shed light on what's going on at
the VA because the veterans were displaced doubly and they
were living in tiny sheds right and they.
Speaker 4 (56:31):
Were told in the middle of the night that they
had to get up and leave, even though their area
wasn't mandatory evacuated and I don't think they've been allowed
back yet last night checked. So definitely concerned about our
veterans at the VA in West LA. And yeah, that's
something that's interesting. But thank you so much for caring
about Jay. He asked court tomorrow at eleven am, Department
(56:56):
two O three in Hollywood. That's Tuesday, the first. So
all right, the only thing I can think to do
is invite people to go and show the judge that
people in LA care about him and don't want him
tipped around the state for the next two years.
Speaker 3 (57:12):
We want to keep him here in his community absolutely,
And again, thank you for your contributions and staying is
the person that you are.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
OK.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Thank you again to Ruth. You can support their work
by following Instagram at Ruth Lesser and more at the
links in the description. Thank you all for listening and
to the experiences that are not usually uplifted or only uplifted. Briefly,
Weedian hows would be making an effort to cover more
stories such as the aftermath and fallout of the fire
(57:47):
in an Alta Dina. If you know or feel of
a person's story who's been affected by the fire. Please
reach out to Wdianhows at gmail dot com, a Widian
house on Instagram. Thanks again for listening, and may we
again meet in the light of understanding. Wheedian Howes is
(58:10):
a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted, and created
by me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie Loftus, Kaye Fager,
Katie Fischal, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Wand
and our loco art is also by Katie Ficial. Thanks
for listening.
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