Thanks for inviting me to speak on Black History Month. It seems appropriate since I will be sharing with you the history of Pasadena and Altadena from a racial justice perspective and how understanding this history could help us to ensure that people of color can return to Altadena and restore their community after the devastating Eaton Canyon wildfires.
Altadena is a town of around 42,000 people, in the foothills
of the San Gabriel mountains in an unincorporated part of LA County. It has a
town council but is governed by the LA Board of Supervisors. Pasadena is a city
of around 133,000 people located just south of Altadena. Altadenans like to
think of themselves as independent of Pasadena, but both communities are deeply
interconnected. Many residents of Altadena shop, work and attend church in
Pasadena, and vice versa. When disaster struck Altadena, Pasadena reached out
and provided help and shelter to those displaced. So it makes sense to explore
the history of both municipalities in tandem to understand how to move forward
after the disastrous wildfire.
I’d like to begin by discussing Northwest Pasadena, the historically
African American part of Pasadena. This is where my wife and I live. Jill moved
into Northwest Pasadena in the 1990s as a kind of urban missionary. She lived
at the Harambee Center, which was founded by the African American leader John
Perkins, who became her mentor. Over the years Jill became an ally of the Black
community and has worked closely with Black churches.
By the time that Jill moved into Northwest Pasadena in the
1990s, it was in decline. Gang violence was on the rise. The population was 80%
Black, but the neighborhood was changing. Many middle-class Blacks were moving out, and drugs
and gangs had become a serious problem. Nonetheless, because properties were
cheap compared to the rest of Pasadena, Latinos and Whites were moving in.
Until the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, Northwest
Pasadena was the only place where Blacks could live in Pasadena, which was an
incredibly racist city. One NW Pasadena resident
told us, “You couldn’t eat in the restaurants; I mean [even] little hash joints
. . . didn’t want to serve Blacks.” Another resident remembered segregated
seating in movie theaters: “The Pasadena Theater at DeLacey and Colorado, the
Fair Oaks theater, you could go, but they segregated where your seating
was.” Others recall separate doors for blacks and being prevented from trying
on clothes in stores. This was made illegal until the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
but aspects of discrimination continued. Jackie Robinson was raised in Pasadena
and today he is honored with a statue next to Cty Hall, and a park named after
him, but once he left this city, he refused
to go back because of its racism.
NW Pasadena was red-lined and
was the only place Blacks could live without fear of being barred from
businesses or owning a home. For this reason, since the 1930s, N. Fair Oaks
Avenue, the Black Main Street of Pasadena, has been the heart of the African
American community that at one time comprised 20% of the population of
Pasadena. Today only 8% of Pasadenans are Black.
Older African Americans smile
as they as recall the thriving Black business district on N. Fair Oaks from
Colorado Boulevard to the border with Altadena. They created for themselves a
tightknit community, where everyone knew their neighbor, and when you’d walk
into Bill’s Chicken and the waiter would know what you’d order. If your kids
got out of line, other parents knew they could help. Fair Oaks was the place to
be: there where businesses, employment, and a sense of camaraderie that formed bonds
and fond memories to this day.
In the
1930s and 1940s, Northwest Pasadena was a thriving Black community, with
beautiful homes and flourishing businesses, despite racial segregation. A UCLA
study notes:
Before World War II, northwest Pasadena was seen as a place of possibility for Black residents. Amid an otherwise hostile suburban Los Angeles, these parts of Pasadena were some of the few neighborhoods of color outside of Los Angeles’ core. Northwest Pasadena was a thriving Black neighborhood and commercial district. It boasted “some of the city’s highest concentration of classic Victorian and craftsman style architecture, [which were] within walking distance of local stores, the downtown business district and the city’s Civic Center,” according to one resident…By 1960, northwest Pasadena was significantly more diverse than Los Angeles — 80% of residents there were people of color, compared to just 19% residents of color in the county and 20% in the City of Pasadena overall. [1]
Each year the Black History parade marches down N. Fair Oaks Ave, celebrating the past and current achievements of Pasadena’s African American community. These include such notables as:
·
Mack Robinson and Jackie
Robinson, famed athletes.
·
Octavia Butler
(1947-2006), science fiction writer.
·
Loretta
Thompson-Glickman (1945-2001), first Black mayor of Pasadena,
·
Dr.
Edna L. Griffin (1905-1992), Pasadena’s first African American woman physician
and civil rights activist
·
And
many more that have been depicted on Mural Project that we at MHCH
commissioned.
Much of the Black legacy of this street has been destroyed because of “urban renewal,” freeway construction and other factors that I will discuss. Remnants of these “glory days” can be seen mostly on N. Fair Oaks between Washington and Woodbury: ten Black churches, a Victorian home called the Dekker house (now affordable homeownership), the Boys & Girls Club, Berry and Sweeny Pharmacy. and the Woods-Valentine Mortuary. My wife Jill and I have worked with community to revitalize this once thriving business district with a vision to “beautify but not gentrify,” the motto of the N. Fair Oaks Empowerment Initiative.
Causes of the Decline of NW Pasadena
What
was once a vibrant community, years of displacement and divestment
dramatically changed due local decisions to implement harmful Federal policies
and national trends that devastated places like NW Pasadena displacing
thousands of residents.[2]
What caused the decline of Northwest Pasadena’s African American
community?
1) 1930s: Redlining
2) 1949: Housing Act
3) 1962: Urban Renewal and The Pepper Project, using eminent domain.
4) 1968: Unintended consequences of the Civil Rights
Act
5) 1970s: Construction of the 710 and 210 Freeways
6) 1980—2000s: Unintended consequences of the Civil
Rights Act,
crack cocaine, predatory banking, soaring housing costs, gentrification
Urban Renewal and The Pepper Project
“Urban renewal,” by many dubbed “Negro Removal,” forced many Black
residents to pack up and sell their homes. But not only Black, but also
Japanese and Latino businesses and families were displaced and some businesses
and churches also had to be relocated, like Scott United Methodist Church. And
for too many, residents were forced to leave Pasadena for good. Today many
urban planners are recognizing their profession’s contributions to systemic
racism, segregation and inequity making pledges to right historic wrongs.[3]
Many
decent homes in the N. Fair Oaks area were declared “blighted” so that federal
funding could be accessed. These funds were used along with eminent domain to replace
perfectly good Black-owned homes with public housing and businesses that would
bring in a stronger tax base. For example, the Parsons Corporation was able to
build its offices on what once was Black-owned business district.
In the southwest corner of Washington and N. Fair Oaks, Deacon
Westmorland recalled a “Coop Village” consisting of Black homeowners who were
supporting Black businesses. But this changed in the 1960s when the Pasadena City
Council decided to tear down the Coop Village and replace it with housing for
low-income residents. Brian Biery describes how neighbors fought in vain to
stop this project:
The first ‘urban renewal’
effort in Pasadena was originally called the ‘Pepper Street Redevelopment
Project’ and is now known as Kings Villages. In order to build support for the
project, the City of Pasadena designated the area as being blighted…it wasn’t.
Alma Stokes, one of the Black professionals who was hired to assist families
with their relocation efforts, remembers the neighborhood as a thriving
community. It was filled with homeowners, local businesses, shops, a pharmacy,
a library, a park, and numerous other neighborhood resources. “The area really
wasn’t blighted,” remembers Ms. Stokes. “It wasn’t. It was just Black removal.”
From the date the Pepper
Street project was proposed in 1958 there was considerable resistance to the
idea on the part of residents. As a result, community members led by Emmett
Mickel of First AME Church Pasadena, organized and fought the ‘Pepper Project’
for ten years. Their efforts were ultimately blocked by the City, and the
housing complex was constructed in 1968. Part of the original intent of the
Pasadena Redevelopment Agency was to reduce the number of Black families in
that part of Pasadena. Interestingly, however, there were no white buyers
for the $18,500 townhomes. The units sat empty for months which caused the PRA
and the City to subsequently reclassify them as low-income housing.
As with similar ‘urban
renewal’ projects across the country, the Pepper Project did not fulfill the
promise of urban redevelopment, which was to improve the quality of housing,
rebuild infrastructure and rid cities of urban decay. The resulting impacts were
instead to close local businesses along Fair Oaks Ave., displace residents, and
turn homeowners into renters; which ultimately contributed to a significant
decrease in family wealth in communities of color.
In addition, it destroyed
the connective tissue of the neighborhood: homes with front porches and lawns
where families could connect and kids could play. And, in this particular case,
it transformed a healthy neighborhood into one ridden with crime…..
By the time ground was broken for the project in 1968, 299 families had been displaced, 91% of them families of color. After a year of serving as a ‘relocation specialist’ for the PRV, Alma Stokes resigned from her job and returned to teaching at Washington School. It was an extremely taxing and frustrating task to find housing for families who had lost their homes. “I left that job because I couldn’t stand working there anymore watching Black removal,” said Ms. Stokes of her experience recently.[4]
King’s
Village consists of 314 units. These were poorly maintained by the city and
became known for gangs and crime. Even the police were reluctant to go into
this project. King’s Village was renovated by Pastor Jean Burch who made sure
that no residents were displaced during renovation and managed the project well.
It was recently sold it to the Rose Affordable Housing Preservation Fund. Many
Black residents still grieve the loss of the prior neighborhood, wanting to see
more Black homeownership in Pasadena since that helps to create generational
wealth and stability.
Construction of the 210 and 710
Freeways
The 1956 Highway Act, which released federal funding for highways across the US, has sliced through African American neighborhoods and thriving Black business districts across the US, and that was also true of NW Pasadena with the 210 freeway.
The construction of the 210 Freeway and the 710 “stub” had devastating effects on Pasadena’s African American, Latino and Japanese community:
In the 1950s and ‘60s,
planners and other local officials built upon decades of disinvestment,
redlining, and urban renewal projects to push a new route of the Foothill
Freeway/Interstate 210 through the northwest neighborhoods of Pasadena,
resulting in the displacement of nearly 3,000 predominantly Black residents. An
alternate route — running largely through uninhabited parkland along the
eastern edge of the Arroyo Seco valley by the Rose Bowl stadium parking lot —
was rejected.
Even two decades after construction,
the freeway depressed home values in the adjacent neighborhoods relative to
changes in home values across the city.
Thousands of homes and businesses were
demolished to clear the path for the Foothill Freeway. Property owners were
reimbursed according to “fair market values”; however, property values were
considerably depressed due to historical redlining. And displaced residents of
color struggled to find housing in the rest of Pasadena due to continued
segregation.
Already lower, home
values adjacent to the freeway grew less than home values across the city for
years. Over the next two decades after construction, the number of housing
units dropped not just from demolition for the freeway, but also in adjacent
areas, due to its negative secondary effects.
White communities like South Pasadena rigorously and
successfully opposed the 710 extension, but the Black residents of Pasadena
lacked their political clout and thousands lost their homes:
On November 18, 1964, the California Highway Commission
determined the routing for the final five miles of the SR 7 freeway – now known
as the SR 710 – through the communities of El Sereno, South Pasadena, and
Pasadena to complete the adoption of the Long Beach Freeway.
While the freeway never materialized in El Sereno and South
Pasadena, the SR 710 northern interchange was constructed in the City of
Pasadena in the early 1970s, resulting in the Northern Stub. The construction
of this stub displaced thousands of residents [mostly people of color] and
divided a residential community from an active central business district.[5]
This “Northern Stub” has been relinquished to
Pasadena by Caltrans and residents are calling for reparations to compensate
the residents who lost their homes. Efforts are under way to rectify the
injustice caused by freeway constructions, with residents calling for
reparation including a right to return and just compensation to the African
American community.[6]
Banks,
Unintended consequences of the Civil Rights Act,
Crack
Cocaine, Predatory Banking, Soaring Housing Costs, Gentrification
The 1949 Act provided funding only for new
construction, but not for multi-family or rehabbing older units. It also did
nothing to prevent redlining. The red pin drawn around NW Pasadena deprived
families of the opportunity to obtain bank loans to improve their ailing
housing stock. This Act also did nothing to prevent segregated neighborhoods.
Racially restrictive covenants were still allowed. To compound matters, FHA
loans would not provide mortgage insurance to Blacks; therefore, banks would
not provide them loans.
There was financing under the 1949 Housing Act
that enabled people with 10% down to purchase homes, but only for new
construction, not to improve older housing stock. And mortgage insurance was
not offered to people of color, again, barring Blacks from loans.
The 1956 Federal Highway Act gave federally
funded access to people of means to leave urban cores and build new homes in
the suburbs—if the family was white, had transport and the required 10% down
for the FHA loan. Therefore, white suburbs like La Cañada sprung up across the US.
With so many roadblocks to homeownership,
Blacks began their own bank in 1968. A Black trash collector who did very well
by feeding edible trash to the pigs on his farm in Monrovia started Family
Thrift, so loans could be offered to Blacks. This later became One
United, with a branch on the southwest corner of Lake and Washington Ave. This
has since consolidated with their LA branch on Crenshaw in Los Angeles and
banks in Boston. One United has expanded and today is the largest Black-owned
bank in the US.
Thanks
to Martin Luther King, the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, which allowed
Blacks to live outside of Northwest Pasadena. Many of those with means moved to
other parts of the city or to places like Altadena. Such good national policy
had some unintended consequences. The ability to move undermined the mixed
income community needed to keep the strong fabric of society needed to
flourish.
As
NW Pasadena began to unravel, the community was left with ailing housing stock
and lack of access to good jobs. Some turned to drugs to make ends meet. During
the 1980’s in the Reagan years many turned to crack cocaine. This led
to the proliferation of gangs, causing even more residents to want to leave and
escape from the violence.
“The community really
began to change in the late seventies and early eighties,” said Pastor Stewart.
“There was the influx of drugs and crack cocaine. A lot of the children of
homeowners sold the homes. It became a cycle and you saw displacement. Then the
rents started rising, and people left. If there was someone with a vision and a
desire to see it what it once was, it would be a thriving neighborhood.” [7]
This
opened way for gentrification in the Northwest, where homes were affordable. Once
Whites started buying up some of this older housing stock, and fixed up their
homes, others followed. Housing prices started to rise, making homes
unaffordable to most people of color. When Jill realized that she was part of
the gentrification process by moving into this neighborhood, she became concerned
about how to address this problems through affordable housing, which helps
counter the effects of gentrification.
To
make matters worse, the 2008 mortgage meltdown had its epicenter in Pasadena
with the One-West Bank, where it is estimated that 68 percent of the bank's
foreclosures occurred in minority communities. The racial wealth gap was
already sizable prior to the Great Recession and increased during and after.
During the Recession, Black and Latino households lost 48 and 44 percent
of their wealth, respectively, while white households lost 26 percent.
With African Americans losing even more of their homes to foreclosure, it left more homes available for gentrification to take hold. As home prices began to soar again some Blacks cashed out, moving east to Fontana or inland to Lancaster and Victorville. Others ended up on the streets. Today 31 percent of Pasadena’s homeless population is African American, while they make up only 8% of the population. This extreme displacement, disinvestment and long history of exclusion has caused generational trauma and the loss of over 50% of the city Black population since 1990. Black churches have become commuter churches. One African American church has eight members left.
Tax increment financing and up-zoning led to the redevelopment of Old Pasadena, leaving behind the once thriving business district on N Fair Oaks. Rather than up-zone N. Fair Oaks at densities attractive to businesses and developers, the City Council cut the zoning capacity in half for fear of more nursing homes moving in. Nursing homes moved in when businesses could no longer sustain themselves. The city could’ve simply changed the zoning to disallow more nursing homes but instead imposed low density that has kept the area being redeveloped.
Thankfully, no more nursing homes are allowed in this area, but Pasadena is still recommending the same density in its proposed N Fair Oaks Specific Plan. This means essentially that there will be no significant change for the next 20 years. Our nonprofit Making Housing and Community Happen has been at work since 2015 to revive this once thriving community and ensure a bright future.
Do any
of you have any questions so far before I discuss how we are trying to
revitalize this neighborhood adjacent to Altadena?
PART II: Work of Making Housing &
Community Happen and The North Fair Oaks Empowerment Initiative
2015 Survey of business owners,
residences, and church goers
.
To
seek to address the deep wounds and history of injustices on N. Fair Oaks Ave community
Making Housing and Community Happen (MHCH) has stepped in. In 2015, the Interdenominational
Ministerial Alliance (IMA), the oldest association of Black pastors in the
greater Pasadena area, voted to allow my wife Jill tp plan the resource/employment
fair that year, with and by the community—an empowerment model. The
goal of that year’s resource fair was, as in the past, to provide resources,
but also much more. To find the leaders to plan the fair, those treasures in
the community, she formed a team to craft a survey as part of a listening
campaign. To help prevent further displacement and reweave a once thriving
community, Jill began this campaign in 2015, resulting in 150 surveys within a
five-block area on N. Fair Oaks. Simple questions were asked like, how long
have you been in the area? What are your dreams and concerns for the community?
Do you want to help bring about change? Most of the 10 churches in this five-block
stretch hosted orientations and participated in conducting surveys in their
community inviting businesses and residents to have one-on-on discussions to
answer the questions.. The results were telling.
An
event took place at Bethel Church July 11, 2015, to unveil the results of the
survey. The pastors were mostly concerned about employment and good jobs. Others
were concerned with economic development, wanting coffee and ice cream shops,
and thriving businesses. But the overwhelming result of the survey was related
to the street itself: not feeling safe due to the traffic, cars speeding by,
the lack of lighting, the need for more shade, less street noise and good
sidewalks.
Some
felt it was a waste of time to imagine an improved community because they felt
the city would never listen or agree to make any changes. We realized we need
to resurrect hope.
Empowerment
Model and NW Jobfest and Follow-up Activities
To resurrect hope, we needed folks to
see the many assets that the community still had and the people who cared. The
planning team, which consisted of 20 plus people, decided to close Tremont
Street and set up booths representing all the local businesses, churches,
resources, and employment opportunities, and to highlight the skills, assets
and gifts within the community.
To foster good jobs, the Workforce
Employment Board bought in a full-sized mobile unit where people were given
help to write resumes and apply for jobs in the spot. Upon leaving the unit, local
barbers provided free haircuts. Job applicants also received free dress shirts
(thanks to Councilmember Tyron Hampton). Pastors welcomed folks and gave a word
about their dreams for the community from the stage. Elected officials such
Judy Chu, our Congressional representative, and former mayor Terry Tornek
showed up and spoke. This community that had been neglected felt important and
"seen."
Partnership Complete Streets
Coalition, and meetings with the city and Restorative Justice
Because of the NW Jobfest, people of the street knew of the Empowerment team. Hope for change began to emerge. Because the overwhelming responses from the survey were all related to the street, the team needed to learn from experts about how to address concerns they had. So the N. Fair Oaks Empowerment team partnered with the Complete Streets Coalition. They planned an event at the Boys & Girls Club where teams formed to walk onto various parts of the street to observe and visually imagined what they felt and would like to feel and see. The Coalition boiled the list of observations and ideas down into a list of specific items that the Empowerment team began to address by meeting with the Department of Transportation, the Transportation Advisory Commission, the NW Commission, and the City Council.
Today, several of these
requests have been completed, including more trees and sidewalk repairs, and
strengthening the crosswalk at Montana. In 2017, the Pasadena City Council
unanimously voted to put a $268,000 traffic signal to help slow traffic and
bring safety by New Hope Church and Pasa Alta (since they had disabled
residents and programing on both sides of the street). Seeing this signal in
place resurrected more hope for change. Some items are approved but still
waiting funding for funding (such as Complete Streets). Some are not yet
approved by the city.
Since
then, the N. Fair Oaks Empowerment Initiative has continued its work of
listening to and organizing the community. We have also called attention to the
need for restorative justice.
On April 24, 2018, over 60
people took part in MHCH’s prayer vigil for restorative justice, affordable
housing, and racial justice at the New Hope Baptist Church. Many religious and
community leaders took part, including State Senator Portantino, Pasadena City Council
member John Kennedy and many others. They read scripture, prayed, and shared
personal stories. Jill Shook composed a powerful liturgy of confession of past
and present racial injustices and a commitment to righting them. It was
inspiring to see black and white folks coming together to support congregations
that want to have affordable housing built on their property but could not do
so because of restrictive zoning laws.[8]
MHCH
conducted a campaign to allow the proper zoning for congregations to provide
affordable housing. In 2022, Pasadena voted
to allow affordable housing only on congregational land that was zoned as
commercial. We were disappointed that the City didn’t allow affordable housing
on all church properties throughout the city so we helped start a statewide
campaign that lasted 3 years and engaged over 300 organizations. Finally, in
October 2023, the state passed SB 4,
which rezones all congregational land statewide for affordable housing by
right. This was a huge win.
the 2021 North Fair Oaks Community Survey to 1,000
households and its results.
To
further support our request to the city, we did a second survey, showing the
same results as the one in 2015. In
2021, the N. Fair Oaks Empowerment Initiative worked with the city to conduct a
survey sent to 1,000 households in the neighborhood. An architect was hired to
show what a complete streets design might look like to include in the survey,
and the team worked as a team to craft our questions. The results of this survey showed that
the people of this community are seeking safety and economic renewal through
beautifying the street. They to the traffic to be slow down, with the use of a complete
street redesign, with a center turn lane and traffic traveling in one lane each
way, with green pedestrian-friendly walkability, small pocket parks at
intersections offering more green shade, with trees, perennial flowers,
benches, bike racks, speed monitors and more.
The need to slow traffic is more
urgent than ever. As of November 2023, in the past six months, according to the
police, 68 accidents have taken place. This does not count all the prior years
of deaths and near deaths that have taken place. Several people’s cars have
been totaled and many are afraid to walk in the area.
The Vision Plan
and The Arroyo Group
In
2022, Phil Burns, principal of The Arroyo Group and a resident of N. Fair Oaks,
offered to produce a professional Vision Plan with input from residents to be
presented to the city as it considers updating the N. Fair Oaks Specific Plan, which shape the future of N. Fair Oaks for the
next 20 years.
For
the past three years we have worked diligently with the community to revise and
promote this plan. Among other things the Vision Plan calls for:
·
First, prioritize safety. N. Fair Oaks is the most dangerous
street in the city. We are calling for a complete streets redesign with one
lane each way and a center turn lane, medians, bulb outs, pockets parks,
·
Second, affordable
housing.
We need zoning that allows for affordable and inclusionary housing.
·
Third, recognize the historical significance of N. Fair Oaks. We need design
features that identify this as a legacy district with historic and cultural
resources creatively identified and named to bring back human interest in a
unified theme.
·
Finally, encourage locally owned businesses. We recommend
establishing a forgivable interest-free small business investor fund to attract
locally owned businesses.
We
are currently mobilizing support for this Vision Plan. We have gathered over
150 signatures as well as letters of support of numerous organizations in the
City, including the Boys and Girls Club, Pasadena Heritage, and the Northwest
Commission. We made this one of the top priorities of our nonprofit. We have
met with and have the support of our City Councilmember Tyron Hampton.
Then
the wildfires struck, and we’ve had to shift some of our attention to Altadena.
Many members of the black churches we work with live in Altadena. 54 members of
the First AME church of Pasadena lost their homes. Over 30 members of the churches
in N. Fair Oaks lost their homes. We know personally many of those who have
been affected by the fires. Our Council member Tyron Hampton told us that 15
members of his family lost homes.
Before
I discuss Altadena, do you have any questions?
PART III
The
history of Pasadena contains many lessons for what needs to happen to ensure
that people of color aren’t displaced from Altadena during the reconstruction
process. As I said earlier, both cities are deeply interconnected.
Allen
Edson, who was president of the NAACP in Pasadena, remembers growing up in
Northwest Pasadena in the 1950s. He was told that his parents told him not go
into Altadena because it was a “sundown” town where Blacks were not welcome.
Today Altadena has
one of California’s most affluent middle-class Black neighborhoods, with 80% being
homeowners, twice the national rate.
In 1960, Altadena was 95% white and 4% Black.
Partly because of the 1968 Fair Housing
Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in housing, and because
the community had relatively inexpensive housing by Southern California
standards, African Americans began moving into the town in the 1970s in
significant numbers. Many of these Black residents moved from Pasadena.
Altadena adapted
to the changing demographics while maintaining its unique character. As late as
1970, the town was 68% percent white. By 1980, the percentage of Blacks in the
population peaked at 43%. Since then, it declined to 31%, and by 2020, it was 18%.
The white population in 2020 was 46%, and Asian Americans and Latinos, almost
all of whom have arrived since the 1990s, comprised most of the remainder of
the community.
Altadena’s Black
population included a number of middle-class African American professionals
such as doctors, engineers, attorneys, pharmacists, and teachers. It also
included many working-class people, such as railroad and factory workers, who,
as first-time home buyers, acquired properties in the area.
Altadena’s most
prominent African American residents have included actor Sidney Poitier,
science fiction novelist Octavia E. Butler,
and former Black Panther Party leader Leroy Eldridge
Cleaver, the author of Soul on Ice. Rodney King
also grew up in Altadena. With one of California’s most affluent Black
populations, half of its African American households earn more than $100,000 a
year. Some have called Altadena the “Black Beverly Hills.”
According
to a recent UCLA study, Altadena's African American community was
disproportionately impacted by the wildfires. Approximately 8,000 Altadena
residents (out of 42,719) are Black and its homeownership rate (80%) is twice the
national average. 61% of Black households in Altadena were located within the
fire perimeter, compared with 50% of non-Black households. Nearly half (48%) of
the homes of Black households were destroyed or sustained major damage,
compared with 37% experienced by non-Black households. Many of these homes were
in the family for generations, their mortgages were paid off, and some did not
have insurance. Among Black
homeowners in Altadena, 45% are cost-burdened (spending over 30% of
their household income on housing costs), and 28% are severely
cost-burdened (spending more than 50% of their household income on housing). In
comparison, only 32% of non-Black homeowners are cost-burdened, and 13% are
severely cost-burdened. For this
reason, some Black homeowners could not afford insurance.
Predatory
developers are seeking to buy up homes on the cheap, despite Governor Newsom's
executive order in January 2025 that temporarily banned unsolicited offers to
buy homes in areas impacted by wildfires.
Jill was
called by a developer who wanted to buy our home for cash, and she responded,
"Don't you know that what you are doing is illegal?" He hung up.
The Governor's order was intended to protect victims from predatory real estate
speculators like this. Homeowners need time to consider options other than
selling their homes. As Altadena activists make clear, "Altadena is not
for sale!"
Kathryn Barger has said she wants to protect Blacks from being priced out of Altadena. She believes that the biggest threat is from developers building luxury condos, but that doesn’t make sense. Condos are generally less expensive than single family homes, especially in places like Pasadena. She is also opposed to increased density, in other words, multi-family housing, even though 38 multi-family apartment buildings burned down. If these apartments aren’t rebuilt, how will tenants move back? And if they are rebuilt, the rents will likely be much higher. if affordable housing isn’t encouraged, how will tenants afford to move back? She and the Board of Supervisors are recommending policies that would discourage affordable housing and make it harder for low-income people of color to return to Altadena.
That’s why we are urging the governor to reject the recommendations that the LA County Board of Supervisors made on January 23, despite much public protest, which will deprive Altadenans of their right to SB 9 and other bills that foster affordability. .
The Board of Supervisors voted to suspend, for
five years, many excellent hard-won state housing policies especially needed
now with the opportunity to build back better to both retain the Altadena population
and keep the character of Altadena.
An especially significant housing right
being taken away, not just for five years but indefinitely, is SB 9, which
could be the best friend of those who’ve lost their homes, may not have
insurance, is cash poor, but land rich.
SB 9 allows property owners to split their lot, sell the other half, providing
needed income to build a duplex or home with an ADU if they wish, enabling them
to stay in the community with rental income. SB 9 requires homeowners to live
in one of the units for three years, preventing investors from taking advantage
of the bill.
We feel strongly that
this right and other state housing policies that encourage affordability like
ADUs should not be suspended. We don’t believe it was the
intention of the Board of Supervisors to harm or displace low-income homeowners
or people of color, but this could be an unintended consequence of what feels
like hasty recommendations.
We also support Habitat
for Humanity that is committed to building much needed affordable homes in
Altadena, and we strongly support the Greenline Housing Foundation which
provides down-payment assistance to help people of color to purchase home. They
have raised millions of dollars for this purpose and have established a special
fund called “Restore, Rebuild and Remain” to help people of color stay in
Altadena. I’ll put the link in the chat. https://greenlinehousing.org/
The current administration
may make it difficult for organizations like the Greenline Housing Foundation
to provide people of color with the help they need, claiming it is discriminatory.
But anyone who knows the history of Pasadena and Altadena understands that the
long shadow of racial discrimination continues to affect people’s lives. We
need to keep advocating for diversity, equity and inclusion in housing and well
as in other aspects of life in our nation. We need to build back Altadena not
the way it was, but the way it should be. We should build back better.
[2]
https://www.cityofpasadena.net/about-pasadena/history-of-pasadena/#1950-1970
[3]
https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/2023-05-five-ways-urban-planners-addressing-inequity
[4] Brian Biery, “Kings Villages: A Case of Urban
Renewal in Pasadena.”
https://www.coloradoboulevard.net/kings-villages-a-case-of-urban-renewal-in-pasadena/
[5]
https://www.cityofpasadena.net/transportation/transportation-improvements/710-northern-stub/
[6]
https://www.coloradoboulevard.net/time-to-consider-reparations-for-pasadena-families-displaced-by-the-210-freeway/
[7] Brandon Lamar produced a video with Pastor John Stewart and Deacon Westmorland, long-time residents and community leaders, being interviewed by Dr. Gilbert Walton and Tina Williams.
[8] Check out this video: https://youtu.be/7gZCXA4Mq_M
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