When the flames destroyed Ria Cousineau's Altadena house and damaged the home of her partner, Emily Allen, a horrific situation gave way to what felt like an impossible task. In an effort to find a semipermanent home while they rebuild, Cousineau estimated the couple toured about 10 houses over four or five days, with one house seeing at least 30 families stroll through in just 10 minutes.
Although Cousineau said some prospective tenants offered more, they were first and accepted. The fires that tore through Altadena and Pacific Palisades have created a mad rush for a place to live, as thousands of newly homeless families enter what already was a housing market in crisis.
Los Angeles has dealt with mass destruction before. In , the Northridge earthquake destroyed or seriously damaged tens of thousands of housing units. Tallies are ongoing in the Palisades and Eaton fires, but the latest estimate is that the conflagrations seriously damaged or destroyed more than 11, single-family homes and more than multifamily properties. It's unknown how many units were in those multifamily structures, but it's not likely to be enough that the fires destroyed as many units as the earthquake.
But in , the San Fernando Valley and the city of L. Read more: Signs of rent gouging rise across region in fires' wake, bringing calls for enforcement. And experts said low vacancy rates mean fire refugees will have to fan out farther in their search for housing, driving up rents in a wider area.
Michael Lens, an urban planning professor at UCLA, said the situation could be described as one similar to musical chairs: A wave of the displaced will take the available homes near the fires, driving up rents there and forcing others to search in different neighborhoods, where the process starts anew. On Saturday, the dynamic could be seen at an open house in Palms โ a mile drive from hard-hit Pacific Palisades. Simon Beardmore, the listing agent for the three-bedroom single-family rental house, said he received more than inquires in the days before the showing.
