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"It's a fire everyday when you live outside."
SUMMARY. text
READ THE FULL REPORT:
A Report by the Mutual Aid Research Collective in partnership with:
KEY FINDINGS
WE ASKED: IN GENERAL, BEFORE THE FIRES, HOW WOULD YOU HAVE RATED YOUR HEALTH?
35.1%
rated their health as worse after the fires.
Self-reported health outcomes were worse after the fires, with a clear decrease in the number of people who reported having Excellent or Good health before (58%) and after the fire (33%), and an increase in respondents reporting Fair health (from 39% to 54%) or Poor health (from 3.5% to 12%).
WE ASKED: WHAT SYMPTOMS OR HEALTH CONDITIONS DID YOU EXPERIENCE DURING THE FIRES?
93%
of respondents reported experiencing at least one negative health symptom as a result of the fires.
The most prevalent symptoms among respondents were directly related to breathing and circulation:
WE ASKED: DID YOU RECEIVE ANY WARNINGS ABOUT IMPENDING HIGH WINDS AND POTENTIAL FIRE HAZARDS IN THE DAYS BEFORE THE FIRES STARTED?
50.9%
of respondents did not receive any warnings about impending high winds and potential fire hazards in the days before the fire started.
WE ASKED: DID ANY PERSON/GROUP PROVIDE YOU WITH ASSISTANCE OR RESOURCES DURING THE FIRES?
Community (mutual aid groups, neighbors, friends, and family) was the primary source of material support and information, once the fires were in full effect and displacing Angelenos.
53%
of respondents received their support from the community, with only 1 person receiving support from the government, or on their own.
WE ASKED: DO YOU THINK UNHOUSED FOLKS SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN DEVELOPING THE CITY/COUNTY DISASTER RESPONSE PLANS IN THE FUTURE?
89.5%
of respondents agree that unhoused folks should be a part of developing a city/county disaster response and plan.
TESTIMONIES
COMMUNITY CONVENING RESULTS
Drawing from popular education and participatory action frameworks, the community data analysis convening was designed to ensure unhoused community members impacted by the fire and the mutual aid organizations providing care and resources had an opportunity to collectively analyze the survey data we have gathered alongside the core research team. We believe in creating a process where those who are historically and intentionally excluded from public health and medical research, city planning, and emergency response, can see themselves in the data, the story being crafted, and the research process beyond as mere “subjects,” and instead as active participants shaping and guiding all aspects of research and emergency response.
The following sections summarize the primary themes that emerged across the small-group discussions, large-group share-outs, and organic questions and comments by attendees during the convening:
GLOSSARY
Mutual Aid: There are many ways to understand mutual aid, and many different ways that mutual aid looksand exists in Los Angeles. Dean Spade calls mutual aid the “collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them. These systems, in fact, have often created the crisis, or are making things worse” (Spade, D. [2020]. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity during this Crisis (and the Next)]. Put more simply, it’s the recognition and practice that “we got us” — mutual aid is all the ways that ordinary people & communities build bold and creative ways to autonomously meet each other’s needs, share resources, and support those experiencing vulnerability, as a part of movements struggling for broader systemic change.
Unhoused: We use “unhoused” throughout this report when describing people living outside or in vehicles to call attention to how this condition is the deliberate outcome of “specific policies and actions through which the unhousing of people is produced and reproduced for financial profit and with political legitimacy” (Roy, A., Graziani, T., & Stephens, P. [2020]. “Unhousing the Poor: Interlocking Regimes of Racialized Policing.” The Square One Project). Homelessness is not a passive or natural phenomenon — the majority of us do not control our own housing because of the for-profit nature of housing in the US, and historical + ongoing processes of racialized dispossession and organized abandonment. It is through eviction or displacement that housing precarity becomes houselessness.
The State: When we mention the State in this report and discuss it in relation to mutual aid, we are not talking about California. Nor are we just talking about a specific group of people in power like government officials or an administration, or even the government itself. Instead, in step with social theorists, we’re actually talking about multiple things - the State refers to how society is organized and structured, the material activities and ideological priorities of different institutions, how they’re watched over and regulated (or not), and how policies and laws are set and enforced in ways that impact people’s ability to meet their needs (or not). Crucially, the State and its capacities are not fixed - they can “develop and change over time” based on the struggles and actions of people and communities (Gilmore, R. W. [2008]. “Forgotten places and the seeds of grassroots planning.” The State, then, is the whole assemblage of institutions, regulatory bodies, officials, policies, and resource flows that has the capacity to invest and disinvest in communities and disaster response.
Participant Observation: Participant-Observation is an ethnographic research methodology where the researcher (or researchers) generate data about a specified subject through direct immersion and experience in the phenomena under study. Researchers put themselves in and alongside the people and social dynamics they are studying, and record their observations and impressions as written fieldnotes, which are later sorted and critically analyzed. Put more simply, participant-observation is “deep hanging out” (Rosaldo, R. [1994]. “Anthropology and ‘the Field.”).
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