Fallen from the middle class: 60, living in an RV and fighting to be housed
LOS ANGELES -- At first, when she became homeless at 59 last year, Laura Garciaros felt lucky to have her motor home, a 1989 Mallard Sprinter she bought with the help of friends.
It ran and the A/C worked. She found a spot that felt somewhat safe, just off a street lined with RVs near Hollywood Burbank Airport and parked next to a shady tree near a business where the owners let her fill her water jugs from a spout and plug her coffee maker into an outdoor outlet.
But it wasn’t long before she was anxious to leave. After a series of relentless summer heat waves, her A/C sputtered out and she felt at times as though she was suffocating inside the vehicle, soaked in sweat. She grew increasingly fearful when several nearby RVs went up in flames. The rumor in the camp was the fires were acts of arson.
She didn’t feel comfortable venturing into the neighborhood. Just to use the bathroom, she had to walk to a grocery store nearly half a mile away. And when she walked down the street, men harassed and followed her.
“I became homeless three months ago and am desperately trying to find housing of any kind,” she wrote in a plea for help on Facebook.
Across the region, officials and a growing number of residents are pushing to get rid of the RV encampments that have proliferated on the streets since the COVID-19 pandemic. The Los Angeles City Council backed an effort to crack down on the renting of RVs to homeless people and is considering a motion to create a program
