Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Volunteers Break Ground on New Home for Uninsured Eaton Fire Survivors

A Pasadena-based nonprofit begins building the first of 100 houses it plans to construct at no cost to displaced Altadena homeowners

Hope Crisis Response Network is set to break ground Wednesday morning at 2968 N. Fair Oaks Ave. on the first of 100 homes it plans to build over five years for Altadena homeowners who were uninsured or underinsured when the fire struck on January 7, 2025.

The Pasadena organization said it will construct the homes at no cost to the families, using volunteer labor and licensed trade subcontractors, according to the nonprofit.

The ceremony included a ribbon-cutting for new construction equipment funded by partner organizations. HCRN, as the group is known, is a licensed general contractor in California and will oversee all building and inspections, according to its website.

The groundbreaking marks a shift for HCRN’s Altadena operation. In its first phase of fire response, the nonprofit cleaned and repaired more than 100 smoke-damaged homes in Los Angeles County for residents who lacked insurance coverage,

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Man Charged in 2020 Fatal Stabbing of Altadena Resident Returns to Pasadena Court Wednesday

Enrique Real faces a murder count in the death of Christopher Flores, who was killed in a CVS parking lot more than five years ago

More than five years after a 30-year-old Altadena man was fatally stabbed in a Pasadena CVS parking lot, the murder case against the man accused of killing him remains in pretrial proceedings.

Enrique Real appeared Wednesday in Department F of the Pasadena Courthouse for a pretrial hearing in the case. Real, of Baldwin Park, faces one count of murder in the death of Christopher Flores, who was stabbed on the evening of September 11, 2020, in the parking lot of the CVS pharmacy at 20 E. Orange Grove Boulevard, at the intersection with Fair Oaks Avenue. Real was 19 at the time. He has been held in custody on $2.02 million bail since his arrest.

Police responded to multiple calls that evening reporting the attack. Officers found Flores on the ground bleeding and he was taken to Huntington Hospital,

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Two Mortgage Relief Bills by Pasadena Assemblymember Clear Committee Hurdle

Legislation would triple forbearance for Eaton and Palisades fire survivors and create statewide protections for future disasters

Two mortgage relief bills authored by Assemblymember John Harabedian advanced through the Assembly Banking and Finance Committee on Tuesday, extending a legislative campaign that began when the Eaton Fire swept through his district 15 months ago.

AB 1847 would extend mortgage forbearance from 12 months to 36 months for homeowners affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires and push the deadline to request relief to January 7, 2029. Its companion measure, AB 1842 — the California Emergency Mortgage Relief Act — would create a statewide framework allowing homeowners to pause mortgage payments whenever a state of emergency is declared, covering wildfires, floods, earthquakes and other disasters, according to a press release from Harabedian’s office.

Both bills build on AB 238, the Mortgage Forbearance Act, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed on September 22, 2025. That law requires mortgage servicers to offer up to 12 months of forbearance,

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Senator Pérez Hosts Altadena Fire Survivors in Sacramento In Move to Force a Vote on Insurance Reform

Three Senate bills targeting claim delays, low-ball estimates, and coverage denials for fire-safe homes face a committee vote today

Claire Thompson paid insurance premiums for nearly a decade. After the Eaton Fire damaged her home, her insurer told her the building needed to come down to the studs — then quietly changed its mind and slashed the estimate to an amount that made rebuilding impossible.

“The fire damage to my house did not change,” Thompson said. “But the loss estimate did, and it was reduced to an amount that made recovery impossible.”

She is among thousands of Altadena and Pasadena fire survivors now counting on Sacramento to change the rules.

Senator Sasha Renée Pérez, who represents both communities as part of the 25th Senate District, is leading a press conference today at the State Capitol to push three insurance reform bills through the Senate Insurance Committee — bills she authored in direct response to accounts like Thompson’s.

The three measures — SB 877,

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Pasadena Transit and Dial-A-Ride Go Fare-Free for Earth Day

All 11 city bus routes and the paratransit service covering Altadena are free to ride Wednesday as part of a region-wide free-transit initiative across Southern California

Every one of Pasadena’s 11 transit routes is free to ride Wednesday — and so is the Dial-A-Ride paratransit service that connects seniors and residents with disabilities across Altadena and San Marino to the rest of the city.

The no-cost rides come on Earth Day, April 22, as the City of Pasadena Department of Transportation observes one of its designated fare-free days throughout the year — a program in place since at least 2019.

The timing is also notable for what it reflects about the system’s direction: Pasadena is in the middle of a $150 million-plus transition to zero-emission transit, with a council-authorized order for 17 hydrogen fuel cell buses already in place.

On Wednesday, in the meantime, no fare, no TAP card, and no payment of any kind is required — riders simply board.

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

County Unveils Dual-Track Infrastructure Plan for Altadena, But Broader Blueprint Won’t Be Complete Until 2029

Los Angeles County planners told the Altadena Town Council on Tuesday that a long-range Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) covering Altadena and the broader West San Gabriel Valley will not be finalized until the first half of 2029, a timeline that drew pointed concern from residents still rebuilding from the January Eaton Fire.

A separate, faster-moving Conceptual Infrastructure Recovery Plan, focused specifically on the Eaton and Palisades burn scars, is expected to be completed this summer, Los Angeles County Department of Public Works Principal Engineer Alicia Ramos told the Council, though she acknowledged that funding mechanisms — including the newly established Altadena Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) — remain uncertain.

The dual-track effort was presented jointly by Ramos and Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning Senior Planner Clark Taylor. The presentation took place during the Council’s April 21 meeting at the Altadena Community Center, 730 E. Altadena Drive, and was listed on the agenda as a special presentation from “LA County Public Works and Regional Planning Departments –

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Guest Opinion | Calmatters’ Darrell Steinberg: CARE Court Should Refocus On Mentally ill Homeless People, the Hardest to Help

By Darrell Steinberg, CALMATTERS

After more than two years of implementing California’s CARE Court homeless intervention program, judges have approved fewer than 900 treatment plans, and only 32 have been definitively court-ordered.

There is a good explanation for why CARE Court has produced such low numbers. Early results show that the state’s most vulnerable population — homeless people who are mentally ill — are not CARE Court’s true priority.

That priority must change.

The intent of the visionary CARE Court law is to allow judges to order treatment plans for people who are homeless, suffering from serious mental illness and who are unable to accept services.

CARE Court emerged from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s sustained focus on getting more Californians off the streets. It followed years of budget and policy action by the administration and the Legislature, culminating in the passage of Proposition 1, which seeks to focus the massive dollars from my 2004 initiative,

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Four Pasadena-Area Scientist Deaths or Disappearances Among Those Under Federal Review, Officials Say

FBI, White House and House Oversight Committee are examining cases tied to JPL and Caltech

Three researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and a Caltech astrophysicist shot to death at his Antelope Valley home are among at least 10 U.S. scientists whose deaths or disappearances are now under coordinated federal review, officials announced this week.

The FBI, the White House and the House Oversight Committee have opened parallel inquiries into the cases, which date to 2023, to determine whether any of them are connected or represent a national security concern.

NASA said in a statement that nothing related to the agency indicates a national security threat.

The Pasadena-area cases involve three researchers who worked at JPL — Michael David Hicks, Frank Maiwald and Monica Reza — and Carl Grillmair, a Caltech astrophysicist. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

On April 17, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that the administration was working with federal agencies on a review of the cases.

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Altadena Campus Will Host Pasadena Unified’s State of Schools Event Tonight

Board President Tina Fredericks will deliver her first State of Schools address Wednesday at a fire-impacted Altadena campus as the district weighs possible closures and deep budget cuts

Board President Tina Fredericks will deliver Pasadena Unified’s State of Schools address in Altadena tonight.

The selection of Altadena as the setting reflects the extent to which the Eaton Fire has reshaped the District’s landscape. The January 2025 fire damaged or destroyed five public or charter school campuses in the District’s service area, and displaced families connected to more than 1,100 students in the District.

In the months that followed, enrollment declined further as families relocated, with approximately 500 students leaving the District following the fire. The losses compounded a longer-term trend: enrollment in Pasadena Unified, which serves Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre, has fallen to fewer than 14,000 students, a decline of about 23 percent over the past decade.

Because California’s school funding model is tied to average daily attendance, the decline in enrollment has translated directly into financial strain.

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

He Left Saigon as a Child. More Than Two Decades Later, the Show Follows Him to the San Gabriel Valley

Alex Xander Luu’s one-man show about a family’s escape from Vietnam comes to Sierra Madre Playhouse this month

On April 30, 1975, a young child left Saigon aboard an American military helicopter under enemy fire. He has spent the decades since making theater out of that day — and the years that followed.

Three Lives, Alex Xander Luu’s one-man show about the family he carried out of Vietnam, has been touring American stages for more than two decades. It arrives this month at Sierra Madre Playhouse — an intimate 99-seat venue that serves Pasadena and Altadena audiences and that survived the January 2025 Eaton Fire — for four performances beginning May 22. Luu, who is Chinese-Vietnamese American and a longtime teaching artist in San Gabriel Valley schools, traces the experiences of father, son, and grandson as they navigate the distance between the country they left and the one they found.

The show is the work of one man onstage — but it fills the space with generations.