ALTADENA, Calif. — When Julia Esnard’s mother and stepfather bought their home in 1964, redlining was shaping the racial composition of this mountainside community about 15 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
To the east of Lake Avenue, the residents were generally white. To the west of that north-south artery, Black homeownership was flourishing. Esnard’s mom and stepdad, who were of Creole descent, wanted to buy a house in an area that was then on the east side of the redline, but they weren’t considered white enough, she said.
“My great-uncle is a civil rights attorney, and he got involved, and they were able to purchase the house,” Esnard recalled.
That house on Calaveras Street was among thousands of Altadena homes that burned down last month in the devastating Eaton Fire. All told, in a community that one month ago had around 42,000 residents,
Prior to the fire, though the eastern part of town remained whiter and wealthier than the western half, Altadena had a thriving Black middle class. Its real estate prices — high by national standards but relatively affordable compared with the pricier neighborhoods in Los Angeles — also made it a magnet for artists and young families of all races.
“Altadena has evolved into this eclectic kind of community,” said Veronica Jones, president of the
Now many members of the community — most of whom have had to relocate, at least temporarily — are wondering whether the racial and socioeconomic diversity they prized will survive the rebuilding process.
They’re also asking whether Altadena will be rebuilt on a similar scale, with many smaller single-family homes, or whether a statewide push for greater density amid California’s housing crunch will result in a community with a completely different character than it had prior to the fire.
“It’s impacted everybody and everything,” Jones said. “It’s nothing less than if someone dropped a bomb in the middle of your town.”
Banks will undoubtedly have a major role to play in the rebuilding process, but those efforts will be fraught in light of the community’s history of redlining and longstanding concerns in the community about a scarcity of services in West Altadena.
A potential bank desert
The only two bank branches in Altadena prior to the fire were located right next to each other — in the middle of town on Lake Avenue. Nearly a month after the fire,
“There’s going to be a huge void without the banks there,” said James Chang, president of
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For residents who own cars, dozens of bank branches are accessible in nearby communities, including Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge. Digital banking is also an option. But many senior citizens may need to use public transportation to travel to an out-of-neighborhood bank.
Concerns about a lack of access to banking services are especially relevant in West Altadena. During the period of redlining, which lasted from the 1930s to the late 1960s, residents on the west side of town got used to having less.
“When they say ‘underserved,’ I say it was planned to be underserved,” Jones said. “It didn’t just happen that underserved people moved there. It was planned.”
Even in recent years, the area had a smaller library, fewer trees and no bank branches.
Concerns about inequities have reignited in the wake of the Eaton Fire, which started on the east side of town but ultimately did even more damage west of Lake, where homes were packed in closer proximity to each other.
After the blaze ignited in Eaton Canyon around 6:10 p.m. on Jan. 7, evacuation orders for residents of a large area east of Lake came before 10:30 p.m.,
The first radio report of a fire west of Lake came at 10:51 p.m., but the evacuation order for that area didn’t come until 3:25 a.m., the Times reported. All 17 Altadena residents who died in the blaze reportedly lived west of Lake.
Esnard, who moved into senior housing in West Altadena last year, said that her building survived the fire. “We were very fortunate that nothing happened to our building, other than smoke and soot and ash,” she said.
The house that Esnard’s family has owned since the 1960s, where her sister had been living with her two grown children, was not as lucky. “But we will rebuild,” Esnard promised.
During a recent interview, she expressed concern about longstanding disparities in Altadena. “There are a lot of people in West Altadena that don’t drive,” Esnard said. “It’s disturbing that there is no financial institution here.”
Esnard said she was a
Not everyone in Altadena shared Esnard’s dissatisfaction with the banking options that were available before the fire.
Maria Schufeldt, a longtime resident of Central Altadena, said that one particular
“She was a comfort for me at that time,” Schufeldt said. “And she was supremely professional, and would tell me what I needed to provide and what I didn’t.”
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‘People are going to be forced out’
For many displaced residents seeking to rebuild their homes, money will perhaps be the most difficult issue.
Building costs are high in California, and many homeowners are underinsured. In other words, the money they can expect to receive from their insurance companies will be less than the amount it will actually take to rebuild what they had before the fire.
What’s more, many of Altadena’s older residents don’t have fire insurance — often because they own their homes outright, and homeowners who don’t have mortgages aren’t required to be insured. Having lost their houses, and lacking any insurance proceeds, they could be forced out of Altadena, or even out of the greater Los Angeles area.
“What I fear, just based on the housing market in California, is that we’re going to see gentrification in that area,” said Chang, the credit union president. “People are going to be forced out, because housing is just so expensive.”
Banks have the ability to help both in the short term and the longer run. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, many lenders are offering forbearances on mortgages. They are also expected to help finance rebuilding by offering construction loans.
Dominic Ng is the CEO of East West Bank, which is headquartered in Pasadena and has dozens of branches in the Los Angeles area. “Banks will play a very meaningful role,” he
It’s not only homeowners who need help, Ng noted. Small business owners, including members of Altadena’s art community, will also require assistance to get back on their feet.
East West is taking specific steps to help artists affected by the wildfires, working with the Getty Foundation and other charitable groups to launch the
Ng pointed out that Altadena is home to many artists, curators, installers, gallery employees and others who make their living in the art world. Many of them have lost their studios, including the unfinished — and likely uninsured — work inside.
“Think about if someone is working diligently trying to meet the deadline for an exhibition a month or two from now, and then the work’s all gone,” Ng said. “It’s going to be devastating for some of these artists.”
In addition to offering loans and making donations, Ng said, banks can help business owners by providing them valuable information about government resources.
“We also need to be a well-informed source, helping them to identify relief,” Ng said, noting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration provide resources to small business owners affected by disasters. “We’re going to be busy.”
Paradise lost?
Following the fire, one core question is whether Altadenans can recreate the community that inspired so much devotion.
Part of the place’s lure was the physical beauty. Altadena is tucked up against the San Gabriel Mountains, which offer hikers panoramic views of LA, all the way out to the Pacific Ocean on a clear day. The local pharmacy long sold “Beautiful Altadena” merchandise — a loving moniker that now reads as grimly ironic amid block after block of charred ruins.
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But residents were drawn to this community not just for the natural wonder. It was also the eclectic, diverse mix of people, which had long made Altadena a thriving, middle-class melting pot.
When Jones and her husband bought their house in 1965, their block was mostly Black and Japanese-American, she said. One Japanese couple, she learned, had been sent to an internment camp during World War II, and while they were gone, their Black neighbors had protected their house and mowed their lawn.
“That’s something you don’t get by building a new house and having new people coming in,” Jones said. “That’s a history that you feel. I feel connected to my neighbors.”
More recently, Jones’ block was home to people of various ages, professions and backgrounds. Her neighbors included a pediatrician, a locksmith, artists, “hippies” — both young and old — and a gay couple, all “clumped together.”
Now Jones wonders if they’ll ever return, even though the block didn’t burn, which means it was luckier than most. There are 11 homes on Jones’ block. Since the fires, only three families have returned. The soot, ashes, contamination — and fear — have been enough to keep the neighbors away.
As for those whose homes were destroyed, Jones wonders how many Altadenans, particularly older ones, will choose to reconstruct their homes instead of moving elsewhere.
“My husband and I are in our 70s, and I thought, ‘With our house, if we came back to just our foundation, would we rebuild? … Do we have the energy?'” she said. “But if we have a loan, that changes our whole economic dynamic.”