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February 7, 2025

California wildfires threaten to widen inequality

The sight of celebrity homes and movie landmarks reduced to ashes can make it seem as if the wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area have affected only a constellation of movie stars.

But a walk through the charred neighborhoods around Altadena shows that the fires also destroyed a remarkable haven for generations of black families who avoided discriminatory housing practices elsewhere. These are racially and economically diverse communities, where many people own their own homes.

Some now fear that the most destructive wildfires in California history may have changed the game for good. Recovery and rebuilding could be out of reach for many, and the pressures of gentrification could be renewed.

Samantha Santoro, 22, a first-generation student at Cal Poly Pomona, remembers being frustrated when initial media coverage of the wildfires focused more on celebrities. She and her sister, who is a UC Berkeley student, worry about how their Mexican immigrant parents and working-class neighbors who lost their homes in Altadena will fare.

“We’re not like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to go to my second home and stay there,'” Santoro said.

The landlord of the family’s two-bedroom pool home never raised the $1,650 rent, allowing the Santoros to raise their daughters more affordably. Today, they are temporarily living with a relative in Pasadena. The family has homeowners insurance, but little else.

“I think it’s hard to believe that you have nothing,” Santoro said, tearing up as she thought of her parents. “Everything they worked for was in that house.”

Altadena was a mix of tiny bungalows and grand mansions. The community of 42,000 includes blue-collar families, artists, entertainment industry workers and white-collar workers. About 58 percent of residents are nonwhite, a quarter are Hispanic and nearly a fifth are black, according to census data.

During the civil rights era, Altadena became a rare land of opportunity for black Americans to rise to the middle class without the discriminatory practices of denying them access to credit. They kept their homes in the family and helped others thrive. Today, the black homeownership rate there is 81.5 percent, nearly double the national rate.

That’s impressive considering that 92% of Altadena’s 15,000 homes are single-family homes, according to the 2023 Census American Community Survey. The median income is more than $129,000. Just over 7% of residents live in poverty.

Victoria Knapp, president of the Altadena City Council, fears the fires have irreparably changed the landscape for these families.

“Somebody’s going to buy it and develop who knows what. And that’s going to change the character of Altadena,” Knapp said, adding that those with fewer resources will be disproportionately affected.

Kenneth Snowden’s family, 57, was one of the black families able to buy a home in 1962. That home, as well as the one Snowden bought nearly 20 years ago, are both gone.

He challenges state and federal officials to equitably help all communities affected by the fires, because “your $40 million house is no different than my $2 million house.”

Snowden wants to be able to get zero-interest mortgages. “Give us the opportunity to rebuild, to start our lives over,” he said. “If you can spend billions of dollars to fight a war, you can spend a billion dollars to help us get back to where we were.”

Shawn Brown lost not only her home, but also the public charter school she founded in Altadena. She had a message for other black homeowners who might be tempted by offers on their property: “I would tell them to stay strong, to rebuild, to continue the generational progress of African Americans.”

She and other staff members at Pasadena Rosebud Academy are trying to raise money to rebuild while looking for temporary sites at churches.

But even some churches burned. At Altadena Baptist Church, the steeple is about the only thing left standing.

The Rev. George Van Alstine and others are trying to help more than 10 church members who lost their homes with needs that include dealing with insurance and federal aid. The pastor worries the fires will lead to gentrification, with black parishioners, who make up half the congregation, paying the price.

“We see a number of families that are probably going to have to leave the area because rebuilding in Altadena will be too expensive for them,” he said.

Photographer Daniela Dawson, 32, who was working two jobs to meet the $2,200 rent on her studio, fled the fires with her Hyundai SUV and her cat, Lola. She lost almost everything else, including thousands of dollars worth of camera gear.

I don’t have renters insurance. “Obviously, now I think about it. I wish I had it,” she said.

Dawson plans to return to Arizona, where she previously lived, and recharge. But she probably won’t return to Altadena.

By Rédaction Africanews

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