How the Eaton Fire motivated Altadena renters to organize for change

While some Altadena residents are returning to professionally cleaned homes free of toxic ash, others remain locked in tense disputes with their landlords over rent increases, smoke remediation and terminated leases.

The aftermath of the Eaton Fire is now prompting some tenants to join forces and make collective demands of landlords and lawmakers.

One example is the nascent Altadena Tenants Union, a group that has become a magnet for renters facing displacement and uncertainty. Katie Clark, one of the group’s lead organizers whose apartment burned down, said a main goal is “to put tenants in Altadena on the radar for L.A. County.”

Other members said their motivation for getting involved came from confusing experiences around ash clean-up, rent increases and lease terminations in the weeks after they were displaced by the Eaton Fire.

“So much of the communication effort so far has been really focused on homeowners,” Clark said. “Certainly we can understand the difficult plight homeowners are in. But renters are members of the community too.”

Altadena's burgeoning tenant rights movement

Unlike the cities of Los Angeles or nearby Pasadena — which saw a local tenants union successfully push for a city rent control ordinance in the 2022 midterm election — Altadena has not been known as a hotbed for political organizing among renters.

But that quickly changed after the Eaton Fire left Clark's apartment and many others covered in ash or destroyed. She has been a renter in the community for more than 15 years.

Until recently, Clark said, there wasn’t much pushing her to fight for tenant rights. She used to have an “incredible landlord” and was living comfortably in a one-bedroom apartment with her husband and dog.

“To be able to stay in a rent-controlled unit in such a fantastic location, part of Altadena, which we both love, was really a huge gift,” Clark said.

But even if she had faced issues with her landlord, Clark would not have been able to show up at a local city council meeting to push for change. That's because Altadena is not a city and has no city council. Its status as an unincorporated area of L.A. County means the community is represented by Kathryn Barger, one of five supervisors for a county of nearly 10 million people.

“There was no immediate forum for presenting concerns that tenants had,” Clark said. “There was nothing significantly galvanizing that would get everybody to organize themselves. Until this fire.”

Group focuses on clean-up, evictions and permanent housing

Although Clark’s apartment was destroyed, other units in her complex survived. She said tenants are still waiting on plans to remove potentially toxic ash on the property.

Clark said it quickly became clear to her that fire recovery was going to be a confusing process for tenants — and she felt they would get the best results by organizing collectively. She said dozens of renters have contacted the Altadena Tenants Union to share their stories and get involved in organizing efforts.

The group has sent a letter to Barger and other L.A. County officials demanding post-fire habitability standards that would require landlords to cover ash removal, something officials in Pasadena have not done.

In the letter, the group also demanded a local eviction moratorium (an idea the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to pursue) and a freeze on rent increases (an idea that has not been approved).

Another issue the group is focused on is finding new permanent housing for the displaced Atladena tenants who were recently transferred from a Red Cross shelter at the Pasadena Convention Center to a new shelter in a public park 10 miles away in Duarte.

“What is the plan for housing people?” Clark said. “Are we just going to throw up our hands and say, ‘Well, I guess now you're part of L.A.'s growing homeless population?’ That seems like an absolute abdication.”

They faced fires, then rent hikes and lease terminations

Barger has not responded to the group’s demands or agreed to meet with them, Clark said. Barger's office did not respond to LAist's request for comment.

Robin Whitney and Brian Norton said they’ve lived in their Altadena apartment since 2019. Their building survived the fire, but other homes on their block burned down. They evacuated and have not yet been able to return.

The couple’s landlord, Greatfull LLC, emailed them about 10 days after the Eaton Fire broke out with an invoice saying they had not fully paid their January rent. The couple was told their rent had increased by about 6%. They said they had not received a legally required 30-day rent increase notice. In a December email about an unrelated issue, their landlord had told them, “we did not serve you a rent increase.”

Whitney said the timing of the rent hike spurred tenants in the building to organize.

“We were all emotionally affected by the fire and just really shocked that instead of getting any sort of sympathy or instruction about what to expect from the remediation, we were just kind of having to navigate the legal protections,” she said. “The system wasn't really working.”

Later, the couple was sent a new notice saying their rent increase would take effect March 1.

After the tenants pushed for detailed plans about efforts to clean their units, the landlord responded by saying the units were uninhabitable, insurance company representatives had estimated cleanup would take four to six months, and their leases were now terminated.

Norton said tenants plan to continue fighting to return to their units.

“There are laws in place to protect us, but they're only as good as their enforcement,” he said. “Frankly, there's just not enough pressure on landlords to comply.”

Without doors to knock, organizing goes digital

LAist reached out to Greatfull LLC for comment on the rent increases, remediation plans and lease terminations. We received an email in response, but a representative for the company told us in a phone call the landlord did not send the email and she would have no response for the story.

Many renters in Pasadena are facing issues similar to those playing out in Altadena. Their landlords have either refused to carry out smoke remediation or have provided scant details on when cleaning will happen.

Ash that could contain lead and asbestos, according to Pasadena health officials, does not violate local building codes according to the city’s housing officials. Meanwhile, some landlords are feeling pressured by tenants to complete repairs in timeframes they say are unrealistic.

Clark, one of the lead organizers behind the Altadena Tenants Union, said outreach isn’t as easy as it would have been before the fires. Renters have either lost their homes or remain evacuated. With few affordable rentals available nearby, some have relocated out of state.

“Normally in tenant organizing, the standard thing that everybody starts with is to go knock on the doors of your neighbors,” Clark said. “Trying to get people together in person is virtually impossible. So right now, it's kind of a daisy chain. It's group texts, it's phone calls, it's Zoom calls.”

She said their main goal right now is to get L.A. County officials to clarify tenant rights and landlord responsibilities in the fire recovery process.

“We know that there's no way individual tenants are going to be able to get help if we don't do it all together,” Clark said.