Five days after she fled the advancing flames that devoured the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in the Los Angeles area where she lives, Maya Lieberman still feels aggravated, as she struggles, in addition to the weight of the disaster, to find a place to stay in the face of unscrupulous owners.
“Inflating prices is crazy and shameful,” the 50-year-old clothing stylist told AFP. She adds: “I can’t find a place to stay.”
The many fires raging around Los Angeles since Tuesday have forced more than 150,000 people to leave their homes.
The fire in the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which includes many celebrities, is arousing interest because it affects a wealthy class in the second largest American city. Some see this as an opportunity to benefit.
“It’s really crazy,” Lieberman says. We applied to rent a house in Venice that was listed in the ad as renting $17,000 a month. But when we arrived, we were told that we would not get it unless we paid 30,000.”
She recounts: “They told me that there are people who are ready to bid and pay in cash.”
The American woman whose house survived the fire and who now resides in a hotel with a pool overlooking Santa Monica Beach admits: “My situation, of course, is not tragic” compared to others.
Illegal practices
But that does not prevent her from feeling like she is being treated lightly, and from empathizing with the thousands of other people who had to leave and are not as well off as she is.
She says with fear: “With what is happening in the market right now, some people will not find a place to stay.”
TV producer Alex Smith, who was also forced to leave his home, said: “I have friends who moved to a hotel outside Los Angeles and were asked for a higher room rate than what was advertised when they arrived.”
In California, which is severely affected by climate warming and has high real estate prices, exploitation of wildfire victims is nothing new.
On Saturday, the state prosecutor stated that artificially inflating prices is “a crime punishable by one year in prison and a fine of ten thousand dollars.”
When a state of emergency is declared, the law allows prices to be raised by a maximum of 10%.
The Public Prosecutor warned rental platforms and all those who use algorithmic programs that automatically determine prices according to demand, of the consequences of exceeding this ceiling.
He stressed: “You must find a way to adjust your prices to respect the law, and if necessary, abandon algorithmic programs, do so,” stressing: “We will carry out the necessary prosecutions.”
“I manage myself.”
Lieberman said that in addition to the wealthy, “there are many people who rent homes” in Pacific Palisades, explaining that “the neighborhood is not quite the image it has in people’s minds.”
A tour of a shelter center is enough to clarify the picture.
In the parking lot, Brian has been sleeping in his old car since Tuesday with a blanket provided by the Red Cross.
This retired man has lived in Pacific Palisades for 20 years in a one-room apartment with a capped rent. However, the fire destroyed the building in which he lived.
The 69-year-old former municipal employee, who did not give his full name, says: “Sleeping in the car when I was young was fun, but now at my age it is difficult.”
As the shock and disbelief subside, he worries about finding new housing, as rental prices in Los Angeles have nearly doubled in ten years.
“I am looking for housing with tens of thousands of people,” he says, sighing. “I don’t expect it to be easy.”
He adds that he will likely have to live further away from the area he lived in, “probably towards Sherman Oaks and Studio City,” two neighborhoods beyond the Hollywood Hills that are still more at risk from fires. The beginning of the fire caused panic on Thursday evening in the Studio City neighborhood, but it was quickly brought under control.
Brian asks: “What can I do?” “I have to manage my affairs on my own.”
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