The first fire started last August, in the tent of a man living at the base of the public stairwell beside my house near Echo Park. It consumed much of the surrounding hill and came within a few feet of my yard before the fire department arrived. Another individual moved in soon after, and the second fire began in a shopping cart where he stored some possessions.
But J. started the sixth fire also, early last Saturday morning, and this one was big enough to catch some of the surrounding underbrush. I was not as calm this time, sprinting toward it barefoot in the dark and screaming, while J., terrified, stomped it out. Yet afterward I did not consider calling the police.L.A.’s homeless services are hopelessly overburdened, and J. needs my help now.
This is admirable in the abstract, and ideally the police would not be the city’s point of contact for our unhoused population. But increasingly this disregard seems to have filtered to the general citizenry as well, and it feels as if we have simply become accustomed to seeing people passed out in the street, or smoking meth on the sidewalk.
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