Bel-Air becomes flashpoint between wealthy and homeless

LOS ANGELES – Sunbaked and wind-battered Los Angeles, blessed and burdened city of extremes, is home to those with everything and those with nothing.

Recently, the two worlds intersected when a cooking fire at a homeless encampment destroyed six homes and damaged a dozen others in Bel-Air, where affluent residents complain now and then about the scale of colossal estates that dwarf their own mansions.

There has to be meaning in this, or it wouldn't play so much like a parable.

Was it a warning, a reckoning, a call to action?

What does it say about Los Angeles, and how should we respond?

Not that long ago I cruised the hills and canyons and rolling estates of Bel-Air after a report that some of the biggest water guzzlers in drought-stricken California lived there, unidentified but thoroughly quenched.

A week and a half ago, I was back in the same neighborhood, where hills had turned black and ash covered vehicles, wondering if all that irrigation helped keep losses to a minimum.

"I do think we need to do more about the homeless," she said.

They live everywhere now, not just in the human corrals we were always content to confine them to. It's as if they've come up with their own answer to the NIMBYism that has thwarted efforts to plant resource centers and supportive housing throughout the region.

Now they're in every neighborhood. If you're going to be homeless, why not move to the canyons of Bel-Air?

A new city task force on fire prevention is going to take a look at safety measures. But, as Mayor Eric Garcetti told the Los Angeles Times, "given the topography of all the hills in our city, we could do that 24 hours a day and still miss a lot of people. Just like ramping up efforts to try to anticipate terrorist incidents, you can never get to zero risk. And I think it would be a mistake to think we could."

We are nowhere near zero risk. We have more than 34,000 homeless people within the city limits alone, and all the efforts to do something about this — including recent City Council approval of a so-called linkage fee on new development to pay for affordable housing — are never enough to meet ever-growing demand.

Miner said she didn't know anyone living in that particular camp, but she claimed that other homeless people in the area are "survivalists" or "illegal campers." She said that they've made a choice to live as they do and that they resist help.

I've certainly met some people like that in my travels. But I've met far more homeless people who, rather than making choices, ran out of options. Low wages, high rent, mental illness, addiction and combat fatigue are all part of the profile.

John Maceri of the People Concern, one of the largest homeless-services agencies in the region, said he did not know the residents of the area where the fire started. But his teams have been reaching out to homeless people on the bluffs in Pacific Palisades and in the canyons of Malibu.

"I don't know about the term 'survivalist,' but there are some people who have gotten very comfortable living off the grid," Maceri said, including those who have a mental illness but are what he called "high functioning."

"It's typical of the stories you hear all the time," he added. "Something happened in their lives, they lost their housing and they've been able to survive."

"I'm sympathetic to the homeless," said Schwartz, who said she often saw a man who appeared to be mentally ill living in the vicinity of where the fire began.

She saw others, too, who looked younger and not as addled.

And she saw piles of trash on 405 Freeway underpasses and knows that some people are resistant to help.

Her response to all that, said Schwartz, an interior designer, has been to get involved.

"I do things to raise money," she said, telling me that she supports the United Way and that she participated in the organization's march to end homelessness.

When I asked about the irony of homeless people living in such an affluent community, Schwartz said it's not just Bel-Air.

"They're everywhere."

Are there answers?

Yes. There always have been, although the combination of low wages and high rent is a huge obstacle.

We need more housing, Maceri said, more outreach and less NIMBYism when it comes to services and housing.