New foundation led by Altadena residents launches with $55 million to help community rebuild

A new foundation supported by $55 million in donations will help Altadenans struggling to rebuild after the Eaton Fire destroyed vast swaths of their foothill community.

The Altadena Builds Back Foundation will operate as a subsidiary of the long-standing Pasadena Community Foundation. The Pasadena charity, founded in 1953, decided to spin off the new foundation after receiving a deluge of post-fire support from donors earmarking gifts for Altadena’s long-term recovery.

“We need to do something very bold with those donations,” said Sarah Hilbert, spokesperson for the Pasadena foundation. “Of course, housing is going to be the most paramount issue that we need to all be tackling.”

Recognizing that $55 million will only go so far given more than 6,000 households lost their homes, leaders of Altadena Builds Back say they will have to be strategic in their spending.

The multi-pronged approach could include everything from taking properties off the speculative real estate market through land banking to helping residents build modular homes and accessory dwelling units, Hilbert said.

“Maybe we fund ADU’s and allow people to get back on their properties while they're rebuilding their primary residence,” Hilbert said.

There will also be, Hilbert said, a strong focus on helping renters return to Altadena and supporting the most vulnerable residents, such as formerly unhoused people.

Who's on board

Decisions will be made by a five-member board which was finalized late last week. Four are Altadenans — three of whom lost their homes while fire damage displaced a fourth member.

Each brings to the board their lived experience of being a resident, along with deep professional expertise.

One of them is Robin Hughes, a 15-year Altadena resident who is also a long-time affordable housing executive, currently serving as president and CEO of the Housing Partnership Network.

Robin Hughes, an Altadena resident and long-time affordable housing executive, serves on the new foundation.

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Pasadena Community Foundation

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Hughes has temporarily relocated to View Park as she plans out the rebuild of a home she can retire to, and hand down to her daughter.

“This is a profound moment where my professional life as a community builder in affordable housing and my personal life are intersecting,” Hughes said. “It's part of my own personal recovery to be part of the rebuild.”

Her hope is that the foundation can help preserve Altadena’s diversity and the generational wealth that families were able to grow over decades.

Also determined to return is her fellow board member Mark Mariscal, a long-time public administrator who retired from the city of L.A. with extensive experience in disaster preparedness and response.

Mariscal, part of leadership at the Altadena Library Foundation and the Altadena Rotary Club, said he hoped Altadenans will recognize that most board members are in the same boat as them.

He and his wife, who have lived in Altadena since 1989, are juggling the rebuild process while raising their two grandchildren in their Pasadena rental.

“[We] are in the exact same process as everyone else is when it comes to going to the disaster center, talking to all the different contractors or architects and the people that we need to put our own lives back in order while at the same time we're trying to help others,” Mariscal said.

Retired municipal administrator and Altadena resident Mark Mariscal brings decades of disaster planning to the board.

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Pasadena Community Foundation

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A third board member, Greta Johnson Mandell, a retired physician, also lost her Altadena home.

Two other board members will simultaneously sit on the board of the Pasadena Community Foundation which they had joined prior to the fire: Eric Gronroos, a public accountant from Altadena who’s been displaced by the fire, and Scott Christopher of La Cañada Flintridge, a retired JP Morgan executive.

The Pasadena foundation has also hired a program administrator for Altadena Builds Back. Candice Kim, a community organizer and nonprofit administrator, last worked with the environmental advocacy group Moving Forward Network at Occidental College.

Kim will work out of the offices of the Pasadena foundation, bringing the staff size to 10, said spokesperson Hilbert.

"We never in our wildest dreams thought we would raise the kind of funding that we did with our tiny staff,” Hilbert said.

The $55 million set aside for Altadena Builds Back comes from about $70 million the Pasadena foundation has received in the fire's aftermath and has been drawing down to make grants to local nonprofits.

"It's been this kind of Herculean effort to figure out how to do this in a way that's transparent and trustworthy and that really has the community's best interests at heart," Hilbert said.