Emily Zamourka

Her piercing soprano ricocheted off the subway’s walls, drowning out the robot announcing the next train’s arrival.

For most of us, life is a long and winding road that’s filled with dangers and obstacles. One mistake can cost your life. This lady was lucky! They stole her violin but they couldn’t steal her voice, which was all she had left. She knew this and refused to give up. Her whole soul showed when she sang.

The vocalist stood by herself near the end of the platform, holding hole-punctured bags on one arm and carrying a cart draped with a blanket in the other. She wore a long denim skirt, her blonde hair in girlish pigtails. And though it was the middle of the end-of-day Los Angeles rush hour, around 5:15 p.m. on Sept. 24, the Purple Line station in Koreatown was silent. There were no passers-by as she sang the opera aria.

The local news tracked down Zamourka in Koreatown and revealed who she was: a Russian immigrant who became homeless after a man stole her violin, the sole basis of her livelihood. Hundreds of people have since donated to online fundraisers to help her get off the streets.

Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino, hearing her Italian operatic solo, invited the 52-year-old to perform at Saturday’s unveiling of the city’s new Little Italy district. Then his office immediately started looking for housing.

Zamourka’s tale may seem like a classic L.A. story, Kvartuc said — a gifted performer plucked out of the unlikeliest of places after a chance discovery, “like the ‘American Idol’ story but on social media.” But where the allure of overnight fame brushes up against the city’s homelessness crisis, it gets complicated. He wanted to get Zamourka off the streets in just one night, but as with many of thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles, the transition typically takes much longer.

“It’s not easy-peasy saying, ‘Here’s your new life,'” Kvartuc said. “The thing is, I have so much more news for her. ‘You never have to spend another night outside again.’ But I can’t seem to deliver it to her.”

Late Monday night, he was driving around Koreatown looking for her.

The outpouring of support was escalating faster than she knew. She had accepted the invitation to perform at Little Italy earlier on Monday, but afterwards, Buscaino’s office had come up with a bolder plan: They called back on Monday night, offering to put her up in an Airbnb while they figured out a more permanent place for her to live.

When Kvartuc relayed that offer, she seemed hesitant, he recounted. By 10:30 p.m., he couldn’t reach her.

“She’s been overwhelmed with the attention,” Kvartuc said.

Immediately after the LAPD’s video went viral last week, Angelenos wanted to know her story. Some said they had seen her before, playing the violin or singing “Ave Maria” on one corner, feeding pigeons on another. Some thought she was too good to be true, supposedly not looking homeless enough while singing opera.

The local news managed to find her.

They asked where she learned to sing like that? She said she was never classically trained nor did she ever attend music school, but would take any opportunity to sing on a stage.

“You know why I do it in the subway?” she asked. “Because it sounds so great. It feels like I’m already there.”

Zamourka said she was born in Russia and came to the United States when she was 24. To make a living, she said, she taught violin and piano lessons until she started having health problems. Eventually, she turned to street performances with her prized $10,000 violin – until a few years ago, when it was stolen.

“When I lost that,” she told KABC Monday, “I felt like I lost everything.”

It happened outside a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, and was captured in part on video. Zamourka had just finished a performance in front of a modest group of fans when suddenly a man who had been standing in the crowd swooped in and snatched Zamourka’s violin. A friend who was there that night, Whitney Smith, recalled the incident.

“All of a sudden I just hear her scream,” Smith said. She said two young men then chased the thief down the street as Smith turned her phone’s camera on to record. “I was standing there with her, saying ‘Don’t worry about it – they’re going to get him.’ Well, they did catch up to him, but the guy threw the violin down violently.”

Video footage Smith captured that night showed Zamourka crying over the broken instrument. A man tried to assure her the strings were still attached. Zamourka knew it didn’t matter. “Oh, my violin!” she cried in one long sob.

Shortly after the theft, Zamourka started sleeping on cardboard, she said, sometimes feeling threatened and scared, looking for shelter wherever she could find it.

Now, she said, “what’s happening is something I can’t believe.”

“I’m speechless,” she told KABC. “It’s almost like a miracle.”

Michael Trujillo, a Los Angeles-based political consultant, was among those watching the story on the local news over the weekend. He created a GoFundMe page for her. “It was just sort of spur of the moment,” he said.

By early Tuesday morning, more than 700 people had donated nearly $29,000.

Trujillo said he contacted the Downtown Women’s Center to see if they might use the money on Zamourka’s behalf to provide services and help her find long-term housing. (The center declined to comment, citing privacy rules.) “It’s just a matter of trying to do this in a way she’s comfortable with,” he said.

On Monday night, Trujillo explained his plan to Kvartuc, just as the councilman’s spokesman set out to find Zamourka.

Kvartuc grew frustrated as his search turned fruitless, as if he couldn’t wait another hour to assure Zamourka that her nights on the streets could end.