Print
The fire began at 3 a.m., quickly destroying the clapboard bungalow two blocks from Venice Beach. The tenant was away for the night, but her dog, Togo, succumbed after his howls of panic and pain left helpless neighbors with a memory they can’t forget.
While arson investigators have yet to determine a cause in the April 20 blaze, traumatized neighbors quickly linked it to a rash of fires in Venice’s growing homeless camps.
“We may never know for sure what happened,” next-door neighbor Francesca Padilla wrote in an impassioned email to dozens of city officials. “What we know for sure is that around my home and the school across the street from it there are people cooking on sidewalks and RV kitchenettes, burning fires to keep warm, using generators for electricity, living out of their cars, smoking and using drugs in makeshift shacks and tents.”
Print
In the struggle to help homeless people move off the street, service providers the entities that supply them food, guidance and other crucial forms of support are the ones on the front lines. Their staff are the outreach workers who go to encampments and underpasses, and who seek out people slumped on sidewalks in plain view, huddled in the brush out of sight or living in cars. It can take days, weeks, even months to earn the trust of homeless individuals inured to street life and suspicious of anyone who wants to move them to an unfamiliar locale. Even as the pandemic raged in the past year, outreach workers were the ones who never stopped toiling in the streets.
UpdatedFri, May 7, 2021 at 12:34 pm PT
Reply(1)
The cause of the April 21 fire on Clubhouse Avenue in Venice is undetermined, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. (Nicole Charky/Patch)
The cause of the April 21 fire on Clubhouse Avenue in Venice is undetermined, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. (Nicole Charky/Patch)
VENICE, CA The cause of a house fire that killed a family dog named Togo and led to thousands of dollars in damage remains undetermined, Los Angeles Fire Department officials told Patch.
But LAFD arson Capt. Tim Halloran said there s no evidence someone started the fire from outside the house or threw anything into it, as neighbors have speculated.
Angelenos are obviously not shedding any tears. Many would probably help him pack his bags, including AM 870’s Jennifer Horn, host of “The Morning Answer.”
India s loss is our gain. Send him yesterday.
Biden considering LA Mayor Eric Garcetti for ambassador to India https://t.co/0FJGHbLx6X
Interesting timing though. We Los Angeles RedStaters have decried Garcetti’s nearly eight years of laconic leadership. The rampant homelessness is the biggest open sore, and with a federal judge ruling that all homeless citizens of California must be housed within 60 days, Garcetti would probably relish dumping this gargantuan problem that he helped to create into someone else’s lap.