Above photo: Architect and coalition leader Charles Bryant stands near the remains of his home, which burned down in the Eaton Fire. William Jenkins / AfroLA.
As Altadena rebuilds, residents and grassroots coalitions are working to ensure that the community’s cultural fabric is preserved.
Carla Flagg remembers the joy of growing up in west Altadena.
“We had these great pool parties where all the cousins and everybody would come to the Fair Oaks house,” she says, smiling, as tears welled up in her eyes. Her parents owned the house and passed it down to her sister and her sister’s kids. “ We had that home for 50-some odd years, and there are still people who know the original phone number.”
Flagg’s family home was one of some 9,400 structures that were destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January. It was also one of many homes passed down within the Black community by family members. Discriminatory redlining of the 1960s steered her parents away from Pasadena, and realtors encouraged them to purchase on the west side of Altadena.
“It is something that we as a family wanted to keep as part of our generational wealth and our legacy,” Flagg says.
Flagg, an architect and volunteer with the Altadena Rebuild Coalition, recently shared these memories on video. She’s been helping facilitate storytelling among Eaton Fire survivors as part of the coalition’s mission to preserve the cultural significance of Altadena’s Black community. She felt it was time to share her own connection, too.
“Altadena is life for me,” she says. “I can’t wait for it to come back.”
In the wake of what is likely the costliest wildfire disaster in U.S. history, she and a group of Black architects, engineers, contractors and other building professionals joined forces. They hope to rebuild Altadena with the same cultural fabric that made it into an epicenter of Black homeownership, economic vitality and culture.
The coalition was launched by members of the National Organization of Minority Architects’s Southern California chapter, who snapped into action after the fires. Without targeted assistance, many Black families might be forced to leave the area. The destruction is personal; at least eight members lost their homes entirely, others were displaced due to smoke and ash damage, and everyone knows someone impacted.
The coalition is focused on three central goals: cultural preservation and historical significance, community engagement and rebuilding support. That includes pairing architects with residents to help them start thinking through what it will take to rebuild. The fire disproportionately impacted Black neighborhoods, according to a UCLA study that found nearly half of Black homes were destroyed or sustained major damage, compared to 37% of all other racial/ethnic groups’ homes.
But to create the kind of change they’re envisioning, they have to start by building trust, says coalition co-founder Eletrice Harris, a program director at SoCal NOMA.
“Between the County information [about debris cleanup] and all these people sneaking up trying to buy their property or get them to sign on to either a lawsuit or so many things going on, their [heads are] spinning,” she says. “So we’re setting ourselves up to be a trusted partner in the community that they can come to with these issues and we can help steer them in the right direction.”
Help For The Community From The Community
Three months after the fires, Steve Lewis hasn’t been able to move back into his 1929 Spanish mission-style home. While it didn’t burn down, it sustained smoke damage. He and his wife have been living between a friend’s Airbnb in Glendale and Detroit, where he also works and their daughter lives.
Lewis has been an architect and Altadenean since the early ’80s, when the Black population peaked at 43%. As costs rose and original Black residents were priced out, the Black population dropped to 18%. But Lewis says it never felt that way.
“The presence and culture here has existed in such a strong way that it remains prevalent,” he said. “It’s just – family.”
This tight-knit community feeling is what created unique multigenerational neighborhoods, where young folks stuck around and bought homes near family. More than 80% of Black Altadeneans own their homes – more than double the rate of Black homeownership in California overall.
Lewis said his phone has been ringing constantly with people seeking advice and direction on what to do next. He’s helping lead community engagement for the coalition, and he’s an advisor to other recovery groups. He’s sort of like an air traffic controller, he said, pointing homeowners in the right direction and connecting community leaders working on similar efforts. While his colleagues are already signing on to help people come up with design plans to rebuild, he’s encouraging them to begin with “step zero.”
“First lead with a question, not the answer. That means we have to stabilize the patient before we administer the treatment,” he said. “Just be there and be an ear. Let the process of healing begin by a victim telling their trauma to a stranger, and that really starts to develop a potential for trust. With that trust then comes the willingness to receive your advice, your counsel and your resources as you bring them to the table.”
Since the fires, residents dispersed in all directions in search of affordable semi-permanent places to stay. Despite the distance, Lewis said it’s important to find ways for the community to stay connected. One vital resource to emerge has been grassroots neighborhood text chains that provide valuable information to residents.
“The takeaway right now is that the greatest value is in community preservation,” Lewis said.
The long road to rebuilding
“Altadena not for sale” has become a rallying cry among residents and grassroots coalitions who are fearful that out-of-town developers will capitalize on the tragedy and reconstruct Altadena into something locals no longer recognize.
“The knee-jerk response is, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna rebuild,’” said Lewis. “And as insurance settlements start to happen and things sort of settle and the media starts to go away, this reality of, ‘How am I gonna rebuild, and what does that look like?’ That’s where the design professionals can really be of help.”
At a recent in-person event hosted by the coalition at Community Bible Church in Altadena, residents had the opportunity to hear from experts on topics including insurance, soil testing and options when it comes to rebuilding. Architects with the coalition also provided free guidance about the major steps in a rebuild timeline – starting by coordinating with insurance and clearing hazardous debris from their property, then designing, assessing options given their particular situation, designing and permitting, and finally, constructing the home. The coalition has assembled a professional directory and information about how to hire an architect.
Henry Dotson, a retired builder, attended the event to see how he can best collaborate with the group. He recently co-founded the Dena Rekindling Network, which lists about 50 Black and Latine builders in the Altadena area who are available to help rebuild homes.
Dotson is currently displaced from his own home in Pasadena, which sustained smoke, soot and ash damage. His doctor prescribed him an inhaler, and said it wasn’t safe to return. Despite the heaviness of the situation, he said there’s an African proverb that keeps him going.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together,” he said. “We have to go far. This is a years and years process.”
Recovering from such a large-scale disaster will require assistance for many local groups with different areas of expertise. Dotson said there’s plenty of work to go around, and it’s critical that they all move together with the same goals and keep homeowners informed about their options.
“Residents need to feel they have a say and they’re not getting ripped off,” he said.
Laying concrete may still be a little ways off in Altadena, which appears to be lagging behind efforts in the Palisades. Late last month, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced the city approved the first rebuild permits for Pacific Palisades and issued an executive order to streamline the process. Meanwhile, as of April 11, L.A. County had just recently issued the first rebuild permit for unincorporated areas, which includes all of Altadena and some parts of the Palisades. Within the Eaton Fire perimeter, Los Angeles County Public Works received 173 zoning reviews to start the rebuild permitting process. Of those, 23 have initiated the permit process, according to the most recent data available shared with AfroLA by the department. Meanwhile, they have received 17 temporary housing applications, and issued two. Those permits are for homeowners who want to use a recreational vehicle, manufactured home or mobile home on their property after their home was destroyed or damaged in a disaster.
Charles Bryant, an Altadena resident since ‘83, lost his home of 22 years in the Eaton Fire. The architect and coalition leader’s lot was recently cleared and he submitted design plans to rebuild. Before the fire, Bryant and his wife planned to remodel their home with the intention of saving a special wall where their now adult children and their friends marked heights over the years. With the wall and everything else gone, Bryant’s design plans look much different now. Not only is he rebuilding his home from scratch, but he’s also helping at least 10 other neighbors and people in the community rebuild their homes.
“ I’m gonna take care of them, make sure they’re actually better than what they had before because the idea is to build back better,” he said.
Bryant said there’s an opportunity to straighten out outdated and illogical floor plans designed in the ‘50s and design with more fire resistant materials to better protect homes from future disasters. But exactly how those homes will look will depend on how much insurance companies pay out, he said. Some Altadena residents are struggling with being underinsured.
Bryant is worried whether seniors will stay and rebuild. Nearly 60% of Black homeowners in Altadena are over age of 65, according to the UCLA study.
“ I’ve already talked to many people, they’re just not going to do it,” he said. “They say either they don’t have the energy, they just want out for one reason or another, or they feel that they’re too old.”
There’s a lot regarding Altadena’s reconstruction that will be out of Bryant’s control. But if there’s one piece of advice he’d give someone thinking of selling: Take a pause and talk to an organization like his, or many others, to understand what help is available.
“Don’t make a rash decision,” he said.
Harris, the coalition co-founder, said the first big step toward rebuilding is deciding by April 15 whether or not to opt-in to a free debris removal service from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Once hazardous debris has been cleaned from burned out lots, the real rebuilding work can begin. Ultimately, said Harris, the big-picture goal is to ensure families who wish to stay in Altadena can retain the generational wealth built through equity in their homes.
“If we can’t do anything other than put another building on there that they can have and it could be paid for, that would be enough for us,” she said.
This story was co-published with AfroLA, nonprofit solutions journalism for Los Angeles told through the lens of the Black community. Subscribe to AfroLA’s newsletter.