Displaced by Los Angeles Wildfires, Thousands Confused About Where to Live

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Thousands of Angelenos have lost their homes in some of the most devastating wildfires in California history. Finding a new, affordable place to live has proven difficult because of the fierce competition in Los Angeles’ post-disaster housing market.

The have killed at least 27 people as of Friday and destroyed more than 10,000 buildings in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods. In the wake of the fires, rents have skyrocketed and uncertainty over insurance settlements has left some displaced in limbo.

In interviews with this week, Angelenos described the agony of being displaced from their beloved neighborhoods and the daunting task of figuring out what’s next for themselves and their families. Here are some of their stories:

A rental market that’s gone completely crazy

John Adolph, a 48-year-old video producer, his wife, two young children and two dogs have been staying with friends since they were displaced from their Altadena home a week ago. Their ranch-style home of six years near the Angeles National Forest was completely destroyed in the Eaton Fire.

"We thank God we're safe, but we don't know what's going to happen next," he said. "We're both lucky, our jobs are still here. I know a lot of people who lost their livelihoods and had to start over. We're still working."

Adolph and his wife, Christine, are Angelenos, and have no plans to leave the area permanently.

For now, the family is content staying with friends, but they know they'll need more space in the long term. They've been looking at rental apartments.

"We have two kids and an elderly dog, and we can't go from hotel rooms to Airbnbs," he said. "We need something stable for the kids."

When they went to look at rental apartments, there were already six families in line ahead of them.

"It's just crazy," Adolph said.

Although his home is insured, he worries that skyrocketing construction costs and new insurance rates will force them out of their neighborhood.

"So it's still unclear whether we'll be able to rebuild," he said. She doesn’t know how long it will take for the area to clear the debris before they can start. “We would love to stay here, but who knows, we don’t know.”

‘It feels like a ghost town’

“I think where you live is part of your identity,” said Deisy Suarez-Giles, who lost the four-bedroom Altadena home she bought in 2021 and the citrus and avocado orchards she planted on the property. “I feel like a part of us is gone.”

She and her husband, Keith Giles, have found a hotel room in downtown Los Angeles near their spa business for about $170 a night, a kind of employee discount because the hotel uses their masseuses.

On Friday, they moved into a rent-free apartment donated by Airbnb for 10 days. After that, they don’t know where they’ll live.

The couple are leaving their two young sons with relatives in Florida until things stabilize.

She and her husband still have to make monthly mortgage payments on their destroyed home, on which they still owe $850,000. The mortgage payments are harder now that they rely in part on rent paid by a tenant who lives in a studio in the back of the house. And their spa business has suddenly slowed down.

"We've been struggling and now with this fire it feels like a ghost town," she said. "The only thing that's on anyone's mind right now is 'spa.'"

She's waiting to hear back from her insurance company about how much they'll recoup over the next 12 months. Before they start their rental search in earnest, they need to figure out their budget.

'Lucky and blessed'

Kathleen McRoskey closed on her two-story, four-bedroom home the day the 1994 earthquake struck, and left last week before it was destroyed by the Palisades fire.

She and her husband, Mike, grew up a few miles from the Palisades and met in first grade. They've decided to stay in the neighborhood where they raised their four children.

The family is now staying with her husband's brother near the University of California, Los Angeles.

"It's priceless to be with family and to be within a few miles of where we lost our home," McRoskey said. "On the other hand, we're burdening him."

Navigating the Los Angeles market has been a rollercoaster. A tip from her husband’s real estate friend about an unlisted rental in Santa Barbara led to an early-morning viewing that she says felt like a “drug deal.”

They knew they had a relatively large budget because, a few months ago, her husband decided to upgrade their fire insurance coverage after helping an elderly woman who was struggling to file a claim after losing her home in a 2018 Malibu fire.

“We’re very fortunate and blessed,” she says.

They hope to move to Santa Barbara in February, when they’ll start thinking about building a new home on the Palisades property that’s been in the works for years.

“We never dreamed of rebuilding in our 70s,” she says.

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