Boyle Heights is still cleaning up, still waiting, and still asking for answers more than a month after fire tore through the Lineage Logistics warehouse, blanketing the neighborhood in pollutants and the stubborn stench of rotting meat.
I’ve watched this unfold on streets I’ve walked my whole life. I know what it means to run a business in this community, and what it costs to lose one, even briefly.
I watched La Carreta and La Chispa de Oro survive decades of upheaval and keep their doors open. I watched Picaresca Barra de Café and Lilly’s Café open during the darkest days of COVID, because their owners couldn’t afford to wait for better timing. In this neighborhood, we’ve always had to take care of ourselves first, because help rarely arrives when it’s supposed to. Resilience isn’t something people here are born with — it’s something forged by a system that keeps letting them down.
But even resilience has its breaking point.
This warehouse fire marks the fifth major crisis to strike East Los Angeles businesses in six years running. Before it came COVID-19, last year’s wildfires, an ongoing wave of federal immigration enforcement, and the East L.A. crude oil spill. The same streets, the same families, the same small businesses keep absorbing blow after blow — without any lasting safety net to catch them.
The Lineage facility had a documented history of health and safety violations, yet residents had no way of knowing what risks sat behind those walls. That’s not a coincidence. Hazards like this tend to cluster in Black and brown neighborhoods. According to UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute, the smoke advisory zone around the fire carries a cumulative environmental burden score 63% higher than the Los Angeles County average.
The economic picture is just as troubling. More than 15,400 workers living within that smoke zone earn below the county’s very-low-income threshold, and per capita income in the area is roughly half the countywide figure.
This community has never operated on level ground.
When a small business shuts down for nearly two weeks, there’s no financial cushion to fall back on — and for immigrant entrepreneurs, the distance between disaster and relief stretches even further. Mayor Karen Bass has signed executive orders directing cleanup and referencing aid for impacted businesses, and Lineage pledged $2.5 million in relief during a July town hall. Those gestures matter, but announcements and executive orders aren’t the same as money in hand. A promise of help isn’t help delivered.
UCLA’s research confirms what many in this community already sense: heightened federal immigration enforcement is scaring immigrant families away from seeking help altogether — including the very public health resources and assistance programs created in response to this fire.
Complicating matters further, East Los Angeles, just next door to Boyle Heights, is unincorporated. There’s no city council, no mayor, no dedicated municipal services. Residents and business owners depend entirely on county resources that are stretched across more than 120 unincorporated communities. That governance structure has never served us well, and each new disaster only strains it further.
What has worked, in the days following this fire, is the community itself. Inclusive Action, the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Economic Equity Accelerator and Fellowship, and the Hustle and Heart Collective wasted no time launching a relief fund. Leo Abularach and Elisa Hoyos of La Picaresca brought together local business owners and civic leaders to hash out real solutions.
It’s time for the local governments overseeing this area to build a permanent, sustainable small business resiliency fund — one that’s ready before the next fire, spill or immigration raid, not after. That fund needs to be accessible to immigrant entrepreneurs who can’t rely on federal support in today’s political climate.
Community organizations like mine stand ready to help design and carry out that plan. County and city leaders need to meet us halfway. East Los Angeles has been waiting long enough. We deserve better.
Original source: CalMatters
