A new report reveals that nearly one-third (32.91%) of all fire calls in Los Angeles in 2024 involved homeless individuals, a substantial increase from 5,541 in 2014 to 31,964 in 2024. This represents a 475% rise in 'rubbish fires' linked to homelessness.
The high volume of these calls places a significant strain on the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), consuming a considerable portion of its $800 million annual budget. While the homeless population constitutes only 1.2% of LA's population, it accounts for 12% of EMS calls and 33% of fires.
Freddy Escobar, president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles, describes the current situation as unsustainable, emphasizing the need for additional resources to manage the high call volume. The increased call load from homeless-related incidents also impacts response times for other emergencies.
Los Angeles recently cut funding for its homeless services administration, while a federal task force is investigating potential fraud and corruption in California's homeless services. The article concludes by highlighting the need for taxpayers to assess the cost of allowing individuals to live on city streets and its implications on resource allocation.
Cities up and down the west coast spend billions of dollars trying to deal with the homeless problem but the number of homeless people just seems to continue rising. That's certainly the case in Los Angeles.
That's a big jump and along with it comes a big jump in spending aimed at offering shelter, beds, food and other taxpayer supported help to the homeless. That help is costing residents a lot of money, nearly $1 billion in the latest LA City budget.
But not all of the expenses connected to homelessness are visible as a line item. Homeless people in the city are also responsible for about a third of all service calls made to the LAFD for what the department calls "rubbish fires."
...fire calls involving homeless persons during that same period accounted for 32.91%, or nearly one-third, of all LAFD fire activity, the report states...
Rubbish Fires have seen a 475% increase from 5,541 to 31,964 between 2014 and 2024. “While not all of those have been documented as directly associated with PEH, many have,“ the report states.
Rubbish fires are now the most common call the LAFD gets and nearly half of them are associated with homeless people. The LAFD's budget is just over $800 million per year, so a large percentage of that spending is effectively spent dealing with fires started by homeless people. The figures are even more striking when you consider what a small percentage of the population in LA is homeless.
The report says that while homeless individuals make up just 1.2% of LA’s population, they are responsible for 12% of LAFD emergency medical services incidents and 33% of fires. This means compared to other people in Los Angeles, homeless people are 10 times more likely to use EMS services and 28 times more likely to be “involved” in a fire — all at taxpayers’ expense.
LA County is the largest county in the nation with about 10 million residents so even 1% is a lot of people. The head of the firefighters union says it's not sustainable.
"We don't want to criminalize homelessness, but we need additional resources strictly for homelessness," said Freddy Escobar, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles. "We need more funding."...
"I don't know what the fix is, but I can tell you the members that I represent cannot sustain the call load of what we are doing for homelessness," Escobar said.
LA just pulled the funding from its own homeless services administration and a federal task force is currently investigating possible fraud. So the city is not handling this problem very well at the moment.
At some point, the cost of allowing people to live like cave men on city streets really needs to be tallied by taxpayers who should decide how much of this they want to pay for. The increase in homeless fires corresponds with a decrease in response times for everyone else which shouldn't be surprising. If 1% of the city's residents are eating up a third of its fire services, that doesn't leave enough for everyone else.
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