- [Interviewer] Mona, we're out here
in a park by the airport.
And this is where you live.
- Correct.
- [Interviewer] Tell me about it.
- Well, I came here via Santa Monica,
I guess is where I first was at before I came here.
I've been here for about five or six months, no five months.
And it was funny 'cause we came here,
we just knew the park was here.
We didn't know anything about it, but it turned out
the day we got here, we learned it was a safe zone
just during the time of the virus.
Which means you could be here at night
without being persecuted.
So we decided we would stay here for a while.
And we've been here for about five or six months now.
And it is, I guess, a safe zone in general.
- [Interviewer] How did you end up homeless?
- Well, on December 4th, 2017,
my house burned down, it was part of the Thomas Fire,
which at that time was the largest wildfire
in California state history.
It was in Ventura County.
I lived in the upper Ojai on the edge of the forest.
They saved the town, homes down in Ventura, the city.
So everything in the Upper Ojai kind of burned down.
And hundreds of people were homeless
like instantly overnight.
- [Interviewer] And you also lost your job.
- I lost my job that same day.
I worked from home making phone calls
for an insurance adjuster.
I made $25 an hour doing phone calls about four hours a day,
setting up a schedule of appointments for him
and then faxing it to him or whatever.
And it was great.
My dog could be right there with me when I was working.
I didn't have to drive anywhere.
And then when the fire happened
I no longer had the home office to work at.
So I kind of told him I had something at my mom's house,
which wasn't true, but I wanted to keep the job.
And I think he kinda knew
that couldn't be right or something,
'cause he never really, I sent him that last invoice,
which was dated like the day before the fire.
And then I never had another project with him after that.
He never said why exactly.
But I think it had something to do with
the lack of home office to make the phone calls in.
- [Interviewer] Now you're a college graduate.
- Yeah, no, I'm a college graduate.
I have a bachelor's of science in mathematics,
as well as nearly a master's of science in mathematics.
I finished almost, but all but two classes.
But I left there, I went to Berkeley to get
my master's of science in industrial engineering
and operations research, and a certificate in logistics.
- [Interviewer] And so here you are with a master's,
and bachelor's, and you're living in a park.
- That's true.
I mean the initial thing behind that was the fire,
but then there was a housing crunch
that goes along with having a fire.
And just all these different factors led into it
being longer and longer of me being homeless.
It's been a while since I had worked
in my field of statistics.
I used to work in electricity research
doing building efficiency research.
I've published eight journal articles.
I had stopped doing that for about 10 years.
That's where my real training is at.
- [Interviewer] You said a statistician.
- Yeah, statistician.
Like statistics, data analysis, that kind of thing.
So I worked mainly for
the California Public Utilities Commission,
the California Energy Commission,
Southern California Edison.
We did the first study of its type in the world
to estimate the amount of electricity consumed
by outdoor lighting in California.
And they made Title 24 energy code modifications
based on our study, yeah.
- [Interviewer] So is anybody helping you?
- Not that much.
I mean, I think part of the problem is navigating the system
and determining how to get the help
'cause I mean they come around here
and they give us these weird lunches that some people eat.
I don't really like 'em, I'm kind of picky eater.
And that, but to actually get yourself like
helped into a place, because I don't see
how you can really work, like get a job
and be a productive member of society, living in the park.
I mean, how do you get showered for the job interview?
And your suit on, and there on time.
And you know, it's just too many factors
that could go wrong.
So you have to be inside, I believe till you can
really work and become productive.
So, I don't remember what you asked me that got me started.
- [Interviewer] I, 'cause we talked about it earlier.
Is anybody helping you?
- Oh yeah, I think there are some services out there,
but navigating the system to find them,
and get connected with them is a whole other story.
So nobody's really helping me right now.
I mean, I get some food stamps
and general relief from the county.
- [Interviewer] I was gonna ask that, how do you survive?
So you're getting GR, and for those that don't know,
that's like 200 a month.
- 225 maybe, a month.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, 200 and something like that.
Then you get food stamps.
- Which luckily just increased about $50.
So that's great, yeah. - Oh great.
But I'll hear, it's hard, you can't, to keep food.
- Oh yeah, no, I waste so much food
just from buying it 'cause I refuse to only eat non,
I mean I need things that, yeah, they're gonna go bad.
Like cheese, I survive on cheese.
So, it's a lot of times I have to throw it away
because I didn't have a refrigeration.
And we can't cook any hot food ever.
Like that's one thing that's really lacking.
- [Interviewer] The, when you said hard to navigate
social services, I mean there's people coming out here,
and explain the navigate part.
I mean, 'cause we talked about it a little bit earlier,
and I'm sure there's outreach that comes out here,
but they're just, you said, overloaded.
- That's part of it is that there's so many people
for them to help and they're probably
short-staffed at their organizations
'cause they probably don't pay that much.
And so to, they have 100 people they're trying to help,
that one person does, and things slip through their mind,
they lose track of what everybody needs.
So they can't, you know what I mean?
They're overworked.
But the other part of navigating the system is
in order to get placed with a voucher listing,
a housing voucher, you have to
be referred through this CES system.
And it's like scoring a key that they have.
So a lot of people don't understand that or what that means.
They've never even filled out the survey to get the score.
So they're never gonna change their housing situation.
- [Interviewer] And you're talking,
so the coordinated entry.
- Yeah, the CES service.
- [Interviewer] And then they have different ways of...
- Linking you up.
- [Interviewer] The survey that you're talking about
is to see how vulnerable you are,
to see if you're worthy of help.
The worthy poor and unworthy poor.
- Well, what they do is they go down the list
in descending order of scores.
So the higher your score, the more crucial it is, I guess,
for you to get inside.
And so therefore those are the people
they award the matches to first.
- [Interviewer] But see, I understand that
because I think we have a--
- There's no favoritism that way.
- [Interviewer] Well, I think we need people
that are closer to death, we need to help.
But also like you, if you were in housing,
if they came and housed you,
in a year or so you would be able to restabilize,
you would heal, and then you would go back into society.
I mean, you're a college graduate.
But if they wait until you're vulnerable,
that means that social services is gonna be
taking care of you for the rest of your life.
- Well, luckily for me, I've had some fairly intense,
not luckily for me, I've had some fairly intense trauma
in my past, things that are like unheard of,
like almost out of this world kind of thing.
So I actually, because of my mental health status
I do rate a fairly high score.
And I did meet an outreach worker the other day.
He told me, he thinks he can raise my score
two or three points and I'm getting in touch
with him to make that happen.
Yeah.
- [Interviewer] It's just so sad
that they have to prioritize people like that.
It should be...
- Well, you know, here's the thing that used to happen
before this system was in place.
I believe in the system, the CES system, actually,
because before that they would call up
the local housing shelter of their town.
Like Santa Monica, call up one in Santa Monica and say,
hey, we've got 30 vouchers.
And the lady there is gonna hand them out
to the people she likes, you know what I mean?
And so if she doesn't like you, you're kind of,
you're never gonna get anything happening.
Whereas with the CES system, it's objective,
anybody can verify your scoring.
As well as, you know they can say,
this is the order in which we've contacted people.
- [Interviewer] Well, CES is a good idea.
The problem, one of the problems is
that all nonprofits aren't equal.
So they all don't get the support.
So being able to route you to the services
that you need or the housing,
and then the other issue is there's lack of housing.
- Yeah.
That's I think one of the main issues
is just the overall lack of actual housing units
to go through the population.
'Cause I just read this interesting thing today
that in the 2000s,
for every one housing unit that was built
there was an increase in population in LA of two people.
So it's half the rate.
Now nowadays, for every one housing unit built
it's four new people in LA or whatever.
So basically you're, they're building about
one fourth of the percentage of what they need.
You know what I mean?
Or one per fourth of the total.
- [Interviewer] Well, I don't know what the statistics are,
that's your expertise, right?
What I do know is that Los Angeles is really good
at building luxury housing
and really bad at building low-income housing.
So you're talking about trauma.
Most homeless people out here
have experienced some kind of trauma.
- That's true.
I mean, just being out here
you're exposed all the time, 24/7.
And eventually you're gonna come across something bad.
Actually, my trauma happened indoors.
I made the wrong people pissed off and I went through a lot.
I'm not gonna get into this particular story.
- [Interviewer] No, I'm not, I'm just.
- No I know you're not.
Everybody has it though.
Most homeless people have gone through it.
- [Interviewer] The trauma caused them here.
And then being here is more trauma.
- More trauma.
But some people's traumas are way more extreme than others,
I've noticed.
Some people, what they call trauma,
I'm like, oh my God, that's a walk in the park, or whatever.
But you know, it's traumatic for them, exactly.
We have to accept that that's their reality.
- [Interviewer] If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- To be back inside in a house where I can shower every day,
wash my clothes, comb my hair.
Just be having good hygiene practices and stuff.
To be inside for that.
And to cook.
And so that's one wish.
I wish I could go back to my former career of data analyst
for electricity research 'cause I really did love that job.
And whatever, the facts are that I was good at it too.
I just, getting back to it
seems almost insurmountable at this time.
I'm sure it's not, once I'm inside
then it's that much easier.
But, at this point in time, it's too much.
And the third wish would be a dog.
I want a dog.
I had a dog when the fire happened.
And then it came down to just
being me and the dog for a long time.
And then the dog died on June, 2019, which was terrible.
- I'm sorry. - I really wish I had a dog
with me right now to travel my path.
A little one, like poodle mix or something.
Poodle mix. (laughs)
- [Interviewer] Great wishes.
Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
- Thank you for your time, Mark.
And for considering me.
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