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   Toastie (toastie@journa.host)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2024 13:29:16 JST Toastie

   Anti-camping ordinances and sweeps are pushing unhoused people into increasingly marginal spaces, exposed to extreme weather.

   Officials in cities like Ontario, #California, can be hostile, by, for example, removing park gazebos.

   But CA is prone to cycles of drought and heavy rainfall. And when the rain hits, like it did in Nov. 2022, it can be fatal to people living around culverts and drainage.

   #Climate #housing

   https://www.hcn.org/issues/56-6/californias-homelessness-and-climate-crises-leave-unhoused-communities-vulnerable-to-floods/

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     Toastie (toastie@journa.host)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2024 13:29:15 JST Toastie

     in reply to

     That November, the sudden rain washed away around 10 people, killing three:

     Anthony “Poopsie” Ray Lopez, Madeline Velasquez and Josephine Guadalupe Dominguez.

     “I miss them,” said Pandora Naranjo, a friend.

     Matt Fowle, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania who tracks deaths among unhoused people in the U.S., found a 141% increase in mortality from environmental causes across 22 localities between 2011 and 2020.

     He said those deaths are preventable with some planning.

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     Toastie (toastie@journa.host)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2024 13:29:15 JST Toastie

     in reply to

     Here's some artwork memorializing the late Poopsie, Maddie and Jojo.

     (Side note: how often do you see a national magazine running a photo of graffiti not as pearl clutching about urban decay, but as artwork memorializing community members? You do me proud, HCN.)

     Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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     Toastie (toastie@journa.host)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2024 13:29:15 JST Toastie

     in reply to

     Quentin Fears, a soft-spoken 51 year old, has lived in and around a flood-control channel that runs under Interstate 10 for around a decade. That day in November, he rescued a friend he saw floating away on a mattress.

     “I’ve seen on TV where there’s a fire or storms or whatever and you see that they’re warning everybody, and they never warned us at all,” said Naranjo. “They should have gotten us out in time.”

     Today, Fears still lives in the same spot. “There’s nowhere to go,” he said.