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- The Collaboratory, an Altadena disaster relief hub, opened in October to house nonprofits serving fire survivors still rebuilding after January’s Eaton fire.
- The hub consolidates scattered aid for housing, mental health and permitting to address the complex needs survivors face.
- As charitable attention fades, the Collaboratory is a critical lifeline for those still at risk of community displacement.
The first thing you see when you walk into the Collaboratory in Altadena is a wall of devastation. A floor-to-ceiling map of every lot lost to the Eaton fire in January — 9,413 structures. Each marked with a red dot on a grid of streets that have looked like a charred moonscape for 11 months.
The wall is a harrowing depiction of loss in the Eaton fire. But one turn to the right, and hope kicks back in.
This flagship effort of the disaster-relief collective Eaton Fire Collaborative, which opened in October, houses dozens of nonprofits on-site with aid and resources for almost any challenge of the recovery effort. It was built to be a one-stop first step toward handling the personal grief, immediate needs and grinding bureaucracy that fire survivors still face in Altadena.
As government and charitable attention have drifted from Altadena over the last year, it’s one of the few new lifelines in the area for fire survivors still rebuilding their lives.
“None of us have experienced this before,” said Michelle White, an Altadena native and the founder of the community activist nonprofit Neighborhood Survants, which spearheaded the Collaboratory. “People were saying, ‘I don’t know where housing is. I don’t know where to find my deed. I need help with mental health services, rebuilding, insurance.’ What we’re trying to help with is to say, ‘Come inside here. Tell me where you are and how we can help you.’ We’re going to make every chance possible that we can.”
The overarching problem that prompted the Collaboratory was the sheer range of issues fire survivors were facing, each of which would take incredible amounts of time, willpower and money to resolve individually when survivors had little to spare. Many victims were elderly, spoke limited English or had been displaced far from their communities and lost essential documents.
The Altadena Dining Club was formed to help local restaurants stay afloat after the Eaton fire, while simultaneously bringing neighbors together to discuss the recovery.
Simply understanding what work was necessary, what services were offered and what it would take to access them became a full-time job for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents. Identifying scammers or price-gouging contractors added layers of fear to those seeking help.
White’s Neighborhood Survants group was an essential resource for the area during the pandemic, covering homeless outreach, food drives and other core needs. Yet the Eaton fire compounded all of these problems at once. A lack of transportation made it difficult to access aid while displaced into a far-away community; a charred home made it hard to find documents to prove what you lost; grief and mental health issues or a lack of childcare made it impossible to even get started.
“Take the senior whose car burned up and she can’t go buy a brand new car somewhere, or someone with no renters insurance or a copy of their lease. Or you’re trying to navigate this, but you don’t have anybody to talk to in your language. Someone here can say, ‘I know these people that can help.’ This is what this whole thing does: try to put everybody in one space.”
Those groups pull from more than 200 established local nonprofits (many of whom are physically on-site) that cover everything from permit help, soil testing and remediation to licensed therapists, a construction-equipment lending library and a virtual-reality studio where you can tangibly see rebuilding options on your lot. There’s a free store of household essentials, and dedicated case managers to guide survivors through each tier of resources and keep them organized.
On a rainy Thursday afternoon in November, the Collaboratory hummed with volunteers packing donated home goods. Walls were decked in swatches of fire-resistant construction materials with experts available to help homeowners decide how best to rebuild for a chaotic climate future. The Collaboratory’s new job center had just opened to place local workers with opportunities — even if just to volunteer for a sense of purpose amid total loss.
“We’ve had people that were just laid off from JPL, who also lost their houses, that signed up to volunteer and help here,” White said.
While the Eaton fire disaster was instantaneous, the loss of such a deep-rooted community in Altadena has happened much slower, over thousands of private decisions. As many Altadena survivors face hard choices about whether to try and stay, or start their lives elsewhere, White sees echoes of another generational disaster.
Sunny Mills, a set decorator who lost her home in the Eaton fire, is taking tintype photos of Altadena residents at their burned properties.
“This is kind of the Hurricane Katrina story, how they all ended up in Texas. We had a shortage of housing before the fire, and now all these people are trying to find housing. This is where you’re starting to see people leave,” White said.
“If you say, ‘I can’t afford to live here. I don’t have a job, I don’t have anywhere to house my kids, I can’t stay.’ If we say, ‘Don’t let them leave,’ OK, where do you want me to put them? You lose one family, two families, six families, 20 families, and that’s when your community just turns into something that it wasn’t.”
For those overwhelmed by obstacles, or who feel like they’ve been abandoned as the city rebuilds, the Collaboratory is an open door. One where you’ll be greeted by local activists and experts who can tell you where to start.
“We’ve just got to keep the story alive,” White said, about keeping services and nonprofits operating in Altadena. “If you listen to other survivors from other disasters, it’s that one-year mark that you lose everything.”
“But I think the stories will get better,” she continued, pointing toward the daunting map of the work to come. “The people that are staying in motor homes have their little block parties and share coffee on Saturday mornings. It’s started this new community of people that maybe didn’t know their neighbors before and now they’re friends. That map of all those red dots, I can’t wait till they’re green.”
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