Help Swan Today After Oakland Fire

Ghost Ship is gone, immolated Friday night. Thirty three people are confirmed dead as of this writing. Oakland Fire Department investigators are 20% done searching the warehouse for remains and cause. All the surviving residents have no home and nothing they didn't have on them. And they each just lost thirty friends. In one night. None of us knows what that feels like. We'll likely never learn. Our friend Swan survived. We all know her for her free spirit, her deep wisdom and generosity. Right now her life is grief. Maybe we don't know what to say to her, or what to ask. But she needs clothes. She needs food and shelter. She is bereft. She's one of ours. We're all hustling to live in this city. It's tight for every one of us. But we can take care of our own. Help Swan now. Get her homed. Help her help the other survivors. We all want to do something. Give what you can.

GoFundMe has asked me to get more transparent about this campaign, so a little about the poster:

My name is Matt LaScala. I've lived in San Francisco for eight years and the east bay for two, though I grew up in North Carolina. I met Swan at work--she bartends at the Nob Hill Masonic Temple concert hall, where I used to be a barback and equipment manager. She is now my dear friend and we work together at several other companies. I created this GoFundMe at the urging of Ron Marble, another Masonic bartender, and he attributes the original idea to one Garo Eldemir, a manager there.

How the funds will be spent: Swan will make all withdrawals. I will make none. She will find housing and necessities for herself and as many of the Ghost Ship survivors as she can, probably simultaneously, by finding communal arrangements. Her community, those who know her, have assured me that they view this GFM as a good general fund for Ghost Ship refugees.

Swan has been in contact and this morning let me know that once she can withdraw, she'll start replacing things she needs like her passport, and pay her bills. She has already been coordinating clothing donations and places to live for survivors, but having money and a stable home base herself will only improve her efforts.