![]() ![]() The organization’s restaurant partners also provided hot meals before and after the storm. Dang cites organizations in nearby Little Tokyo and Downtown for donations of tarps and tents. This meant that fewer than 400 cumulative beds were available across these sites for the roughly 75,000 unhoused people in the city.ĭonations and fundraising allowed CCED to mobilize and help Chinatown residents and bordering neighbors after the storm. In Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people are experiencing unsheltered homelessness on any given day, the city ultimately activated only eight total emergency shelters by the time the storm was in full force. “I know there’s some convoluted bureaucracy about who has control over the shelter system and which departments each council district has to ask to be able to open shelters, but for an emergency like this, that part of the bureaucracy should be overhauled to make sure that no one is weathering the conditions of a storm without any protection,” said Elise Dang, an organizer with Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (CCED), a grassroots organization advocating for affordable housing, self-determination, and the cultural integrity of Chinatown.ĭang surmised with fellow CCED volunteers that their best option going into the storm was to keep their neighbors as dry as possible on the streets instead of relying on bed availability. Organizers argue that the system set in place for emergencies operates too slowly, including the bureaucratic process to expedite solutions. Hernandez, who assumed office in December 2022 with a promise to radically change how resources and housing are distributed to people experiencing homelessness, now waits for her motion to be reviewed by Los Angeles’ Public Safety and Housing committees before it goes to the full council for a vote. When we know these emergencies are coming, we shouldn’t have to wait for them to increase at those levels in order to start setting up beds.” “ we have to reach certain levels of crises or waters or calls before different levels of response are activated. “I hope this report shows proactive steps and solutions that we can implement beforehand or some policies that we can update,” she said. Hernandez hopes that her motion will engender more urgency in emergency procedures. The motion also asks for more transparency from the Emergency Management Department on the process that occurred to activate shelters to serve unhoused Angelenos during Hurricane Hilary. ![]() 22 with a motion that the City Council directs the Emergency Management Department to report back on the threshold for Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activation, including the number of days in advance of a potential emergency the EOC can be activated. Representing Los Angeles’ Council District 1, which comprises Chinatown, Highland Park, and other riverside and hillside neighborhoods, Hernandez responded to Hilary on Aug. “I don’t want to have those situations anymore because it’s our fault for not being able to step up as a city.” “Knowing that these things were coming and … seeing the lack of action by the city and the gaps within the city response was just frustrating and disappointing,” Hernandez said. For Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, the bouts of unpredictable weather over the last several years-including last winter’s storms that flooded the Los Angeles River-raises the question of just how dated the city’s emergency response protocols are. Tropical Storm Hilary was the first of its kind to make landfall in Los Angeles in 84 years. Now, less than a month after Hilary passed through California as a tropical storm, Los Angeles is anxious to find ways to prepare and care for unhoused Angelenos who are at the front line of natural disasters. I got soaked, but I was able to stay warm in at least one part. ![]() “I had to fight against the water pressure. “This thing poured like Niagara Falls onto my roof,” he said. But by the afternoon, a leak sprang from a damaged pipe attached to the side of the supermarket, submerging many of his personal belongings in rain and flood water. During the first hours of downpour, which brought more rain in Los Angeles than on any other August day on record, Cameron sat dry inside his home. Residing on a quiet sidewalk next to a supermarket, the longtime Mid City resident felt fortunate to receive wooden pallets from a mutual aid group to keep his tent above street level. Ten days after Hurricane Hilary passed through Los Angeles, Alex Cameron’s personal belongings were finally dry. ![]()
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