Homeless people from the Inland Empire to the San Fernando Valley sought relief from the brutal heat in Southern California beneath shady trees in local parks, inside air-conditioned libraries, and through the efforts of advocates who distributed bottled water or helped them get to cooling centers open to the public.
Temperatures had already hit 100 degrees in the west San Bernardino County town of Upland by 10:30 a.m. on Friday, July 5, eliciting a head-shaking “Wow” from Steven Simmons, who was parked in his car with doors open and windows down beneath a towering tree near the restrooms at Olivedale Park.
Steven Simmons, seated in car, keeps a close eye on his aging dog Lobo, sprawled on the asphalt at Upland’s Olivedale Park in 100-degree heat. Simmons and his girlfriend Joanne Sanchez, holding her dog Fufila, wouldn’t go to a cooling center because they wouldn’t be able to take their pets inside with them. (Photo by Theresa Walker, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Terry Fowler, 59, right, talks with LAHSA team outreach member Audrey Rubio next to his shelter in North Hills. As temperatures hit 15 degrees Rubio and her partner Aisha Phillips were checking on the well being of people living on the streets and passing out water and supplies. (Photo by David Crane, Daily News/SCNG)
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Terry Fowler, 59, hugs LAHSA team outreach member Audrey Rubio after she gave him water and checked on his well being. White was living on the streets in North Hills Friday afternoon as temperatures hit 15 degrees. (Photo by David Crane, Daily News/SCNG)
LAHSA team outreach member Aisha Phillips, left, checks on the well being of Craig White, 57, who has been on the streets in North Hills for two years. Phillips was handing out water and supplies as the temperature hit 115 degrees. (Photo by David Crane, Daily News/SCNG)
Wendi Jarvis, 49, tries to cool down in the shade at Maxwell Park in Anaheim on Friday, July 6, 2018. Jarvis has been homeless for 10 years. Temperatures were well over 100 degrees in Anaheim and much of the region. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Wendi Jarvis, 49, tries to cool down in the shade at Maxwell Park in Anaheim on Friday, July 6, 2018. Temperatures were well over 100 degrees in Anaheim and much of the region. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
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Simmons, shirtless and barefoot in a pair of jeans, said he wasn’t as worried about his own welfare in the heat as he was about his dog, Lobo, a 16-year-old chihuahua and dachshund mix. Lobo lay sprawled on the asphalt in the parking space next to his owner’s 1993 Honda Accord.
“I’m going to stay in the shade and watch my dog,” Simmons said. “Lobo is old.”
Simmons, 49, said he does day labor to help him and his girlfriend, Joanne Sanchez, get by. They sleep at night in his car.
Heading to a cooling center wasn’t an option for the couple because of their pets. Besides Lobo, Sanchez, 61, has a fluffy poodle named Fufila or “Foofy.”
If they needed water, Sanchez said, pointing across his dashboard into the park, “There’s a fountain right there.”
About a half-dozen other homeless people were scattered in shady spots at Olivedale, friends and acquaintances of Simmons that he said he watches out for. He planned to fetch a pop-up canopy from a storage facility where he keeps his belongings to share with others.
“I’m going to find the coolest shade,” Simmons said, “probably over there by that big tree in the middle.”
Toughing out the Valley inferno
In the San Fernando Valley, where temperatures reached as high as 115 degrees, outreach workers were handing out bottles of water as they made their regular rounds to the various homeless encampments that dotted the area’s parks, bus shelters and sidewalks.
Terry Fowler, 59, right, talks with LAHSA team outreach member Audrey Rubio next to his shelter in North Hills. As temperatures hit 115 degrees Rubio and her partner Aisha Phillips were checking on the well being of people living on the streets and passing out water and supplies. (Photo by David Crane, Daily News/SCNG)
The offer of a cold beverage helped outreach worker Audrey Rubio get the attention of Terry Fowler, 59, who was toughing out the extreme heat in his lean-to shelter outside a 76 gas station in North Hills.
Fowler said he and his wife had recently been living in a hotel, so this was not an ideal situation for them.
“This is a little bit of a shocker,” he said. “I’d rather be in there (at the hotel) now.”
But they plan to stick out the heat.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he said.
Fowler said he and his wife struggle with drug addiction, but if they go into a sober living center they might get separated. Ultimately he turned down help, but Rubio told him she would look into his situation to see if there was some other way to help him.
On another stop in Studio City, Rubio also encountered some resistance when she checked in on 27-year-old Christopher Melara, who was taking a nap on the sidewalk next to a Public Storage facility.
He readily accepted the bottle of water and thirstily gulped down its contents, but was still wary of her offer of help.
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“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a shelter today?” she asked.
“No, not really,” Melara told her, guardedly.
The former Hollywood resident said that he knows the outreach workers are worried about him, but they shouldn’t be. He wants to deal with his problems on his own, “so I can be responsible,” he said.
Still, Rubio patiently explains to Melara — as she does with the others she and her partner Aisha meet — the various types of help she can give him. She tells him that she’ll keep checking in, and will continue to come by and “bother” him.
Rubio later told a Los Angeles Daily News reporter that they did repeat visits “so he could get familiar with our faces and he sees that we’re not here to harm him.”
“He’s a very young guy, so we worry about him,” she said. “We want to make sure he is going to be okay.”
Better off in Los Angeles than Pomona?
In Pomona, the main public library on south Garey Avenue remained closed as it always is on Fridays.
So Aaliial Tucker, 23, rested on a blue tarp spread out on the lawn outside the library. She cooled herself off with ice out of a Polar Pop “Stays Cold Longer!” tumbler from Circle K.
She seemed nonchalant about the heat — 108 degrees before noon — as she removed worn nail polish from her fingers with the blade of a pocket knife.
“I don’t have worries,” Tucker said. “I’m thankful for the sun. Without the sun, we wouldn’t get the heat.”
Tucker said she’s been homeless most of her life and has only been in Pomona for a few days.
The library reopens on Saturday but she may not be around by then to find relief from what is expected to be another triple-digit day in the Southland valleys.
Tucker plans to head back to Skid Row in Los Angeles, where she says there are more services for homeless people, and cooler temperatures.
“Police told us to leave, so we’re leaving.”
Anaheim library is cool respite
Wendi Jarvis spent the morning cleaning up around a strip-mall business in Anaheim where she’s been able to earn about $20 a week sweeping the past 18 months.
Jarvis, 49, travels by herself and has earned the trust of a merchant who lets her sleep outside near his auto shop.
She got up at 5:30 a.m. to start her chores but was overheated within a couple of hours.
“I was burning up,” Jarvis said. “I was roasting. I was sweating.”
Wendi Jarvis, 49, tries to cool down in the shade at Maxwell Park in Anaheim on Friday, July 6, 2018. Temperatures were well over 100 degrees in Anaheim and much of the region. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
By 1 p.m., she had found a cross-breeze and shade in the shadows outside the locked restrooms of Maxwell Park, a few blocks away from where she sleeps.
“I’m hanging out here for now because it’s cool right here.”
Elsewhere in Orange County, homeless people who sleep and seek services at the Courtyard Shelter were enticed to stay away from the heat out on the sidewalks of Santa Ana’s Civic Center with a movie marathon and lots of water. As of Thursday’s count, 392 people were staying at the Courtyard, according to county spokeswoman Molly Nichelson.
People who had to leave the night shelters at National Guard armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana also were given bottles of water to help stay hydrated, Nichelson added. Sandwiches and directions to cooling centers were also made available, she said.
The armories are not air conditioned, but people can return at 7 p.m. to sleep.
Once she finished adjusting the basket on the handlebars of her bicycle, Jarvis planned to head over to nearby Haskett Library. A banner strung across the front of the library announced “Something for Everyone @ Haskett Library,” and right then that included a thermostat that read 74 degrees — a good 20 degrees cooler than outside.
Jarvis, who became homeless 10 years ago after her husband committed suicide, is from North Carolina originally. She said she prefers the dry heat of Southern California to the humidity back home.
But the recent weather was testing her: “I get a little cranky. It’s hot and it’s sticky.”
Still, she was counting her blessings. That included the shiny pink and purple seven-speed bicycle that a kind couple had given her last week after witnessing a car strike Jarvis near her workplace as she crossed an intersection on her old bike. The motorist sped away; Jarvis thinks she broke a couple of ribs.
Jarvis wants to find a full-time job but feels her age and a conviction for possession of methamphetamine from seven years ago are roadblocks. She didn’t plan to let that stop her anymore than the heat.
“I do have the library to go into when it’s open.”
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Source: Oc Register
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