Los Angeles fire evacuees face price gouging
The Hindu
Desperate residents of Pacific Palisades face price gouging as they search for new homes after devastating fires.
Five days after an inferno razed Pacific Palisades, Maya Lieberman is desperate to find somewhere to live. But unscrupulous landlords who are jacking up prices are making it hard.
"The price gouging is going haywire, it's obscene," the 50-year-old stylist told AFP.
"I can't find anywhere for us to go."
Huge fires that have torn through Los Angeles since Tuesday have levelled whole neighborhoods, turning swathes of the city to ash.
More than 150,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes as authorities try to keep down a death toll that has already reached 16.
One blaze devastated Pacific Palisades, an upmarket enclave that was home to celebrities like Billy Crystal and Kate Beckinsale, which -- until this week -- was some of the most desirable real estate in the United States.
With the area now under a compulsory evacuation order, even those whose homes survived the inferno need to go elsewhere for the forseeable future.
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