Help Your Unhoused Neighbors Beat the Heat

As I'm writing this, the National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for Los Angeles County — an extreme heat whose effects will be felt most severely by unhoused Angelenos.

The National Weather Service includes some instructions for people under a heat advisory: "Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors."

We're hoping you can help us with the last one and check up on your neighbors to ensure they have access to cold water and shade.

If you have the fridge or freezer space, think about buying a case of water, cooling or freezing it, and distributing it to our neighbors most exposed to the elements. If you have an old sun hat or parasol that could cast some much-needed shade for a vulnerable neighbor, grab it and a backpack full of frozen water bottles and see who could use some help. (Folks may not want any help, and that's OK too!)

Los Angeles County provides a map of the county's cooling centers; in SELAH's service area, the Cahuenga, Los Feliz, Echo Park, and Silver Lake branches of the public library all function as cooling centers (among others). If you'd like to learn more about systemic inequalities around access to clean drinking water, Water Drop LA has a helpful "Resources" page.