A record-breaking rainfall on Sunday has left the roughly 76,000 people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles in distress, according to shelters across the city.
The atmospheric river that has taken hold of California on Sunday has left 830,000 people without power and three people dead early this week.
The downtown area saw about 4.1 inches of rain this past Sunday. Skid row, a neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles, has about 4,400 people who experience homelessness.
Midnight Mission, a shelter and resource center for unhoused individuals located in the heart of the neighborhood, has seen a recent increase in the number of individuals seeking shelter from the harsh weather. Georgia Perkovich [PER-CO-VITCH], the chief communications officer at Midnight, spoke with Annenberg Media about what the center offers to visitors.
PERKOVICH: We’re here every day. Three meals a day, every day. We have a barbershop, mail service. We have a computer lab. We have a library. We have all these services that are available to the community every day, no questions asked, at no cost, but especially at the times where it’s really cold or really hot.
In addition to those services, Midnight offers a program called Safe Sleep, which allows those seeking shelter to spend a night as opposed to committing to a longer-term program.
PERKOVICH: Typically we see about 30 or 40 people in Safe Sleep each night. And we are seeing, like last night, there were 122 people here.
Another resource center, Casa Milagrosa, has also seen an uptick in visitors since the rain began. We talked with Gabriel Partida, the communications and volunteer coordinator of the center, about how prepared centers were for the storm.
PARTIDA: A lot of our guests have said that they felt more informed this time that no storms passed. A lot of times, it was kind of like the days leading out. This time around, they felt like us and other centers were letting them know, made sure everyone was prepared.
However, despite a higher level of preparedness, Partida said that the center’s visitors still experience disruptions in their daily life because of the rain.
PARTIDA: We hear back from a lot of our regular guest that when it rains, it’s so hard is to sleep, even if they are sheltered, because the tripping of the of the water keeps them awake because they’re not able to kind of like defocus from it. So sometimes, like, even though they might be, you know, either their overpass, maybe they do have a tent, it’s still a struggle for them sleeping on the streets.
Partida also said that some of the issues unhoused individuals face during storms are largely unexpected.
PARTIDA: Nothing’s really stable during these storms. A lot of times, there could be like quick flooding that that can just grab their stuff and move on with, and then other times, you know, we’ve had plenty of guys come in and their bags have been turned though.
Forecasters from the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office expect periods of rain to continue this evening, with possible heavy rain predicted for tomorrow afternoon and evening. While the storm has been a cause of concern for many Angelenos these past few days, the severe weather has affected some communities more than others.