🏡💚 Three stories from the frontlines
August 30, 2024
Throughout these newsletters, I’ve written about the different ways that climate disasters threaten homes, exacerbate the housing crisis, and disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. But these impacts are often described by looking at the numbers: $7.7 billion in damages from extreme heat, 1,247 structures damaged or destroyed by wildfires in 2024, 2,325 extreme heat deaths last year – the hottest year on record. While these can provide a sense of the full scope and scale of the crisis, they also risk abstracting away from the human element: the stories of the real people who are impacted. What does it actually look like when the climate and housing crises collide?
For today, here are three stories from this summer that illustrate different facets of the housing crisis in a changing climate.
The Daneaus in Cohasset
You may be surprised to learn that we are in a high fire year. The absence of apocalyptic smoke-filled and sky-scorched images we’ve come to associate with wildfire season may lead some to think we’ve had another mild year. But wildfires are well above the five-year average, with more than 29 times the acreage burned compared to 2023, and significantly more large wildfires than is “normal.”
The Park fire has been burning for more than a month, over which time it became the fourth largest fire in state history, and has burned over 700 buildings and homes.
That includes the home of the Daneau family. Of course, this is devastating for anyone to experience. But for the Daneau family, this is the second time their house has been burned to the ground. Six years ago, the Daneaus lived in Paradise, CA, and were forced to leave their home before it became one of the thousands burned by the Camp fire, the deadliest in California history.
After fleeing the Camp fire in 2018, the family eventually relocated to the town of Cohasset on the outskirts of Chico. While they knew they were still in fire country, Cohasset was one of the few affordable options they could find in the area that allowed them to remain close to family, their kids’ schools and their jobs. They rebuilt their life from the ground up, just to have it all burn down again.
“We’re starting completely over, again,” said Michael Daneau, 41. Every property they’ve ever owned has “burned to the ground with no value and nothing to our name.” They had previously been insured through California’s insurance of last resort – the California FAIR plan – but the price had increased to over $12,000 a year, well past what they could afford.
But they also know things could have been much worse. While 85 people died in the Camp fire, there were no deaths or major injuries from the Park fire. Improved emergency response plans and early evacuation orders ensured that residents were able to get out of harm’s way.
Perhaps echoing many people who live in fire prone areas, Cohasset’s residents are now left to ask: where do we go from here?
Credit to this article in the LA Times for this story
Elias in Calexico (left in picture)
On this month’s coalition call, one of the staff from Comite Civico del Valle shared the story of a tree being removed in the town of Calexico. While this might not sound very significant on its face, the mesquite tree in question provided an estimated 20 feet of shade to an area of downtown Calexico with very few other trees. This tree was a landmark and oasis for many in a place where summer temperatures are now regularly exceeding 100 degrees (and going as high as 122 degrees this summer). And notably, the removed tree was frequently used by unhoused people who stay nearby.
Members of the Imperial Valley Equity and Justice Coalition have called attention to this as one example of a larger systemic disdain for the homeless in Calexico. In the middle of the hottest part of the summer, the understaffed city made time to cut down one of the few shade-providing trees in the area.
One man named Elias talked about how he was personally affected by this, as he had been unhoused for several months since his house burned down. He emphasized the real health impacts of needing to stay cool: “And shade for people that don’t have A/C or something like that, you know, especially older people. It’s saving lives,” he said.
Elias also agreed with the systemic brutal treatment that homeless people experience in Calexico. He shared that earlier in the day, a police officer on patrol in the neighborhood stopped and harassed him for using a faucet on a sidewalk.
“He said he was gonna cite me or arrest me if he sees me there again getting water or washing my face right there or whatever,” Elias said, shaking his head. “It’s kinda hot, though, and I was just trying to cool myself down,” he said of the spigot he found.
In a time when extreme heat becomes more dangerous every year, many cities in California are increasingly criminalizing homelessness. Cutting down a beloved and shade-producing tree in the heat of summer takes this one step further, a dark symbol of systemic cruelty in the midst of the housing and climate crises.
Credit to this article in the Calexico Chronicle for this story
Paula Silva (pictured), Mike Rios, and Karla Gomez in San Diego
On January 22, 2024, intense flooding displaced hundreds of families in San Diego. More than six months later, many are still struggling to find a place to sleep at night.
That includes the families of Paula Silva, Mike Rios, and Karla Gomez – three families who were forced to leave the same apartment complex in the floods. They are all hopeful they can eventually return to the apartment once it’s rebuilt, but in the meantime they are having trouble finding an alternative.
Despite a local program set up to help those impacted by the floods, tenants are at the mercy of their landlords in accessing the assistance – and many are becoming homeless because of it. To get aid, they have to provide numerous documents, a confirmed move-in date to verify residency, and their landlords must provide information to validate their tenancy. This verification process is lengthy, burdensome, and crucially relies on cooperation from their landlord.
Five tenants told the San Diego Union-Tribune their landlord has refused to cooperate to sign the forms they would need completed in order to get financial assistance.
After the county’s hotel voucher program ended on June 21, over 300 families displaced by the flooding were left looking for a place to stay. Some were placed in homeless shelters, but others were declined shelter placements, or weren’t placed due to lack of available beds.
Paula Silva and her family were preparing to sleep in their car when they received a call that they had been accepted into a family shelter. She is able to bring her husband, daughter, and two grandchildren – one is 4 years old, the other is 7 months.
Karla Gomez wasn’t so fortunate. One of her sons left the country to stay with family in Tijuana, while she and her youngest son were still sleeping in a tent.
Their shared landlord had offered each of them their security deposit back if they agreed to end their lease early and move out. But most prefer to try to return to their home because of its relatively affordable rent, even if they aren’t sure when they’ll be able to go back.
Mike Rios said, “I shouldn’t be displaced to another part of town because of a disaster. I didn’t want to move somewhere that’s way more expensive and struggle more than what we are already struggling in San Diego.”
Paula Silva also refused the offer, worrying about her ability to secure a new home because of a prior eviction on her record.
But Karla Gomez eventually caved and accepted the security deposit, hoping she could use it to find another place to live. “I’m very sad,” Gomez said. “I had already struggled in life, but now this is just complicating everything. I never thought I’d be in a situation like this.”
Similar stories are playing out across San Diego, across California, and throughout the country. As disasters destroy homes and displace people, lower-income victims struggle to find an affordable place to stay. It’s a cruel irony that in San Diego, many people are still beholden to the landlords of the buildings that no longer offer them a home.
Credit to this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune for this story
While I’ve mostly focused on the tragedy and injustice within these stories, solidarity, power, and hope also persist within each as well. In Cohasset, the community has rallied around those who lost their homes, selling “Cohasset Strong” clothing to raise money for fire victims. The Imperial Valley Equity and Justice Coalition has been mobilizing days of solidarity in support of the unhoused community, and regularly provides mutual aid and supplies for those in need during the summer’s hottest days. Community organizations across San Diego have stepped in to help hundreds of people find housing and navigate the red tape to access financial assistance.
And throughout all of these stories, there's a strong undercurrent of almost unbelievable persistence.
The Daneaus are still counting their blessings, despite their misfortune: “We’re trying to be as positive as we can. We know that even though we’re in a worse position than we were last time, by far ... we have an amazing support group and community.”
Elias joined a protest organized by the Imperial Valley Equity and Justice Coalition, waving a sign and chanting with others.
And even as her family continues to struggle with the aftermath, Paula Silva tries to stay hopeful. “We’re trying to recover, step by step,” she says.
It reveals something truly amazing about the human spirit – an indomitability, humble courage, resilience.
It also makes all the more clear the urgent need to transform the systems that lay in the backdrop of each of these stories. Our campaign for green social housing is a proposition to create an alternative housing system based on dignity, sustainability, and care. And while we fight for that long-term transformation, we must also seek to take care of each other now. Because we know more disasters are coming.
WHAT WE’RE READING
Dual Crisis: Housing in a Changing Climate (Shelterforce) — great ongoing series of articles about the climate-housing nexus
CA: $20B Potential Savings from Targeted Electrification (NRDC blog)
How Do We Fix Public Insurance Programs? (Climate + Community Project blog)
We’ve sent this out to everyone on the current CA GND listserv. If you don’t want to get these weekly newsletters, feel free to unsubscribe below. If you know someone that would be interested, send me their email, or you can forward this along to them and they can use this link to subscribe.
