I recently spent some time with a family who lost their home in the Altadena fire. As they were leaving their house and getting into their car, the fireman told them to get out of their car and run for their lives. Fortunately, they had enough time to drive out of the neighborhood but left with little more than the clothes on their backs.
It has now been more than 100 days since the fire. This family has reported that FEMA was kind and helpful. They are weighing what they will do next while living in an apartment that is far too expensive. Should they rebuild? Should they move away? Should they change jobs? Big decisions.
But perhaps the most significant story they told me is this: they were homeless for days. They had nothing, not a pillow, not a toothbrush, not a shower. They were homeless in exactly the same way as the hundreds of people we see on the streets every day in Los Angeles. They had nothing.
What was striking about this story is how this family now sees the homeless (or the unhoused and is that a “bougie” name for being on the street) in very different ways. They see these people as fellow displaced folks, people who once had something but ended up with nothing. And they understand the anger and frustration when the sanitation trucks come and trash the few belongings they have gathered.
The folks on the street don’t have FEMA (although thanks to Trump no one will have FEMA going forward). Most of them have no help and no opportunity to get off the street. For those who say that they want to be there, one might say that they have no choice to leave what they have begun to call “home” rather than what some organization tells them they can have.
It is ironic that when folks with stuff lose that stuff (and all of it) they can suddenly be empathic to others who have lost their stuff. Perhaps the lesson of the fires can create a sense of care for people who are devastated as the family I just met. Perhaps….
Progressive Teachers Network 
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