Big Fires, Tiny Homes, Small Victories

Homelessness in Southern California

Sometimes, the problems of homelessness blow up in your face.  In August 2019, an arsonist hurled a lit firework (some called it a mortar) into a homeless encampment in Glendale California, starting a fire that spread into the nearby foothills.  The encampment was destroyed and hundreds of permanent homes were threatened, three people were injured, and firefighters spent days putting out the fire.  Though well clear of danger, I saw smoke billowing from my own house, five miles away.  The burned area was scarred for months.  The arsonist may have been motivated by animus toward the people in the encampment, or he may have just seen them as an easy outlet for his recklessness; he escaped conviction after undergoing treatment for ADHD.  In any case, the problems of homelessness were on full view.

Solutions for homelessness in Southern California are hard to come by in part due to the sheer scope of the problem.  According to recent estimates, about 75,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles County alone. One program addressing homelessness establishes tiny home villages, including a village set up 18 months after the Glendale fire just a few miles away in Eagle Rock.  The Eagle Rock Tiny Homes Village was created by Los Angeles County and is managed by Union Station Homeless Services, a Pasadena-based non-profit organization that invited me to visit the facility recently.

Tiny home is really a misnomer; the structures in the facility are tiny but they are no-one’s idea of home.  They are not the comfortable cabin in the woods you might dream of for a vacation, nor the guest house you build in your back yard to give your guests a little privacy.  They aren’t even the spare she-shed or man-cave designed to give a tiny space away from the bustle of home.  Imagine instead a medium-sized clothes closet plopped into a corner of the parking lot of your local strip mall and furnished with a cot, a few shelves and a window A/C unit.  Still, the units are a refuge of comfort and calm compared to a ripped tent beneath a freeway overpass, the most recent home of many of the village’s residents.

The Eagle Rock Tiny Homes Village contains about 45 units and is one of about a dozen similar facilities in Los Angeles County.  Although each unit has two pull-down beds, most have only one resident; with both beds open, the only remaining floor space is a shoulder-width walkway about two paces long, insufficient for two strangers to co-habit for any length of time.  The units have enough power for lighting, heating and air-conditioning; they were a comfortable respite from the hot sun on the morning I visited, well on its way to a 100-degree high.  The facility includes extra units containing space for on-site managers and for storing meals, prepared offsite by Union Station and distributed daily to residents.  Two built-out shipping containers house toilets, showers and laundry facilities.  Common areas include shaded areas for outside seating and eating.

Facilities like that in Eagle Rock, though a clear step up from living on the street, are not a long-term solution for any of the residents.  Nor do they directly solve any of the myriad problems that led residents into homelessness.  Each person experiencing homelessness has reached that condition in their own way.  Some lived comfortably in permanent housing and were struck by serious financial hardship.  Some have lived close to the edge of homelessness for years and suffered a minor setback that erased the narrow gap to homelessness.  Some have suffered mental or physical illness for years and lacked family support, leaving a permanent home unreachable. 

The facilities do, though, solve the one huge obstacle all homeless people face:  they have no home.  Nowhere to escape heat, cold and rain, to shelter from the dangers of the street, to prepare wholesome food, to keep themselves clean and healthy, to rest and deal with the problems that drove them away—and keep them away—from permanent housing.  The Eagle Rock facility and others like it give each resident a secure place to confront their individual issues.

And the facilities do offer services that address some of the circumstances that left residents without a permanent home.  These services include regular healthy meals, assistance navigating the bureaucracy surrounding aid programs that provide permanent housing, and security services that prevent a night on the street from turning into a trip to the hospital or other disaster.  The facilities also try to deal with minor medical issues and to ameliorate the impact of drug dependency with needle exchanges and the distribution of Narcan.

But success in moving residents into permanent housing is far from guaranteed.  During my visit I learned of some success stories, but residents of the Eagle Rock Village are never forced out merely because they have been there a while, and some residents have been at the facility since it opened over two years ago.  Nor do the facilities address the systemic causes of homelessness, including a shortage of affordable housing and insufficient resources for mental health care. 

When I arrived at the Eagle Rock facility, I was struck by how inconspicuous it was.  The village is wedged between freeway ramps, and I wasn’t aware it was there until I pulled up to the gate.  Across the street from a community recreation center and dog park and shielded by trees, the facility may well go unnoticed by users of these parks.  As I reflected on my visit, I realized that the facility had transformed a problem that the August 2019 fire had made dramatically visible into one that could easily be overlooked.

That alone may benefit the community, but it also presents a danger—the danger that we will become complaisant in the face of a continuing problem.  Yes, we see fewer dilapidated tents under freeways; yes, it is harder for arsonists to assault the homeless; yes, those experiencing homelessness have a place to address their problems.  At least in one area, homelessness is no longer blowing up in my face the way it did in August 2019.  But the problems of homelessness remain real and pressing and worthy of our attention.  The facilities are a small victory, the kind you celebrate and build on, not the kind you rest on.