Camp Fire evacuees living in shelters face an uncertain future as Paradise and nearby areas start looking at the long, hard road ahead
CHICO >> Cindy Boyd and her family of three, evacuees from the deadly Camp Fire, are cramming into a one-bedroom apartment shared with three others in Rohnert Park.
Morgan Randall, along with his wife and 3-month-old baby, are sharing a room in a stranger’s home in Chico that they found through friends of friends. With Randall’s family, there are eight staying in the home.
Liz Edwards and her son, Barock Ponder, are staying inside Azad’s Martial Arts Center in Chico, which canceled classes after the fire to offer emergency shelter. But after Friday the center returns to teaching classes, and they will be looking for another place to stay.
Like the tens of thousands of others forced to flee their homes last week as the historic Camp Fire ripped through their communities, Edwards, Randall and Boyd all are wondering: What’s next?
The devastating wildfire — the most de-
structive in California’s history — has leveled at least 12,637 homes, along with 4,201 businesses and other buildings, and claimed the lives of 81 people. Another 870 are unaccounted for. As of Tuesday, it was 75 percent contained.
A state-led housing task force with representatives from local, national and private agencies is considering how to address the critical housing shortage, said Callie Lutz, a spokeswoman for Butte County. Until then, the Red Cross has promised to keep shelters open for those who can’t afford to rent hotel rooms or relocate out of the area, she said.
But with reports of norovirus, bedbugs and lice at the shelters, many are hesitant to go.
Edwards was staying in the Chico Walmart parking lot, where many had gathered after the fire, until she suffered a seizure and a volunteer directed her to Azad’s. Her health is bad, she said, and she doesn’t want to risk it getting worse.
“The stress,” she said, “is extremely hard to get through.”
Even though her Magalia home survived the blaze, it’s unclear when she will be able to live there. The fire contaminated the ground, there is a boil-water order in effect, and she doesn’t know if the power is up and running yet, she said. Not only that, but there are no stores
and no gas stations open.
“The whole area is toxic,” Edwards said. “And then what I am supposed to do? Drive 60 miles to get gas in a pickup?”
Every day, more people are being allowed to return to their homes. Teams of building inspectors are checking buildings that haven’t burned to ensure they are safe to inhabit. But people moving back shouldn’t expect to find their homes how they left them, she said.
With 90 percent of the homes destroyed, Paradise’s mayor, Jody Jones, has said it could be years until the town is rebuilt.
In the meantime, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is working with the state-led task force to determine how it can provide places for people to stay until Paradise can be rebuilt. That may include RVs or travel trailers or other types of manufactured housing units, said Brad Pierce, a FEMA spokesman.
Teams of FEMA site inspectors are visiting existing commercial locations, such as mobile home parks, in the surrounding area to determine if those sites could be used, he said.
“They were out there today,” Pierce said, “and what they’re doing is looking at these sites and assessing whether or not they are accessible, do they have utilities, could they be used to set up group sites in a safe and secure location?”
In the meantime, FEMA also is providing shortterm housing for people in hotels, he said. Homeowners and renters registered with FEMA and who qualify can get reimbursed for hotel bills they’ve already paid, and FEMA will pick up the tab for future hotel stays, he said.
“The eligibility requirements are not hard to achieve,” Pierce said. “All you have to be is a survivor of the fire who lost a home, and you can’t find a home elsewhere.”
Randy and Rayleen Cloyd, their adult son, two dogs and a cat, all are crammed into a hotel room in Corning, Randy Cloyd said. In a second room is their 17-yearold son, Rayleen’s mom, and three more dogs. There are two beds between the five of them.
The Cloyds’ three-bedroom Paradise home on an acre plot with a barn, fruit trees and a bee farm was destroyed in the fire. They’re hoping to rebuild. In the meantime, they put a bid in to buy a home in Oroville, Rayleen Cloyd said.
“We’re hoping we get it,” she said.
The area housing supply — like elsewhere in California — already was critically low before the fire, said Danielle Branham, a real estate agent for Century 21 Select who works in Butte County and the surrounding area. But it’s dropped dramatically since the fire broke out.
In Chico, there were 237 houses listed for sale the day the fire started, she said. On Tuesday, there were 79.
“A lot of the houses I’m showing already have an offer or two on them,” Branham said. “They’re going for more than asking price.”
The rental market is even tighter.
There was a 2 percent vacancy rate in Chico before the fire, she said, adding, “Now I don’t know of a single rental available.”
Tiffany Cleveland operates an inn-and-event venue through Airbnb, where she also lives, that has 23 beds. All of those beds are being used to host Camp Fire evacuees, she said. Cleveland is hoping more people will open their homes — even if it’s just one room for volunteers arriving to help with the recovery or for family members coming into town for funerals.
“Even if they just want to host people on short-term stays, it would free up space for evacuees elsewhere,” Cleveland said.
At least two local organizations also are trying to help. The North Valley Property Owners Association, a membership organization for landlords, and an ad hoc volunteer group called the Camp Fire Housing Resource Center, have both created centralized listing sites to connect homeowners with evacuees seeking housing.
About half of the 200 or so listings on the center’s site are local, said Ashley “Ash” Bocast, a Chico native who sprang into action in the wake of the fire. The homeowners association’s site also includes listings from as far away as New York. The unfortunate reality, said Jennifer Morris, the executive director of the homeowners’ association, is many may have to move out of state.
Still, she said, “We’ll try to absorb as many as we can.”