Wildfires expose safety, logistical risks for LA County's unhoused

As wildfires tear through Los Angeles County, tens of thousands of unhoused residents face a cascade of risks: toxic air they can't filter, emergency alerts they can't receive, and evacuation orders they struggle to follow.

County officials have relocated hundreds of people from immediate danger zones, but health providers and homeless advocates say there's more to be done for the area's 75,000 unhoused residents. The crisis, they say, has exposed critical gaps in how the region protects its most vulnerable residents.

“Our folks, they're almost like sitting ducks,” said Melissa Chavez with VelNonArt Transformative Health, a community health provider serving unhoused residents in the Antelope Valley, San Fernando Valley and Long Beach.

“They're in these fire hazardous places where there is still toxic air — with very limited resources,” Chavez said.

Wildfire danger in Southern California is far from over, with firefighters still working the Palisades and Eaton fires that started two weeks ago. New evacuations were ordered Wednesday after a fire erupted in the L.A. County community of Castaic and swiftly grew to more than 9,000 acres.

That means an even greater strain on area resources.

“We're trying to meet as many needs as possible,” said Ryan Smith, CEO of the St. Joseph Center, the main homeless services provider in West L.A. “It’s not easy.”

Health concerns

L.A. County officials have urged residents to avoid breathing in smoke and ash, and to stay indoors when possible while fires are burning. But about 52,000 people who live outside — in tents, cars, RVs and makeshift shelters — find it difficult to avoid toxic air.

“The air quality has been bad,” said Giselle “Gelly” Harrell, who lives in a tent behind a pharmacy in Van Nuys. “So it's been hard breathing and I’m having sinus issues and eye irritation.”

Physician assistant Carrie Kowalski said symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other respiratory ailments are among the top complaints she hears from patients at Venice Family Clinic, which serves unhoused communities throughout West Los Angeles and the South Bay.

“We commonly see them for asthma and COPD," Kowalski said. "So [this week] they’ve been complaining about wheezing, trouble breathing, and coughing — because they're outside, and they're exposed to all of the fumes.”

Last week, L.A. County’s winter shelters were open, but were at capacity, authorities said.

Kookie Reyes, who stays at the Palm Tree Inn in Van Nuys through the city of L.A.’s Inside Safe program, said she has chronic asthma and was glad to have shelter while the fires were burning. But she said she worries about others in her community: How can they protect themselves from smoke and ash in the air? Where can they get air filters?

“It's kind of hard when you're homeless,” Reyes said. “Where are you going to put it? Where are you going to plug it in at?”

Mental health issues are also a key concern, experts said.

The 2024 Point-In-Time count found that 24% of unhoused people over the age of 18 live with a serious mental illness like psychotic disorders, according to the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority. That’s well above the general population.

“I've already seen a flare in anxiety and depression,” said Kowalski, who added that many patients at the clinic have severe mental illness, including bipolar and schizophrenia. "This can be really triggering for them and heighten their symptoms."

Logistical gaps

In addition to a lack of shelter, the region's ongoing fire crisis has highlighted several other logistical problems, including getting emergency alerts to people who may not have access to cellphones or computers, and providing transportation when certain bus routes and train services are canceled.

“I do not have any electronic devices,” said Harrell, who is unsheltered in Van Nuys. “It was from word of mouth and from seeing fire in the sky. There's not really a place where we can check up on the local news, what's going on in our area, what might affect us immediately."

While Los Angeles has is stepped up its efforts to clear homeless encampments, some experts point out that people who live in encampments might feel safer during a crisis situation — like a wildfire — compared to people camping alone.

“Because there might be at least one person among the encampment dwellers that does have some communication or lifeline outside of that community,” said Hunter from the RAND Center. “Maybe one person has a charged phone.”

Transportation is also an issue that can impede evacuation in danger zones. Several bus routes were canceled for safety reasons at the start of the Eaton and Palisades fires, making it difficult for some unhoused residents to evacuate promptly.

Those routes have not yet resumed.

Harrell told LAist she doesn’t have a clear game plan for what she would do if she was notified to evacuate.

“I probably wouldn't even take anything with me because I'm used to losing things,” she said. “I'm used to the city coming and uprooting us all the time and taking our property. And so I would just try to make it quick.

"I've become an expert at starting over.”

Strained resources

As of late last week, county authorities and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority had evacuated more than 500 people from 17 interim housing sites in fire danger zones and repopulated 10 of those sites, according to the L.A. County Homeless Initiative.

LAHSA provided 645 temporary motel vouchers to unhoused residents and distributed fire safety information, N95 masks, protective goggles and meals to unsheltered populations in high-risk areas, the agency said.

“As the lead agency for the L.A. area’s rehousing system, LAHSA is dedicated to safeguarding our unhoused neighbors," said CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum in a statement. “When disaster threatens, we don’t wait. We act.”

But the crisis has overwhelmed service providers as they attempt to support the chronically unhoused and those newly displaced by the fires.

"We're looking at how we support folks who are currently displaced as well as folks who have been experiencing homelessness,” said Ryan Smith of the St. Joseph Center, the main nonprofit homeless services provider in West Los Angeles. “That is a new call for us, and we’re stretched thin."

The organization was able to work with city and county agencies to find beds for interim shelter residents who needed to be relocated, according to Smith. And despite the evacuation orders, he added, outreach teams continued to visit unsheltered residents in Malibu and Pacific Palisades.

“Even as we saw the impact on the wildfires and all of the air quality challenges, our outreach engagement team was out there exhausted, making sure that folks experiencing homelessness had resources, had masks, and had the support they needed in order to really survive what's happening around them,” Smith said.

In the immediate aftermath of the wildfires, demand for shelter and housing for displaced residents across the region will make it even harder for unsheltered people to find more permanent, affordable housing.

At Pasadena’s Union Station Homeless Services, Paul Acosta has been waiting for a housing placement for a year, but he said he was told the placements have been indefinitely delayed during the wildfire recovery efforts.

“Everything’s on hold for us, because no matter what, they’re first," he said, referring to people who lost their comes to the fires.

But he seemed to take the situation in stride.

"I’m not selfish. I have a roof, shower and food," he told LAist. "These people don’t have anything. So, be my guest. I will back up and go to the end of the line for these people."

He added: “My turn will come.”