The fire is spreading and new outbreaks appear around Los Angeles. Gusts of 120 kilometers per hour fan and scatter the fire. In the desperate struggle to try to control this tragedy, another issue arises: what to do with the more than 100,000 homeless people who had to be evacuated.
The vast majority cannot return to their homes, either because the fire destroyed them or because the situation of extreme alert persists.
Wildfire Refugees
These refugees have become outcasts due to the fires in Los Angeles. They have nowhere to go, so local and state government agencies must be extremely resourceful to accommodate them, provide them with clothes and food.
Shelter places are overcrowded and many people even have to spend nights in cars, buses, or vans to sleep under a roof.
The situation is so serious in Los Angeles that Donald Trump, just days before taking office as president, compared it to a nuclear bomb dropping. The fire remains uncontrolled and fueled by strong winds. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble or ashes.
Challenges for authorities
There are 100,000 evacuated people and as the fire does not subside, the number of homeless people will continue to increase. This represents a major problem for authorities as they try to control the fire.
The capacity of households for shelter is overflowing. Clubs and schools have been set up to accommodate people who overnight became homeless.
The county of Los Angeles is engulfed in smoke while multiple wildfires in Palisades, Pasadena, Altadena, and Sylmar mostly remain uncontained and have left tens of thousands of people exposed.
Some have the means to move forward due to their economic situation or the help of family or friends. But many do not have those alternatives. They need a roof for the night, a place to sleep, shelter for their children, and food. That’s why all kinds of bars and restaurants in Los Angeles are providing assistance to those affected by the fires.
The struggle of homeless evacuees to find shelter
Tens of thousands of evacuees are now struggling to find (and keep) temporary shelter. The capacity planned for these emergencies never contemplated such a sudden catastrophe.
Like other major cities in the U.S. and around the world, the housing shortage was already a problem in Los Angeles, one of the least accessible cities to find a home in the United States. With 100,000 evacuated people, the displaced are beginning to be scattered throughout southern California.
The area is no longer able to contain them, as daily problems add up, such as the threat of running out of electricity. Therefore, in other California communities, these “unexpected homeless” are distributed in shelter beds, hotel rooms, spare rooms of relatives, and friends’ couches.
But at this moment, it is impossible to know for how long it will be, let alone how they will return to life before this fire that seems endless.
In times of crisis, solidarity does not always prevail. The search for long-term housing has already sparked bidding wars in some neighborhoods on the edge of the burned areas. Amazingly, this fact alone caused temporary rental prices to rise rapidly.
Devastation shows no mercy and will continue as long as the fire cannot be controlled.
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