“It’s been a bad dream”: What one Altadena renter is facing after her home burned

The fires in the Los Angeles area have displaced tens of thousands of people. Many have ended up with friends, at hotels or shelters.  

Now, they’re facing the prospect of figuring out how to find housing — temporary for those who want to rebuild and permanent for those who want to move on. There are early reports that rental prices are surging, especially near the fire-ravaged areas.

Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with Claire Contreras, an elementary school teacher and resident of Altadena, as she was driving from one temporary accommodation to another. Claire’s husband, Michael, is a mental health therapist. Their one-bedroom apartment in Altadena burned down, and they have been looking for a new one. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Claire Contreras: So my parents lived a mile from our apartment, and we were house-sitting for my parents for the month of January. My husband and I were eating dinner last Tuesday night, and I just heard choppers overhead. And, you know, there’s the emergency power shut off, so we’re sitting in the dark with candles. So I looked out the back window, which was west-facing, I saw through the window like an orange glow, and I was like, “That’s not good.” So I ran to the front of the house, which was east-facing, and just saw the sky on fire.

Nova Safo: I’m really sorry for what you went through. I’m curious as to what you’ve been doing since, where have you been and how it’s been trying to kind of cope?

Contreras: Yeah, it’s been a bad dream, and we go back and forth between just, you know, mourning and grieving and weeping about all that’s been lost and the fond memories, and also being overwhelmed with gratitude, with the love and care that people have shown us. And then there’s, you know, the harsh reality of we’ve got to find a place to live.

Safo: What are you guys thinking for your future now? Do you have plans? Is it too soon?

Contreras: Our immediate plan is to find a place to live. We’re really trying to get on finding a long-term lease, because everything’s just going to start to fill up. The landlords that we call and have been calling about tours say, you know, they’re just getting bombarded with hundreds or dozens of calls. And so we’re trying to get our foot in the door with a long-term lease. We already felt like we’re being priced out. All of this just kind of puts a big question mark on our long-term ability to even stay in LA.

Safo: Have you had the resources to deal with this? I mean, it’s astonishing when people you know lose their homes — the amount of financial resources they need just to get by even for a week. What’s that been like for you?

Contreras: Yeah, that first night, when we were just breathing and thinking about the future, I looked up our renters policy, just was like, “This isn’t going to be enough. How are we going to do this?” And then my siblings and a good friend from work ended up starting two separate GoFundMes for us, and [it’s been] an outpouring of love. And I think the goals were met multiple times, maybe tenfold.

In the end, I think we’re gonna be OK, but I know that there’s so many other people who don’t have the networks, don’t have the renters insurance. So that’s a part that’s weighing on me heavily. But, you know, it’s a lot. It’s like, we don’t have a place to live, we don’t have any food. You know, my husband has very few socks and underwear. We’re having to kind of get all the essentials.

I think probably, like many people, we were somewhat underinsured. There’s a property side where we get our burned belongings, they’re going to replace with something at-cost, or something like that. And then there’s a loss-of-use period, where we’re going to be supposedly reimbursed for the costs that are incurred in this strange time where we’ve lost the use of our apartment and we haven’t yet resettled to someone new. But navigating all that is incredibly difficult, because the insurance companies are overrun with calls. It’s hard to navigate and get clarity on what we’re kind of entitled to from our policy.

Safo: And do you know if your parents are planning on rebuilding and staying in Altadena?

Contreras: Yeah, that’s a huge question for them right now, and I’m sure for many other people. My parents are in their 60s and starting to think, how do they want to spend their next 20, 30 years, and do they want to spend a chunk of the next decade building a new home that they might not even be able to live in for very long? It’s kind of an existential crisis that, because my husband and I are younger, we don’t really have to deal with that, but that’s really weighing on my parents. It’s like, this is their retirement. This is the last decades of their life — the last, you know, maybe the last decade or 15 years that they’re going to really be active and have strong health and mobility, and do they want to spend three to four years rebuilding? They’re not really sure.