Homeless man sets van on fire, burns down parking garage (Sacramento: rent, hotel)

[mgforshort]

I'm reading in the Sacramento Bee that a homeless man said he parked his Chevrolet Express Mark III van in the garage and it caught fire in the early hours of March 20 as he warmed a can of beans with a candle. The intensity of the flames may have compromised the structural integrity of the entire building.
The garage was used for overnight parking to people living in their vehicles.

Officials claim that the garage is a valuable city asset, raking in $344,000 per month (that’s $4.1 million per year in parking revenue), according to city officials.

It is hard to accept that helping someone could cause losses in the millions.

[Ruth4Truth]

Now he's even more homeless than he was before, and so is everyone else, who was parking overnight there.

[Tulemutt]

Are you suggesting any morals to the story? Maybe:

If you value garages, don’t help people.

Or

Never trust a man with a can of cold beans.

I guess I could buy into the second one ...

[mgforshort]

There is speculation that the man tried to get power from a charging station. Apparently the city moved him into a hotel? A business tenant nearby, Alma Perez, lost her business due to the fire.

"Now, the structure is surrounded by a chain link fence. The city moved the homeless away from Perez’s doorway because the building isn’t considered safe. They moved the man who started the fire to a safe place. But what is the city going to do for her?"


“Investigators can’t rule out that the occupant of the vehicle wasn’t trying to illegally gain power from an electric vehicle charger,” said Captain Keith Wade of the Sacramento Fire Department."

[Hemlock140]

Just another reason that something has to be done about the homeless. We had a homeless RV catch fire under a freeway that caused damage in Seattle, a while back. Recently in Bellingham, WA a propane heater exploded and started a fire at a homeless camp, and there was another fire at one in Tacoma. On my way to work one morning I saw a homeless women cooking on a hotplate plugged into an outlet on a City skybridge. There was no plug on the frayed wires, she stuck them in directly. After I reported it they did install locking covers.

[Racer46]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

There is speculation that the man tried to get power from a charging station. Apparently the city moved him into a hotel? A business tenant nearby, Alma Perez, lost her business due to the fire.

"Now, the structure is surrounded by a chain link fence. The city moved the homeless away from Perez’s doorway because the building isn’t considered safe. They moved the man who started the fire to a safe place. But what is the city going to do for her?"


“Investigators can’t rule out that the occupant of the vehicle wasn’t trying to illegally gain power from an electric vehicle charger,” said Captain Keith Wade of the Sacramento Fire Department."

The above shows a lack of interest in shall we say innocent people?

[wburg]

"Burns down parking garage" is a bit of a misnomer: it's a reinforced concrete parking structure, it didn't burn down, but I imagine the city wants to inspect the facility to gauge what structural damage may have taken place. That inspection could take a while, but the reason why the city decided to use the garage as a safe-parking site was because nobody was using it during the current emergency, so it's not like they would have been making much off parking spaces.


We don't know whether the guy who started the fire moved to a shelter, a hotel, or what--the article doesn't specify.



As to what the city is doing for Perez, he mentions elsewhere in the article that, because she is a tenant of a city owned building, potentially they can forgive at least some of her rent. Her business isn't lost--just temporarily closed until they can ensure that it's safe for her to return. It's not fair or nice, but there isn't much else to do about it right now. Rent forgiveness is the least the city can do.



The use of a city parking garage as a "safe parking" site is an experiment of sorts, because we're finally desperate enough to try new things, and the city is motivated by a few new voices on the council who are shaking up the status quo. The thing about trial and error is, the errors help teach you what doesn't work, and the secret is, don't keep doing that thing. Up until now, instead of trying something, discovering a problem, and then trying something else, the city just kept using a solution they knew didn't work (pushing people from one neighborhood to another and doing cleanup) but just kept doing it, expecting a different result. There is absolutely no way that we solve a problem as deeply entrenched as this without great expense, a whole lot of work, and yeah, probably a few more mistakes. But we've at least shifted things from denial to actively trying multiple new solutions. The most successful of these experiments will hopefully help indicate which are the most effective.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by wburg

"Burns down parking garage" is a bit of a misnomer: it's a reinforced concrete parking structure, it didn't burn down, but I imagine the city wants to inspect the facility to gauge what structural damage may have taken place. That inspection could take a while, but the reason why the city decided to use the garage as a safe-parking site was because nobody was using it during the current emergency, so it's not like they would have been making much off parking spaces.


We don't know whether the guy who started the fire moved to a shelter, a hotel, or what--the article doesn't specify.



As to what the city is doing for Perez, he mentions elsewhere in the article that, because she is a tenant of a city owned building, potentially they can forgive at least some of her rent. Her business isn't lost--just temporarily closed until they can ensure that it's safe for her to return. It's not fair or nice, but there isn't much else to do about it right now. Rent forgiveness is the least the city can do.



The use of a city parking garage as a "safe parking" site is an experiment of sorts, because we're finally desperate enough to try new things, and the city is motivated by a few new voices on the council who are shaking up the status quo. The thing about trial and error is, the errors help teach you what doesn't work, and the secret is, don't keep doing that thing. Up until now, instead of trying something, discovering a problem, and then trying something else, the city just kept using a solution they knew didn't work (pushing people from one neighborhood to another and doing cleanup) but just kept doing it, expecting a different result. There is absolutely no way that we solve a problem as deeply entrenched as this without great expense, a whole lot of work, and yeah, probably a few more mistakes. But we've at least shifted things from denial to actively trying multiple new solutions. The most successful of these experiments will hopefully help indicate which are the most effective.

And then there’s this viewpoint ^^^. Plus 100+

[mgforshort]

An ordinary taxpayer with financial assets could be arrested for arson and sued for damages in this case. While I'm going off topic, please remember the majority of our devastating fires are caused by arson, some deliberate, others accidental or negligent.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

An ordinary taxpayer with financial assets could be arrested for arson and sued for damages in this case. While I'm going off topic, please remember the majority of our devastating fires are caused by arson, some deliberate, others accidental or negligent.

Oh, really? Very interesting. Maybe he was trying to clear the site for new development?


https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2020...-barbers-shop/


https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramen...n-midtown.html