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Contact: lppipress@luskin.ucla.edu
UCLA Study Finds Altadena’s Recovery Extends Far Beyond Rebuilding More Than 18 Months After the Eaton Fire
Analysis of 1,253 GoFundMe campaigns shows housing, financial, and mental health challenges often compound, while tenants and homeowners face different paths to stability.
LOS ANGELES (August 25, 2026)—More than eighteen months after the Eaton Fire, a new policy brief from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute shows that many Altadena households have faced overlapping housing, financial, and mental health challenges in their recovery. Researchers reviewed 1,253 verified public GoFundMe campaigns, created as of June 2026, and found that these hardships tend to compound. The brief also finds that the current disaster response system, generally administered through separate programs with different eligibility requirements, documentation standards, allowable expenses, and timelines, can create barriers for household recovery.
The campaigns are not representative of every household affected by the Eaton Fire, but they provide insight into the needs and experiences of a large group of severely affected households whose circumstances were described publicly. Campaigns were identified by community-led directories built to support displaced Black, Latino, and Filipino families. More than 85% were tied to properties that were destroyed or sustained damage to more than half of their main structure. Seventy-one percent of the campaigns were for homeowners, while 29% were for tenants.
The analysis combines campaign-level data with narratives describing the circumstances households faced while displaced, including efforts to secure stable housing, replace necessities, manage mental health concerns, and sustain caregiving arrangements.
Key findings of the research include:
- Households sought a median of $30,000 in direct assistance through GoFundMe. The median homeowner campaigns sought $35,000, compared with $20,000 for the tenant campaigns. As of June 2026, nearly nine in 10 campaigns had fallen short of their stated goals.
- Nearly three in four campaigns (74%) described households losing their home entirely, evacuating with almost nothing, or both.
- More than half of campaigns (57%) described at least one concern related to housing stability or meeting basic needs, such as unstable or uncertain housing after the fire, or needing help with essentials like food, clothing, or supplies. Concerns about long-term housing instability were more common among tenants: 35% of tenant campaigns described concerns about securing stable housing over the long term, compared with 25% of homeowner campaigns.
- Campaigns for households that lost their homes and were immediately displaced also frequently described emotional distress, ongoing housing instability, and a need for help with essentials like food, clothing, or supplies.
“We studied GoFundMe campaigns because they’re one of the few places fire survivors and their loved ones describe, in their own words, what households actually need to begin recovering,” said Gabriella Carmona, lead author of the brief and senior research analyst at LPPI. “Looking at more than a thousand of these campaigns together shows how often housing instability, financial strain, and mental health concerns compound in the same household. Understanding those patterns can help us build a recovery system and emergency-preparedness plans that better respond to the full range of needs households face.”
The policy brief recommends that Los Angeles County and California:
- Institutionalize rapid, flexible household disaster assistance and a framework for activating that aid, within the County’s existing fire recovery fund and emergency-grant infrastructure.
- Establish equity-centered County standards for wildfire preparedness and evacuation readiness, with clear performance metrics and accountability mechanisms.
- Build a permanent, state-supported household recovery continuum with distinct pathways for disaster-affected tenants and homeowners.
- Establish a flexible, multiyear state disaster behavioral health recovery grant program that addresses access to barriers such as childcare, eldercare, disability services, and transportation.
“Disaster assistance is often spread across programs with different rules, timelines, and points of entry,” said Paulina Torres, policy analyst at LPPI. “County and state systems should connect flexible financial assistance with sustained case management while providing distinct pathways for tenants and homeowners. A more coordinated approach would allow households to address changing needs without navigating separate processes across multiple programs.”
Read the full policy brief here.
This policy brief is the third in a series of analyses examining wildfire recovery in Altadena. Previous reports examined property sales, permitting, and rebuilding among Altadena homeowners, as well as the fire’s impact on tenants, rental affordability, and the recovery of damaged rental housing.
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About UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute
The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute is a non-partisan research institute that seeks to inform, engage, and empower Latinos through innovative research and policy analysis. LPPI aims to promote equitable and inclusive policies that address the needs of the Latino community and advance social justice. latino.ucla.edu.
