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