January 13, 2025 • 30 mins
James talks to Andreina from Ktownforall about the devastating fires in Los Angeles and how mutual aid groups are mobilizing to help the community.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Coolz Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi everyone, welcome, VIC can have it here.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It's me James today with a terrible cold as you
can probably tell, but still very important to listen today
because I'm talking to andre Na, an organizer from Ktown
for All Up in LA, and we're going to talk
about the fires in LA and the.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Meat laid response and what you can do to help.
So welcome to the show Andrena, thank you for having me. James. Yeah,
thanks for being here. I know you guys are really
busy right now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So to begin with, like in case this has missed people,
and there's a lot there's a lot of news happening
right now, can you explain what's been going on in
LA with respected the fires for the last two or
three days.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
So about three or four days ago, we got a
warning that we were going to be experiencing high winds
up to fifty miles per hour, which is nuts, and
they were going to be coming from the desert. So
this is just like a barrage of hot wind. So
we were preparing to have to replace tents and tarps
because you know, man made structures that people are surviving
(00:59):
with cancer that kind of wind. But when we hear
that wind here in southern California, we immediately think fire, sadly,
because any little you know, a cigarette, but an electrical spark,
you know, like when it's this dry, it's enough to
cause devastation, which is exactly what's happened. There are about
seven fires right now spread around the perimeter of Los
(01:20):
Angeles County that have been started and then spread massively
by these giant winds everywhere. So the embers are being
picked up. Thankfully the wind has settled down, but the
wind itself has prevented, you know, the big water tinkers
from flying, which is led to the massive devastation that
you saw in the Palisades and other areas. You know,
(01:41):
the entire water we being grounded for a while. It
just meant that it was burning with no control, relying
on on the ground firefighters. So what we've seen is
just mass devastation, thousands of homes lost. I think there
is a death tally, thankfully very low in about tannish.
I think I've heard from this morning with confirmation, but yeah,
(02:04):
that's all we're facing right now.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, it's pretty devastating, like whole neighborhoods have gone, right,
I think I thought like two thousand structures have already
been burned. And like, as you said, if people aren't
in the United States or aren't familiar with how fire
is fort like out here in the Western United States,
it's a lot of air dropping fire retired in and
air dropping water, which without that, it's very hard to
(02:29):
get enough water to where it needs to be. And
I believe at one point that actually ran out of
water in water towers right up in Palisades.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, the fire hydrants ran dry in some areas, which
is terrifying to think of. And we were warned, I'm
in the Korea Ton neighborhood. We were warned about low
water pressure. And I do know that some areas in
Los Angeles, particularly in that region, are being worn to
boil water and that their water is unsafe to drink
right now.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, I've seen that too. There was a water boil
warning for yeah, lots of places. So as a result
of these fires and all the destruction they've caused, I
think I saw it, was it one hundred and fifty
thousand odd people have been displaced now, is that?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is that right? Is that a good number?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I saw something large like that of just the people
that have been evacuated. Right north of me was the
Sunset fire, and that was very concerningly close to their
career ten neighborhood that is generally never concerned about fires
because we're so in the concrete jungle, like we're so insulated.
I think that's the closest we've come to devastation. And
(03:32):
we were really stressed out last night just keeping an
eye on the news because that's, you know, not even
two miles away from the core of the densest neighborhood
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, I guess again if people aren't familiar, like, fires
destroy property and kill people every year here, and the
climate change has meant that they have become worse and worse.
But in the middle of a city, you're genermanly not
worried about fires because the resources will be spent to
defend that property. Right, Like, this is to the very
unique situation to see huge parts of a city burning down.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, particularly the Palisades, which is historically a significantly wealthy neighborhood,
you know, a den of celebrity and Hollywood elites. It
seeing it devastated just kind of sends home the point
that you know, you have wealth that insulates you from
the worst of what we're facing, but that only goes
(04:26):
so far. I saw that there was a couple of
wealthy people on Twitter begging for private fired fighting forces
to come save their homes. Famously, the same ones that
are talking about tax evasion and how smart they are
to do real estate, you know, maneuvering to not pay
into the social system that helps in these times. Clearly
(04:47):
we're severely underfunded and severely undermanaged when it comes to
the government stepping in during these emergencies.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, and like, that's something I want to address because
I think in every natural disaster that I've covered, the
reason it becomes a disaster, I guess is because the
state's incapable of responding in a way that protects people.
And in almost every case it's people who have to
step up and look after one another. So we should
talk about the response of the LA city and county governments,
(05:20):
and then I'd love to talk about the mutial aid
response after that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, from what we've seen here in Kaytown, if you
weren't immediately evacuated, there's nothing. All of our outreach folks
that were out talking to all of our unhouse neighbors
here in the area, which are in the hundreds, first
of all, didn't know what was going on. They saw
the sky, they assumed there was a fire nearby, but
they didn't know the swath of the devastation and that
(05:45):
we were generally threatened as well. They didn't have any supplies,
and in some areas of Los Angeles we've heard as
of this morning and yesterday that sweeps have continued. So
the city has continued throwing away tents from the people
living on the streets, and then for the house people
that have been displaced. There are shelter designations that they've
(06:06):
set up. Pen Pacific Park is one of them for Hollywood,
there's one in Pasadena, you know, and the like. But
it seems to be, you know, a hodgepodge of you know,
disorganization and a lot of you know, mutual aid folks
on the ground being the ones to direct people and
gather the supplies. I have not heard of, you know,
(06:26):
a very formalized system. There is no word on any
kind of significant assistance for people who have lost their
homes at the moment, I don't know if the Red
Cross is gonna set a staging zone up or anything.
But I do know that the people who are setting
up you know, places for people to go, food, water,
even pet care things like that have been just random volunteers.
(06:49):
You know. I'm in this chat group Mutual ADLA that
spurred you know, literally just on signal the day that
the fire started, that has a thousand people on it
mobilizing and distributing and volunteering to move people from one
area of the city to the other. You know, I
have this person who needs a place to stay, Like,
who's got a list of places that are open, because
(07:10):
when you have disasters this big, you need help quickly. Yeah,
and bureaucracy just doesn't you know that that's not built
for that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
And like we've definitely seen that there was just a
failure of the state to respond like in the way
that it needed to as quickly as it needed to.
And it's really it's wonderful to see people picking up slack,
Like of course it is. It's really beautiful that people
show up for each other in these times. There's something
about that that I obviously, like find really affirming.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That's maybe why I do this for a living.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
But yeah, it's really beautiful to see It doesn't mean
that we should forget that. Like the state has capacity
that it is using, as you said, to displace people
who are unhoused. It could be using that capacity to
bring masks to people, to bring food to people, to
create shelter for people. It's not it's choosing to harasp
people who live on the street.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, and this is.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Something we see repeatedly. You know, it hasn't rained in
LA for about eight months, but when it did rain,
we had historical rains last year, in particular, we had
a cold front where folks die every time, and we
know folks are going to die every time it rains
here in LA. We have more people that die of
hypothermia and Los Angeles than New York and San Francisco
(08:24):
combined every year. Because hypothermia actually doesn't require it to
be freezing this set end. It just requires you to
be in around sixty degrees and be wet, which is
very common on the streets here of LA. We've seen
people get frostbite from having their skin against cold concrete,
you know, over the night while it's raining, and our
(08:45):
electeds know this. When I first started doing this work,
there was a slogan that we were chanting for a
day in LA and that was the number of unhelped
people that died every day, and now we're at about
six or seven. We request, you know, through the Freedom
of Information Act, requests the coroner's report every year of
how many people died, and that number is only growing.
(09:06):
And the government knows this. They know every time we
have a heat wave that there are seventy thousand people
sleeping on the streets, sleeping in their cars. They know that.
During the winter, you know, people are out there in
the cold and the rain. And I talk to people
who aren't into the organizing space and they ask me like, well,
aren't there you know, insert service here that you think
there should be, you know right now during the fires,
(09:29):
Like aren't there vans picking people up and taking them
to shelter? And it's like that would be wonderful. When
there's not. There's never any vans picking people up, you know,
even when they open up cooling shelters and warming shelters.
The number one barrier we heard from people in the
streets is how would I get there? And when I
get there, they make me not bring my stuff in,
(09:49):
so it's all going to get stolen. There's just all
of these barriers that the city is just completely you know,
purposely neglecting. They could talk to any of us on
how to a successful you know, warming or cooling shelter,
they don't, you know, they have no interest in what
we have to say. In fact, our city council person
here in Kytown doesn't respond to any of our inquiries
(10:12):
at all. She just flat out doesn't respond to us
whenever we email her with concerns or questions. And that's
kind of how we've been, you know, working just with
the knowledge that we don't have this support of this agency,
and in fact they are opposition. You know, we're the
ones having organize around them and what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, it's sadly not that dissimilar here. Like every time
it rains, people will die. Every time we have a
heat wave. I remember they found the remains of an
house person a couple of years ago, and they thought
the person had been burned like by fire, and it
turned out they had just been exposed to massive amounts
of heat. And yeah, I remember a couple of years ago,
to give an anecdote, it was I think above one
(10:54):
hundred degrees in town. It was so hot and I
was in the riverbed, like I had this big insulated
backpack to get people cold water, and just like dozens
of people, we're in terrible distress. And yeah, there was
no presence of police fire, anyone to help. Right Like
we have these sometimes billion dollar police departments in these cities,
(11:15):
and people are still unsafe and they don't feel safe
reaching out to any government agencies because these government agencies
are the same ones that you say that throw away
that shit, that destroy all the little things that they've
been trying to build up to get onto, you know,
like a better situation in life.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, and I think there's this sense of like apathy
that has built, and rightfully so from the people that
live on the streets where we've you know, relayed messages
that we've heard like hey, two one one says they
have one hundred shelter buds tonight, call and see if
you can get in, and they're like, okay, you know,
like I'll give it a shot, you know, and it's
(11:51):
very well received because we understand the amount of disappointment
these people have gone through when they do the care
plus sweeps, which which is in itself such an evil name,
when they throw all their stuff away when they show up,
and they do care. Plus they show up with a
social worker first, which if I was a social worker,
I'd be kicking and screaming about how damaging that is
(12:14):
that right before they throw away everything that an non
house person owns, they send in a loan social worker
to write their names and maybe their numbers down and
tell them that the shelters are full, but they'll get
back to them, and then they have all of their
belongings to them away. I can't imagine the harm that
has done for just trusting services even when they're available,
(12:36):
you know, accessing them and then giving them your information.
Have one person who rightfully so told me they have
trauma about filling out forms because they've done this three
hundred times, you know, they said something incredible. They've been
counting about how many times they've filled the same forms
out to have it lead nowhere. And I can't imagine,
(12:56):
you know, that kind of resilience. Now, with this devastation,
there's going to be a lot of homeowners who are
going to experience that firsthand. I'm seeing a lot of
people that are homeless for the first time ever in
their lives, Like in their late fifties. And these are
people that have owned homes, that have worked careers, that
have you know, lived their whole life as you're supposed
to in the United States, and then in their elder
(13:19):
years before some sort of disaster or social Security doesn't
pay anymore, and they are severely shocked when I tell
them what the landscape of our social safety net looks like.
I've had people ask me like, where do I go
to sign up for free housing? And I have to
tell them, you know, the wait list for vouchers is
fifteen years long and it's a lottery. The list is
(13:40):
closed because it's so full. You can apply to senior housing,
but that's about a ten year wait. You know that.
I have to be the one to tell them that,
and that's sort of shock. I think is going to
be hitting a lot of folks that have never tried
to access services before.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, definitely, let's take a little break here for some
advertisements and then we'll come back. All right, we're back, So.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah, I think anyone who's familiar with the situation facing
unhouse people in southern California will understand that there is
not a safety net, and that's about to become more
profoundly obvious than ever for thousands of people. Let's talk
about the way that people are helping to take care
of one another, because I think that's that's what always
(14:35):
happened to these situations. So let's talk about the mutual
aid effort. Maybe you could talk about some of the groups,
talk about some of the things you've been doing, and
then I want to get on to how people can
help if they're in town, and how people can help
if they are a long way away.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, in LA, we have a very robust network of
mutual aid groups that have been built by force, honestly,
via this government. I think a lot a lot of
them have started up to step in. Just there's no
denying all over LA that there's this crisis. Because you
walk outside of your house and there are people sleeping
(15:11):
on your street. You know, there's people digging through your garbage.
So we've seen this blossoming of mutual aid groups all
over the city, and we in times of crisis, you know,
will spark up a signal group that grows from zero
to thousands of people overnight that are willing to jump
in and get their hands dirty, to coalesce and find resources.
(15:35):
You know, here's where we're buying masks. This star is out,
don't go to this one. Go to that one who's
reimbursing people for gas, et cetera, et cetera. And it's
normal people. You know, I have a full time job.
My friends here in k Town for All. Some are teachers,
some are in the movie industry, you know, some are
(15:55):
random lawyers you know that will take their time out
to do this work. And I think that it's beautiful
in the sense that we get people the help they need,
and it's never enough, which is crushing. Here in Ktown.
We give supplies to about four hundred or so on
(16:15):
house people a week minimum, and that is hygiene supplies,
tense blankets. We connect them to any services that they
might ask us to connect them to, driving them to
the hospital, et cetera. And this has been going on
for the last five years. And Ktown for All specifically
started as a counter protest because there was an attempt
(16:37):
to build a shelter here in Koreatown and some homeowners
organized against it. They marched down Wilshire and shut it down,
and our founders found each other because they were the
only five people holding up. We want shelter signs and
just started doing distribution themselves. And I think that's one
thing that I would really suggest to folks is it's
(16:57):
not as intimidating as it seems to start one of
these projects. It's literally you and a couple of friends
who decide that you're going to do something, and you
acknowledge that you can't do everything and that you'll never
be able to meet the need because what we need
is a government who cares about people. But in the meanwhile,
we're going to do the best we can, and the
(17:19):
lives of the you know, now four hundred or so
people that we see every week are a little better
because we decide to do that.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, I think that's really important to say that. Like
it can seem really overwhelming. This is an email I
get almost every week, like how do I start a
mutual aid group? But like, if you can make a sandwich,
then you can you can start a mutual aid group.
Like just go and feed people who are hungry, if
someone's cold, give them a blanket. Like it doesn't have
to be like you don't have to read seventeen books,
(17:48):
you know, and be like starting a five h one,
C three and stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
You just need to do things.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And I think, especially like we're going into a new administration,
we're going to see the state being more hot style
to people who already marginalized, And like, the best advice
I have for people is to get off the internet
and to get into the streets and just do something.
It doesn't matter if you say you won't be able
to do everything, not right away, maybe one day we will,
(18:13):
but like, doing something is a lot better than doing nothing,
and I guarantee it there is also much better for
you and you're met. Like I feel so much better
when I'm able to help people. I wouldn't be able
to do the job I do at the border if
I wasn't also able to help people. It helps me
feel like I'm not part of the problem, I guess,
or like we're doing something about it at least. What
(18:34):
are people doing right now to help people who are
impacted by the fires? Like what are the needs that
are arising and how are people meeting them?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, well, Ktown for all focuses here in the k
Town neighborhood, and what we've particularly focused on is mass distribution.
People are sitting and it's literally raining ash in some
areas and are sitting in the sut so there's that.
There's basic tent and tarp gathering meals. So many emergencies
services shut down during disasters that you know makes sense,
(19:04):
but a lot of food kitchens that people would get
meals from are not open right now. So it's getting
people food, getting people water just enough to survive. In
other areas, folks are gathering supplies. There's all Power Books
that is a big distribution site right now. Po Mutuoid
out in the Palms area is doing a lot of
really great work. The South Bay got swept last night,
(19:27):
so South Bay Mutuo Aid Club is replacing tens this morning.
There's a lot of the Pet Mutuo Aid groups who
are gathering pet food and finding foster homes for a
lot of the found dogs and cats. It's just I mean,
I can't even list the amount of people right now
that are like in their vehicles doing drop offs to
you know, the Sidewalk project. There's a big skid Row
(19:50):
distribution point that is building up, crowdsourcing insulin, things that
like you don't think about that people ran out of
their house that they need to live, they don't have
time to go get a prescription right, you know at
a primary care provider like that we need albuterol that
people are having asthma attacks. So there's these kind of
burdens that mutual aid projects get around because people a
(20:11):
don't have to fill out any forms, they don't have
to wait. If we have it, you're going to be
handed it. And you know, even medical providers as part
of our projects, have become a really big support as
people on the streets are often very disabled. We have
a lot of folks at diabetes, like diabetic open wounds,
like just very horrible injuries that need constant care. All
(20:35):
Power Bookstore has a free clinic, All Power Clinic and
they offer free medical care and come with us on
our roots here in Ktown to offer free treatment for folks.
And I think that's something that is going to only grow,
as you said, as this administration occurs. Homelessness rose eighteen
percent in the last year, and that's only been the
(20:56):
case every year since we started counting there. There is
no way this administration is going to institute rent control
or anything that keeps people from being displaced. One mutual
aid project that I think people overlook often is the
tenants unions, the LA Tenants Union mobilizing to care for
their members, checking in on their disabled members. These kind
(21:18):
of community based organizations where people know people, they know
who to check up on, they know who's vulnerable. Those
kind of organizations are invaluable in emergencies like these.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, definitely, And like I one good thing that can
come out of this is that we can build stronger communities,
right and we can hopefully folks who are finding themselves
dependent on mutual aid for the first time can realize that,
like they can participate in that. And I know there
are folks already where who have lost their homes who
are still out there helping other people, driving around, rescuing
people and stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, And I think we say this all the time
in the homelessness space. You know, you're closer to being
homeless than you are to be a billionaire. And I
think this is one of the most direct examples. Like
these people might have been well off maybe a month
or two ago, and then now they have zero. You know,
(22:10):
they're going to be fighting with insurance companies for maybe
five years, you know, if some of them, and hopefully
you know, they end up recovering. But I hope they
don't forget that climate change and emergency disasters are a
great equalizer. And the people that show their faces, they're
not the politicians, they're not the lobbyists, they're not you know,
(22:33):
the Democratic Party, you know, TM. It's your neighbor who
has a mask for you. It's me, someone random from
down the block who got a couple friends together, who
has water for you. You know, like, that's who comes through,
and that's who you need to care for all the time,
including your unhouse neighbors that are around you all the time,
(22:55):
who live in your community and who face this emergency
every day. You know, they don't know where they're going
to sleep every night, they don't know where the next
meal is coming from. Every day. They get their stuff
destroyed by the state, you know, regularly, if not once
a week, very frequently. And I hope this is really sad,
but I hope it forces some empathy in people who
(23:16):
otherwise don't think about themselves in this context of being
a human that needs food, water, and shelter, you know,
the basics.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, talking of food, water and shelter, those are the
things I need as well, and so to pay for them,
I have to pivot to ads.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Now, Okay, we're back. I think that was a really
good plug for the Quai Muti ladies.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Important and hopefully there are people who are listening right
or people who are finding themselves for the first time
interested in helping seeing a crisis. A lot of people
like will ask me if they can come help at
the border, and of course you can, but you should
also help in your own community because there are people
who need you there, and obviously that's very true in
LA right now. So I want to give some resources
(24:09):
some ways people can help. If people are listening in LA,
what are some like I know there are all kinds
of efforts, but what are some concrete things they can
do or some places they can go If they're in
a situation where they're not massively impacted by the fires
and they want to help other people, what are some
things they can do?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
You're free to.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Follow kitown for All on Instagram. We are constantly uploading
on our stories year round, fundraisers, resource requests, go fundmes,
et cetera. We really try to stay connected with the
La Mutual Aid Network, and honestly, once you follow one
of us, you kind of follow all of us because
we're very supportive of each other's effort. Mutual Aid LA
(24:49):
is a good hub. They have a magazine that gets
published every month that has a list of mutual aid
programs all over LA. If you can't come out on
physical outreach with us, which we do on Saturdays every
Saturday except the first Saturday of the month when we
do our planning meeting, you're free to help us, you know,
connect with others. You're free to help us financially. But
(25:11):
we also you know, funny you mentioned this, James, But
if you DM us and you're like, hey, I want
to talk to someone about starting a project in my region,
I'm so happy to hop on a zoom with you.
Tell you how we do our distribution, tell you how
we make our maps of encampments, tell you how we
you know, fund and routsource. Always happy to find that
(25:32):
knowledge and people messages all the time. Can we start
a Neighborhood for All chapter? Yeah, And we're like, we're
so honored that you would do that. Please don't ask,
but you're totally welcome to. And so we have Pasadena
for All that is doing great work, and Pasadena for
All is definitely always in need of support. They are
in a huge disaster zone Altadena, Pasadena, Like all those
(25:54):
areas are been evacuated, Palms mutuid But yeah, if you
want to stay connected, you know, I'll follow us on
Instagram Ktown for all, same Twitter, same on Blue Sky,
and will hopefully be your input into the La Mutual
Aid scene. We're always so happy to support anyone else
doing this work. And while we focus in the Ktown neighborhood,
(26:16):
LA is a giant place. And if you have any
neighborhoods in Los Angeles that you feel passionate about or
need extra attention, you know, we'll always be the ones
to uplift those.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, that's really cool. I think it's really important that
we share.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Like one of my friends, when we were doing border stuff,
made a website where we documented all the stuff we
did so that it was open source and available to people,
like how we built shelters and how we cooked and yeah,
we don't need to reinvent the wheel every time, Like
we can all help each other get that start and
not make the mistakes so we all made. So that's
really cool that people can reach out to you. What
about if they're a long way away and they just
(26:49):
want to send some money they want to help and
they've got money they want to share.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, you're always welcome to venmo us Ktown for all.
Same on Venmo, we have a PayPal link, We have
a website, kton for all dot org. We are five
oho C three. If you'd like to donate in our
you know, in some kind of corporate fancy way, feel
free to dm us. We just got that figured out.
But yeah, all of our money gets spent directly on
(27:16):
material goods. We don't have any employees, we don't have
any overhead. Our volunteers are up to their necks and
baby wipes usually when we get you know, sock donations
and things like that. And honestly, we prefer it that
way just because you know, we know what nonprofit requirements
are like and that kind of burden that that place
(27:36):
is on mutuoid projects and we're trying to avoid them.
So every time still goes to supplies. And I know
every mutuoid project Jtown Action in Japantown as well, operates
in a very similar model. I would just suggest people
get plugged in to mutuoid La. They follow us on Instagram,
feel free to send any money. Work constantly on our stories,
(27:58):
uploading go fund and venmos and stuff. I really appreciate
their help, you know, out of the country, and hope
that one day orgs like ours are not needed anymore
because we live in a great world.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Is there anything else, like, do you have any bottlenecks
or particular shortages that you want to shout out that
the audience can maybe help you with.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
We're always looking for staples, So those are tents and
tarps constantly. Those are often the most expensive items people
have to purchase. Tents go about thirty to forty dollars
each one, and the government throws a lot of them
away every week. So those items, feel free to always
(28:40):
DM me if you have some that you would like
to drop off. But I will say mutual aid orgs
are really good at building connections directly with vendors, and
we usually get like a discount and buying in bulk.
So I would really love to shake people from their
fear of donating cash. Yeah yeah, I know a lot
of folks feel comfortable like buying an item because you
know that that's the item that's given out. But sometimes
(29:02):
we get a better deal buying a thousand of those
tenths and your dollar goes farther, so you know, tense
blankets and again, don't be afraid to do this by yourself,
Like you can go to home Depot and buiotent and
hand it to someone. You can go to home Depot
and buy masks right now and hand them to someone.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
You don't have to.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Wait for a group like this to be around and
to help, particularly if you're a neighborhood needs you.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, and it's a really good message. It's a good
place to end.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Just to remind everyone, it's at Ktown for All on
Instagram and Ktown for All on Venmo.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Right, yep, great, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Thank you so much. It Could Happen Here is a
production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonmedia dot com, or check
us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for
It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks
(30:00):
for listening.
Coolz Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi everyone, welcome, VIC can have it here.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It's me James today with a terrible cold as you
can probably tell, but still very important to listen today
because I'm talking to andre Na, an organizer from Ktown
for All Up in LA, and we're going to talk
about the fires in LA and the.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Meat laid response and what you can do to help.
So welcome to the show Andrena, thank you for having me. James. Yeah,
thanks for being here. I know you guys are really
busy right now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So to begin with, like in case this has missed people,
and there's a lot there's a lot of news happening
right now, can you explain what's been going on in
LA with respected the fires for the last two or
three days.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
So about three or four days ago, we got a
warning that we were going to be experiencing high winds
up to fifty miles per hour, which is nuts, and
they were going to be coming from the desert. So
this is just like a barrage of hot wind. So
we were preparing to have to replace tents and tarps
because you know, man made structures that people are surviving
(00:59):
with cancer that kind of wind. But when we hear
that wind here in southern California, we immediately think fire, sadly,
because any little you know, a cigarette, but an electrical spark,
you know, like when it's this dry, it's enough to
cause devastation, which is exactly what's happened. There are about
seven fires right now spread around the perimeter of Los
(01:20):
Angeles County that have been started and then spread massively
by these giant winds everywhere. So the embers are being
picked up. Thankfully the wind has settled down, but the
wind itself has prevented, you know, the big water tinkers
from flying, which is led to the massive devastation that
you saw in the Palisades and other areas. You know,
(01:41):
the entire water we being grounded for a while. It
just meant that it was burning with no control, relying
on on the ground firefighters. So what we've seen is
just mass devastation, thousands of homes lost. I think there
is a death tally, thankfully very low in about tannish.
I think I've heard from this morning with confirmation, but yeah,
(02:04):
that's all we're facing right now.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, it's pretty devastating, like whole neighborhoods have gone, right,
I think I thought like two thousand structures have already
been burned. And like, as you said, if people aren't
in the United States or aren't familiar with how fire
is fort like out here in the Western United States,
it's a lot of air dropping fire retired in and
air dropping water, which without that, it's very hard to
(02:29):
get enough water to where it needs to be. And
I believe at one point that actually ran out of
water in water towers right up in Palisades.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, the fire hydrants ran dry in some areas, which
is terrifying to think of. And we were warned, I'm
in the Korea Ton neighborhood. We were warned about low
water pressure. And I do know that some areas in
Los Angeles, particularly in that region, are being worn to
boil water and that their water is unsafe to drink
right now.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, I've seen that too. There was a water boil
warning for yeah, lots of places. So as a result
of these fires and all the destruction they've caused, I
think I saw it, was it one hundred and fifty
thousand odd people have been displaced now, is that?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is that right? Is that a good number?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I saw something large like that of just the people
that have been evacuated. Right north of me was the
Sunset fire, and that was very concerningly close to their
career ten neighborhood that is generally never concerned about fires
because we're so in the concrete jungle, like we're so insulated.
I think that's the closest we've come to devastation. And
(03:32):
we were really stressed out last night just keeping an
eye on the news because that's, you know, not even
two miles away from the core of the densest neighborhood
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, I guess again if people aren't familiar, like, fires
destroy property and kill people every year here, and the
climate change has meant that they have become worse and worse.
But in the middle of a city, you're genermanly not
worried about fires because the resources will be spent to
defend that property. Right, Like, this is to the very
unique situation to see huge parts of a city burning down.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, particularly the Palisades, which is historically a significantly wealthy neighborhood,
you know, a den of celebrity and Hollywood elites. It
seeing it devastated just kind of sends home the point
that you know, you have wealth that insulates you from
the worst of what we're facing, but that only goes
(04:26):
so far. I saw that there was a couple of
wealthy people on Twitter begging for private fired fighting forces
to come save their homes. Famously, the same ones that
are talking about tax evasion and how smart they are
to do real estate, you know, maneuvering to not pay
into the social system that helps in these times. Clearly
(04:47):
we're severely underfunded and severely undermanaged when it comes to
the government stepping in during these emergencies.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, and like, that's something I want to address because
I think in every natural disaster that I've covered, the
reason it becomes a disaster, I guess is because the
state's incapable of responding in a way that protects people.
And in almost every case it's people who have to
step up and look after one another. So we should
talk about the response of the LA city and county governments,
(05:20):
and then I'd love to talk about the mutial aid
response after that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, from what we've seen here in Kaytown, if you
weren't immediately evacuated, there's nothing. All of our outreach folks
that were out talking to all of our unhouse neighbors
here in the area, which are in the hundreds, first
of all, didn't know what was going on. They saw
the sky, they assumed there was a fire nearby, but
they didn't know the swath of the devastation and that
(05:45):
we were generally threatened as well. They didn't have any supplies,
and in some areas of Los Angeles we've heard as
of this morning and yesterday that sweeps have continued. So
the city has continued throwing away tents from the people
living on the streets, and then for the house people
that have been displaced. There are shelter designations that they've
(06:06):
set up. Pen Pacific Park is one of them for Hollywood,
there's one in Pasadena, you know, and the like. But
it seems to be, you know, a hodgepodge of you know,
disorganization and a lot of you know, mutual aid folks
on the ground being the ones to direct people and
gather the supplies. I have not heard of, you know,
(06:26):
a very formalized system. There is no word on any
kind of significant assistance for people who have lost their
homes at the moment, I don't know if the Red
Cross is gonna set a staging zone up or anything.
But I do know that the people who are setting
up you know, places for people to go, food, water,
even pet care things like that have been just random volunteers.
(06:49):
You know. I'm in this chat group Mutual ADLA that
spurred you know, literally just on signal the day that
the fire started, that has a thousand people on it
mobilizing and distributing and volunteering to move people from one
area of the city to the other. You know, I
have this person who needs a place to stay, Like,
who's got a list of places that are open, because
(07:10):
when you have disasters this big, you need help quickly. Yeah,
and bureaucracy just doesn't you know that that's not built
for that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
And like we've definitely seen that there was just a
failure of the state to respond like in the way
that it needed to as quickly as it needed to.
And it's really it's wonderful to see people picking up slack,
Like of course it is. It's really beautiful that people
show up for each other in these times. There's something
about that that I obviously, like find really affirming.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That's maybe why I do this for a living.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
But yeah, it's really beautiful to see It doesn't mean
that we should forget that. Like the state has capacity
that it is using, as you said, to displace people
who are unhoused. It could be using that capacity to
bring masks to people, to bring food to people, to
create shelter for people. It's not it's choosing to harasp
people who live on the street.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, and this is.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Something we see repeatedly. You know, it hasn't rained in
LA for about eight months, but when it did rain,
we had historical rains last year, in particular, we had
a cold front where folks die every time, and we
know folks are going to die every time it rains
here in LA. We have more people that die of
hypothermia and Los Angeles than New York and San Francisco
(08:24):
combined every year. Because hypothermia actually doesn't require it to
be freezing this set end. It just requires you to
be in around sixty degrees and be wet, which is
very common on the streets here of LA. We've seen
people get frostbite from having their skin against cold concrete,
you know, over the night while it's raining, and our
(08:45):
electeds know this. When I first started doing this work,
there was a slogan that we were chanting for a
day in LA and that was the number of unhelped
people that died every day, and now we're at about
six or seven. We request, you know, through the Freedom
of Information Act, requests the coroner's report every year of
how many people died, and that number is only growing.
(09:06):
And the government knows this. They know every time we
have a heat wave that there are seventy thousand people
sleeping on the streets, sleeping in their cars. They know that.
During the winter, you know, people are out there in
the cold and the rain. And I talk to people
who aren't into the organizing space and they ask me like, well,
aren't there you know, insert service here that you think
there should be, you know right now during the fires,
(09:29):
Like aren't there vans picking people up and taking them
to shelter? And it's like that would be wonderful. When
there's not. There's never any vans picking people up, you know,
even when they open up cooling shelters and warming shelters.
The number one barrier we heard from people in the
streets is how would I get there? And when I
get there, they make me not bring my stuff in,
(09:49):
so it's all going to get stolen. There's just all
of these barriers that the city is just completely you know,
purposely neglecting. They could talk to any of us on
how to a successful you know, warming or cooling shelter,
they don't, you know, they have no interest in what
we have to say. In fact, our city council person
here in Kytown doesn't respond to any of our inquiries
(10:12):
at all. She just flat out doesn't respond to us
whenever we email her with concerns or questions. And that's
kind of how we've been, you know, working just with
the knowledge that we don't have this support of this agency,
and in fact they are opposition. You know, we're the
ones having organize around them and what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, it's sadly not that dissimilar here. Like every time
it rains, people will die. Every time we have a
heat wave. I remember they found the remains of an
house person a couple of years ago, and they thought
the person had been burned like by fire, and it
turned out they had just been exposed to massive amounts
of heat. And yeah, I remember a couple of years ago,
to give an anecdote, it was I think above one
(10:54):
hundred degrees in town. It was so hot and I
was in the riverbed, like I had this big insulated
backpack to get people cold water, and just like dozens
of people, we're in terrible distress. And yeah, there was
no presence of police fire, anyone to help. Right Like
we have these sometimes billion dollar police departments in these cities,
(11:15):
and people are still unsafe and they don't feel safe
reaching out to any government agencies because these government agencies
are the same ones that you say that throw away
that shit, that destroy all the little things that they've
been trying to build up to get onto, you know,
like a better situation in life.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, and I think there's this sense of like apathy
that has built, and rightfully so from the people that
live on the streets where we've you know, relayed messages
that we've heard like hey, two one one says they
have one hundred shelter buds tonight, call and see if
you can get in, and they're like, okay, you know,
like I'll give it a shot, you know, and it's
(11:51):
very well received because we understand the amount of disappointment
these people have gone through when they do the care
plus sweeps, which which is in itself such an evil name,
when they throw all their stuff away when they show up,
and they do care. Plus they show up with a
social worker first, which if I was a social worker,
I'd be kicking and screaming about how damaging that is
(12:14):
that right before they throw away everything that an non
house person owns, they send in a loan social worker
to write their names and maybe their numbers down and
tell them that the shelters are full, but they'll get
back to them, and then they have all of their
belongings to them away. I can't imagine the harm that
has done for just trusting services even when they're available,
(12:36):
you know, accessing them and then giving them your information.
Have one person who rightfully so told me they have
trauma about filling out forms because they've done this three
hundred times, you know, they said something incredible. They've been
counting about how many times they've filled the same forms
out to have it lead nowhere. And I can't imagine,
(12:56):
you know, that kind of resilience. Now, with this devastation,
there's going to be a lot of homeowners who are
going to experience that firsthand. I'm seeing a lot of
people that are homeless for the first time ever in
their lives, Like in their late fifties. And these are
people that have owned homes, that have worked careers, that
have you know, lived their whole life as you're supposed
to in the United States, and then in their elder
(13:19):
years before some sort of disaster or social Security doesn't
pay anymore, and they are severely shocked when I tell
them what the landscape of our social safety net looks like.
I've had people ask me like, where do I go
to sign up for free housing? And I have to
tell them, you know, the wait list for vouchers is
fifteen years long and it's a lottery. The list is
(13:40):
closed because it's so full. You can apply to senior housing,
but that's about a ten year wait. You know that.
I have to be the one to tell them that,
and that's sort of shock. I think is going to
be hitting a lot of folks that have never tried
to access services before.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, definitely, let's take a little break here for some
advertisements and then we'll come back. All right, we're back, So.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah, I think anyone who's familiar with the situation facing
unhouse people in southern California will understand that there is
not a safety net, and that's about to become more
profoundly obvious than ever for thousands of people. Let's talk
about the way that people are helping to take care
of one another, because I think that's that's what always
(14:35):
happened to these situations. So let's talk about the mutual
aid effort. Maybe you could talk about some of the groups,
talk about some of the things you've been doing, and
then I want to get on to how people can
help if they're in town, and how people can help
if they are a long way away.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, in LA, we have a very robust network of
mutual aid groups that have been built by force, honestly,
via this government. I think a lot a lot of
them have started up to step in. Just there's no
denying all over LA that there's this crisis. Because you
walk outside of your house and there are people sleeping
(15:11):
on your street. You know, there's people digging through your garbage.
So we've seen this blossoming of mutual aid groups all
over the city, and we in times of crisis, you know,
will spark up a signal group that grows from zero
to thousands of people overnight that are willing to jump
in and get their hands dirty, to coalesce and find resources.
(15:35):
You know, here's where we're buying masks. This star is out,
don't go to this one. Go to that one who's
reimbursing people for gas, et cetera, et cetera. And it's
normal people. You know, I have a full time job.
My friends here in k Town for All. Some are teachers,
some are in the movie industry, you know, some are
(15:55):
random lawyers you know that will take their time out
to do this work. And I think that it's beautiful
in the sense that we get people the help they need,
and it's never enough, which is crushing. Here in Ktown.
We give supplies to about four hundred or so on
(16:15):
house people a week minimum, and that is hygiene supplies,
tense blankets. We connect them to any services that they
might ask us to connect them to, driving them to
the hospital, et cetera. And this has been going on
for the last five years. And Ktown for All specifically
started as a counter protest because there was an attempt
(16:37):
to build a shelter here in Koreatown and some homeowners
organized against it. They marched down Wilshire and shut it down,
and our founders found each other because they were the
only five people holding up. We want shelter signs and
just started doing distribution themselves. And I think that's one
thing that I would really suggest to folks is it's
(16:57):
not as intimidating as it seems to start one of
these projects. It's literally you and a couple of friends
who decide that you're going to do something, and you
acknowledge that you can't do everything and that you'll never
be able to meet the need because what we need
is a government who cares about people. But in the meanwhile,
we're going to do the best we can, and the
(17:19):
lives of the you know, now four hundred or so
people that we see every week are a little better
because we decide to do that.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, I think that's really important to say that. Like
it can seem really overwhelming. This is an email I
get almost every week, like how do I start a
mutual aid group? But like, if you can make a sandwich,
then you can you can start a mutual aid group.
Like just go and feed people who are hungry, if
someone's cold, give them a blanket. Like it doesn't have
to be like you don't have to read seventeen books,
(17:48):
you know, and be like starting a five h one,
C three and stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
You just need to do things.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And I think, especially like we're going into a new administration,
we're going to see the state being more hot style
to people who already marginalized, And like, the best advice
I have for people is to get off the internet
and to get into the streets and just do something.
It doesn't matter if you say you won't be able
to do everything, not right away, maybe one day we will,
(18:13):
but like, doing something is a lot better than doing nothing,
and I guarantee it there is also much better for
you and you're met. Like I feel so much better
when I'm able to help people. I wouldn't be able
to do the job I do at the border if
I wasn't also able to help people. It helps me
feel like I'm not part of the problem, I guess,
or like we're doing something about it at least. What
(18:34):
are people doing right now to help people who are
impacted by the fires? Like what are the needs that
are arising and how are people meeting them?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, well, Ktown for all focuses here in the k
Town neighborhood, and what we've particularly focused on is mass distribution.
People are sitting and it's literally raining ash in some
areas and are sitting in the sut so there's that.
There's basic tent and tarp gathering meals. So many emergencies
services shut down during disasters that you know makes sense,
(19:04):
but a lot of food kitchens that people would get
meals from are not open right now. So it's getting
people food, getting people water just enough to survive. In
other areas, folks are gathering supplies. There's all Power Books
that is a big distribution site right now. Po Mutuoid
out in the Palms area is doing a lot of
really great work. The South Bay got swept last night,
(19:27):
so South Bay Mutuo Aid Club is replacing tens this morning.
There's a lot of the Pet Mutuo Aid groups who
are gathering pet food and finding foster homes for a
lot of the found dogs and cats. It's just I mean,
I can't even list the amount of people right now
that are like in their vehicles doing drop offs to
you know, the Sidewalk project. There's a big skid Row
(19:50):
distribution point that is building up, crowdsourcing insulin, things that
like you don't think about that people ran out of
their house that they need to live, they don't have
time to go get a prescription right, you know at
a primary care provider like that we need albuterol that
people are having asthma attacks. So there's these kind of
burdens that mutual aid projects get around because people a
(20:11):
don't have to fill out any forms, they don't have
to wait. If we have it, you're going to be
handed it. And you know, even medical providers as part
of our projects, have become a really big support as
people on the streets are often very disabled. We have
a lot of folks at diabetes, like diabetic open wounds,
like just very horrible injuries that need constant care. All
(20:35):
Power Bookstore has a free clinic, All Power Clinic and
they offer free medical care and come with us on
our roots here in Ktown to offer free treatment for folks.
And I think that's something that is going to only grow,
as you said, as this administration occurs. Homelessness rose eighteen
percent in the last year, and that's only been the
(20:56):
case every year since we started counting there. There is
no way this administration is going to institute rent control
or anything that keeps people from being displaced. One mutual
aid project that I think people overlook often is the
tenants unions, the LA Tenants Union mobilizing to care for
their members, checking in on their disabled members. These kind
(21:18):
of community based organizations where people know people, they know
who to check up on, they know who's vulnerable. Those
kind of organizations are invaluable in emergencies like these.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, definitely, And like I one good thing that can
come out of this is that we can build stronger communities,
right and we can hopefully folks who are finding themselves
dependent on mutual aid for the first time can realize that,
like they can participate in that. And I know there
are folks already where who have lost their homes who
are still out there helping other people, driving around, rescuing
people and stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, And I think we say this all the time
in the homelessness space. You know, you're closer to being
homeless than you are to be a billionaire. And I
think this is one of the most direct examples. Like
these people might have been well off maybe a month
or two ago, and then now they have zero. You know,
(22:10):
they're going to be fighting with insurance companies for maybe
five years, you know, if some of them, and hopefully
you know, they end up recovering. But I hope they
don't forget that climate change and emergency disasters are a
great equalizer. And the people that show their faces, they're
not the politicians, they're not the lobbyists, they're not you know,
(22:33):
the Democratic Party, you know, TM. It's your neighbor who
has a mask for you. It's me, someone random from
down the block who got a couple friends together, who
has water for you. You know, like, that's who comes through,
and that's who you need to care for all the time,
including your unhouse neighbors that are around you all the time,
(22:55):
who live in your community and who face this emergency
every day. You know, they don't know where they're going
to sleep every night, they don't know where the next
meal is coming from. Every day. They get their stuff
destroyed by the state, you know, regularly, if not once
a week, very frequently. And I hope this is really sad,
but I hope it forces some empathy in people who
(23:16):
otherwise don't think about themselves in this context of being
a human that needs food, water, and shelter, you know,
the basics.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, talking of food, water and shelter, those are the
things I need as well, and so to pay for them,
I have to pivot to ads.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Now, Okay, we're back. I think that was a really
good plug for the Quai Muti ladies.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Important and hopefully there are people who are listening right
or people who are finding themselves for the first time
interested in helping seeing a crisis. A lot of people
like will ask me if they can come help at
the border, and of course you can, but you should
also help in your own community because there are people
who need you there, and obviously that's very true in
LA right now. So I want to give some resources
(24:09):
some ways people can help. If people are listening in LA,
what are some like I know there are all kinds
of efforts, but what are some concrete things they can
do or some places they can go If they're in
a situation where they're not massively impacted by the fires
and they want to help other people, what are some
things they can do?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
You're free to.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Follow kitown for All on Instagram. We are constantly uploading
on our stories year round, fundraisers, resource requests, go fundmes,
et cetera. We really try to stay connected with the
La Mutual Aid Network, and honestly, once you follow one
of us, you kind of follow all of us because
we're very supportive of each other's effort. Mutual Aid LA
(24:49):
is a good hub. They have a magazine that gets
published every month that has a list of mutual aid
programs all over LA. If you can't come out on
physical outreach with us, which we do on Saturdays every
Saturday except the first Saturday of the month when we
do our planning meeting, you're free to help us, you know,
connect with others. You're free to help us financially. But
(25:11):
we also you know, funny you mentioned this, James, But
if you DM us and you're like, hey, I want
to talk to someone about starting a project in my region,
I'm so happy to hop on a zoom with you.
Tell you how we do our distribution, tell you how
we make our maps of encampments, tell you how we
you know, fund and routsource. Always happy to find that
(25:32):
knowledge and people messages all the time. Can we start
a Neighborhood for All chapter? Yeah, And we're like, we're
so honored that you would do that. Please don't ask,
but you're totally welcome to. And so we have Pasadena
for All that is doing great work, and Pasadena for
All is definitely always in need of support. They are
in a huge disaster zone Altadena, Pasadena, Like all those
(25:54):
areas are been evacuated, Palms mutuid But yeah, if you
want to stay connected, you know, I'll follow us on
Instagram Ktown for all, same Twitter, same on Blue Sky,
and will hopefully be your input into the La Mutual
Aid scene. We're always so happy to support anyone else
doing this work. And while we focus in the Ktown neighborhood,
(26:16):
LA is a giant place. And if you have any
neighborhoods in Los Angeles that you feel passionate about or
need extra attention, you know, we'll always be the ones
to uplift those.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, that's really cool. I think it's really important that
we share.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Like one of my friends, when we were doing border stuff,
made a website where we documented all the stuff we
did so that it was open source and available to people,
like how we built shelters and how we cooked and yeah,
we don't need to reinvent the wheel every time, Like
we can all help each other get that start and
not make the mistakes so we all made. So that's
really cool that people can reach out to you. What
about if they're a long way away and they just
(26:49):
want to send some money they want to help and
they've got money they want to share.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, you're always welcome to venmo us Ktown for all.
Same on Venmo, we have a PayPal link, We have
a website, kton for all dot org. We are five
oho C three. If you'd like to donate in our
you know, in some kind of corporate fancy way, feel
free to dm us. We just got that figured out.
But yeah, all of our money gets spent directly on
(27:16):
material goods. We don't have any employees, we don't have
any overhead. Our volunteers are up to their necks and
baby wipes usually when we get you know, sock donations
and things like that. And honestly, we prefer it that
way just because you know, we know what nonprofit requirements
are like and that kind of burden that that place
(27:36):
is on mutuoid projects and we're trying to avoid them.
So every time still goes to supplies. And I know
every mutuoid project Jtown Action in Japantown as well, operates
in a very similar model. I would just suggest people
get plugged in to mutuoid La. They follow us on Instagram,
feel free to send any money. Work constantly on our stories,
(27:58):
uploading go fund and venmos and stuff. I really appreciate
their help, you know, out of the country, and hope
that one day orgs like ours are not needed anymore
because we live in a great world.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Is there anything else, like, do you have any bottlenecks
or particular shortages that you want to shout out that
the audience can maybe help you with.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
We're always looking for staples, So those are tents and
tarps constantly. Those are often the most expensive items people
have to purchase. Tents go about thirty to forty dollars
each one, and the government throws a lot of them
away every week. So those items, feel free to always
(28:40):
DM me if you have some that you would like
to drop off. But I will say mutual aid orgs
are really good at building connections directly with vendors, and
we usually get like a discount and buying in bulk.
So I would really love to shake people from their
fear of donating cash. Yeah yeah, I know a lot
of folks feel comfortable like buying an item because you
know that that's the item that's given out. But sometimes
(29:02):
we get a better deal buying a thousand of those
tenths and your dollar goes farther, so you know, tense
blankets and again, don't be afraid to do this by yourself,
Like you can go to home Depot and buiotent and
hand it to someone. You can go to home Depot
and buy masks right now and hand them to someone.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
You don't have to.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Wait for a group like this to be around and
to help, particularly if you're a neighborhood needs you.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, and it's a really good message. It's a good
place to end.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Just to remind everyone, it's at Ktown for All on
Instagram and Ktown for All on Venmo.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Right, yep, great, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Thank you so much. It Could Happen Here is a
production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonmedia dot com, or check
us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for
It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks
(30:00):
for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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