![]() “I don’t want to be an inconvenience to the community. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” the person said. In spite of the danger, the person said they had no plans to move on from the encampment or to give up what little sense of community they had beneath the freeway. “We were screaming at the top of our lungs for everybody to get out,” said one resident of the encampment, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. Homeless fire victims lose “literally everything that they’ve had with them on the street, which includes where they’re sleeping, their clothes, often documents that are necessary to access services.” “It takes a toll,” said Justin Szlasa, an organizer with the nonprofit SELAH collaborative. Those who work to better the lives of homeless people say the surge in blazes has its most devastating effects on homeless people themselves. But they have no authority to prohibit essential activities such as cooking, and they have too few resources to inspect every camp. County, said the city’s inability to stem the fires reflects most Angelenos’ indifferenceĪ case being heard in federal court in Los Angeles is probing a key question left open in that ruling: How many shelter beds would the city have to provide to begin enforcing its anti-camping laws at hundreds of locations around the city? At the least it would be thousands, and the timetable remains unknown.įire officials say they combat the problem as best they can by sending teams from all 106 fire stations to look for hazards, including in homeless camps, and address any they find. Mel Tillekeratne, the founder of a mobile shower program that aids encampments throughout L.A. firefighters asked few, if any, questions when responding to blazes with unknown causes. At several encampments, The Times spoke to residents who said L.A. For homeless people, the fear is much starker, as a fire could swallow up what little they have left.Īctivists and unhoused people have questioned the city’s commitment to solving the issue. Business owners are left wondering if a random blaze will scar or destroy their property. Impossible to quantify is the dread, hostility and loss of faith in government brought on by the surge in fires. But social stress is also a factor: A third of the 15,610 fires related to homelessness in the past 3 ¼ years were classified as arson. The epidemic of fires is largely attributable to the built-in conditions for combustion in street camps - cooking stoves and campfires in close proximity to tent fabric and piles of other flammable material. The angst in Venice is part of a widening tableau of fear, anger and tragedy that has become an everyday consequence of homelessness across Los Angeles. “What we know for sure is that around my home and the school across the street from it there are people cooking on sidewalks and RV kitchenettes, burning fires to keep warm, using generators for electricity, living out of their cars, smoking and using drugs in makeshift shacks and tents.” “We may never know for sure what happened,” next-door neighbor Francesca Padilla wrote in an impassioned email to dozens of city officials. While arson investigators have yet to determine a cause in the April 20 blaze, traumatized neighbors quickly linked it to a rash of fires in Venice’s growing homeless camps. ![]() The tenant was away for the night, but her dog, Togo, succumbed after his howls of panic and pain left helpless neighbors with a memory they can’t forget. The film went on to win the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 1971.The fire began at 3 a.m., quickly destroying the clapboard bungalow two blocks from Venice Beach. Iconic Italian director Luchino Visconti chose the site for his adaptation of Mann’s novel. The hotel also was the site of Thomas Mann’s classic book “Death in Venice,” published in 1912. ![]() If the re-opening is delayed, it will add to the infrastructure woes of the Venice festival, which will have to work around the three-year project to construct a new central Palazzo del Cinema starting this year.Īlong with the Excelsior Hotel, the Des Bains is one of only two five-star properties on the Venice Lido, and it is popular with film stars, studio executives and journalists during the festival. “There’s no reason to think it will take more than a few weeks to repair the damage and fix whatever problem started the fire,” a hotel official said in a brief telephone interview. The hotel closes each year between October and March. But it was likely that the problem will be fixed before the start of the Aug. Officials said the fire might delay the April re-opening of the hotel, which is popular with jet setters and film stars. ![]()
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