Homeless may be behind string of DHS fires

Desert Hot Springs asks for the public’s help to stop a string of suspicious fires in the city.

There have been at least ten fires in the last month, many at abandoned homes or buildings.

While the cause of these fires are still being investigated, police are focusing on the city’s large number of abandoned homes and transient population to get to the root of the problem.

During our ride-a-long with officer Adam Perez, he pointed out some of the recent fires. “Directly right behind it was this structure fire and now our most recent problem is this house. We believe it’s all transients looking for shelter at night, using candles or alternative ways for heat at night.”

“There are a lot of abandoned properties that are not being taken care of by their homeowners,” said Perez.

Now Desert Hot Springs Police are working to identify these properties and monitor them.

“The transient population, in at least in my opinion, are pretty smart. They can make a house out of anything,” said Perez.

We saw about a half a dozen homes, even old buildings, where transients took over.

We stopped at what once was the Adobe Inn and Spa.

“All of this has been condemned and each one of them is kind a homeless shelter. We have arrested several transients in here for being under the influence of a narcotics or simply trespassing,” said Perez.

This visit, Perez found two people illegally calling it home.

“Either some of them are too proud they don’t want help or a lot of them don’t know there is help available to them,” said Perez.

In this case, they didn’t know help was available. Perez showed us their makeshift apartment. It had no running water, but it had power supplied from an electrical cord run illegally downstairs and across the property and tapped into to someone else’s line.

“With that electrical line not installed properly this whole place has the opportunity to go up in flames,” said Perez.

But the Adobe Inn won’t go up in flames, at least not today. Edison will come out and turn the power off like it has many times before.

“They find away to get the power from somewhere,” said Perez.

Perez said frequent patrols and visits from the city’s code enforcement does help keep people from coming back.

“The bad part is, now they are moving somewhere else until we find that location,” said Perez.

Desert Hot Springs Police said it will take a community effort to help solve this problem.

It wants people to report abandoned properties and suspicious activities.