Thick, noxious clouds of smoke engulfed Los Angeles as several wildfires rage across the region, creating heightened hazards for the tens of thousands of unhoused people living on the streets in the county.
As authorities ordered evacuations for more than 82,000 people in various parts of LA and urged others to remain indoors to shield themselves from the gray smoke, unhoused Angelenos were struggling to protect themselves from the pollution.
Angel, a 56-year-old woman living out of a camper parked on the outskirts of downtown LA, said the severity of the windstorm made it hard to sleep: "It was so scary, like someone was outside pushing my camper and rocking it back and forth. It almost felt like the aftershocks of an earthquake."
Angel, who declined to give her last name, said she has asthma and has been trying to stay inside her vehicle to avoid the toxic air: "I've been coughing all morning. It's hard to breathe. My eyes are itchy."
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She said she spent seven years in a tent and was grateful to now be able to shelter in her vehicle, but was worried about those exposed to the elements: "I hope if people have loved ones out there, they check on them."
More than 75,000 people are experiencing homelessness in LA county, with more than 52,000 of them unsheltered, meaning living outside in tents, cars and makeshift structures, according to the latest population estimate, a January 2024 snapshot considered to be an undercount.
Nearly a quarter of all unhoused Americans live in California.
The Los Angeles metro area and neighboring Long Beach have one of the highest rates of homelessness in the state. Here, a spiraling housing crisis is once again colliding with escalating climate chaos. In recent years, as the housing crisis has worsened, an average of nearly six unhoused people die a day across LA county, including a growing number of older and elderly people. Extreme weather events can exacerbate their struggles.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (Lahsa) had been reaching out to unhoused people in LA since Friday, according to the city, though it has not been able to go into evacuation zones. It said it was offering people access to motel rooms available through LA's winter shelter program. The mayor's office has also made available 60 hotel vouchers, and is working to secure more, according to an update on Wednesday.
The agency did not immediately respond to the Guardian's queries about the city's total shelter capacity amid the fires.
But advocates and outreach workers said the available resources were far from enough to protect people living outside. Lahsa has repeatedly faced criticism in recent years for failing to provide emergency shelter, including during severe storms last February and bouts of extreme heat during the summer.
Street medicine teams were distributing respirators in encampments on Monday and checking in on unsheltered people at a heightened risk for cardiac and respiratory issues.
"Everybody is told to stay indoors, but they're outdoors 24/7," said Brett Feldman, the director and co-founder of the University of Southern California street medicine team. Some patients with underlying medical conditions face health emergencies from a few hours of exposure to bad air quality, he said.
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Feldman said he was particularly concerned about patients camped out in riverbeds and hills near the Eaton fire, who are hard to reach: "Folks are in evacuation areas, but there's nowhere to evacuate to. I'm worried beyond imagination."
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego found that people who were unhoused had a significantly higher risk of visiting the emergency room due to wildfire smoke. In a November study, The Lancet Planetary Health found that although unhoused people represented fewer than 0.3% of the county's population, they made up more than 12% of emergency room visits at two major hospitals.
People without homes disproportionately suffer from respiratory conditions such as asthma and COPD, and lack regular access to medical care to treat underlying conditions that are exacerbated by smoke. Without easy access to the internet or TV, they also may miss up-to-date evacuation orders.
Volunteers and unhoused residents have been racing to distribute information and supplies. "Mutual aid groups and networks have been building a spine of support and have been able to respond at a hyper-local level," said Carla Orendorff, an advocate supporting the unhoused community near the Woodley fire in the Van Nuys area. "People have said it feels like you're breathing in lead and you can see what you're breathing in." In addition to masks, water, food and medical supplies, volunteers have been distributing makeshift sandbags to secure tents against a howling windstorm in the region.
Advocates have tried to secure motel vouchers from the city for some unsheltered people, but haven't yet had luck, Orendorff added: "No one should be outside, yet we've got tens of thousands of people who have no other option."