Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Many Altadena Renters Were Long-Term Residents Before Eaton Fire, UCLA Policy Brief Finds

Altadena tenants, many of them immigrant workers, at a press conference in March, 2025, decried the alleged miserable conditions at the Eaton Fire-damaged apartment complex where they lived. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]

Tenant households included seniors and families with children; researchers say those residents face heightened displacement risk

Before the January 2025 Eaton Fire upended the local housing landscape, more than one-fifth of Altadena households were renters, and nearly 70% of those tenants had lived in the community since 2010, according to a new policy brief released Wednesday by UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute.

The tenant-focused findings — presented as part of LPPI’s broader “Rebuilding Altadena: Housing Recovery After the Eaton Fire” research series — paint a picture of a renter population with deep community roots but far fewer economic protections than homeowners heading into the disaster. Researchers warn that those conditions now place displaced tenants at heightened risk of permanent displacement from the community.

Tenant heads of household in Altadena were more likely to be people of color than homeowner heads of household before the fire, the brief said. More than half of tenant heads of household — 56% — were people of color, compared to 48% of homeowner heads of household. Latino heads of household were nearly twice as likely to be tenants as homeowners in Altadena, representing 28% of all tenant heads of household but only 17% of homeowner heads of household, according to the policy brief.

About 22% of Altadena tenant households were headed by seniors age 65 and older, and about a quarter of tenant householders lived with their own children, the brief said. Those demographics matter, the researchers argue, because renters’ ability to return after the fire depends less on their own decisions than on the speed and choices of property owners, insurers and permitting systems — factors tenants do not control.

The median household income for tenant households was about $73,000 before the fire, less than half the $150,000 median for homeowner households, according to the brief. Tenants were more than four times as likely to live below the federal poverty line — 13% compared with 3% for homeowners.

More than half of Altadena’s tenants were cost-burdened in 2023, defined as paying at least 30% of their income toward housing costs. Latino tenants were among the most financially strained, with more than 60% reporting a rent burden, the executive summary said. The researchers argue that those pre-existing cost burdens left many tenants with little room to absorb rent increases, temporary housing costs or income disruptions — and that even short periods of displacement can stretch tenant household budgets to a breaking point.

A rental market tied to community institutions

LPPI’s brief describes Altadena’s pre-fire rental stock as largely old and small-scale, with many family-sized units and long-term tenants. The housing was closely tied to the fabric of the community because of proximity to schools, churches and local services, according to the report.

The researchers frame those characteristics as central to the stakes of recovery: when stable, lower-cost rentals disappear or remain out of service for long periods, displacement can disrupt not only housing access but the continuity of the schools, churches and services that tenants relied on nearby.

Los Angeles County rent stabilization had imposed a 4% annual cap on rent increases, allowing many families to remain in Altadena even as housing costs rose across the region, the brief said. Before the fire, Altadena had at least 792 recorded rent-stabilized units, representing more than one-third of its identified rental market, with two-thirds of those units located within the fire perimeter.

Rebuilding stalled across rental market

One year after the fire, about 74% of identified rental units within the fire perimeter remained on properties with no public record of rebuilding permits, property sales or active market listings, the policy brief found. Only 18% of rental units were on properties that had filed rebuilding permits, compared with 23% of severely damaged single-family homeowner properties seven months after the fire.

Seven in 10 recorded rental units — more than 1,500 — were located within the Eaton Fire perimeter, the brief said. Of those, 927 units were on properties where buildings sustained severe structural damage, defined as 50% or more of the building destroyed.

The brief emphasizes that disaster recovery systems in the United States are structured primarily around property ownership, leaving tenants with fewer mechanisms to navigate recovery and less influence over whether and when housing is restored.

How the findings were assembled

The policy brief is the second installment in LPPI’s “Rebuilding Altadena” series. The analysis draws on U.S. Census data, rental listings, fire-damage assessments, construction permits and property sales to characterize pre-fire rental conditions and post-fire change, according to the executive summary.

The brief was authored by Gabriella Carmona, Vinit Mukhija, Sofia Barajas, Mariah Bonilla, Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Xalma Palomino and Ana Lua Martel.

LPPI’s project page for the research series lists an earlier, homeowner-focused data brief published Oct. 8, 2025.

Katie Clark, a member of LPPI’s Altadena Research Advisory Board and organizer and co-founder of the Altadena Tenants Union, said in a statement released with the brief that many displaced Altadena tenants have been scattered across the Los Angeles region.

“Without properties to rebuild or control over landlord decisions, we tenants have largely remained invisible in this recovery,” Clark said in the statement. “This data underscores not just the severity of that crisis but also the irreplaceable role that Altadena renters and tenants have always played in the fabric of our community.”

The researchers call for policy action including funding interim housing stability programs, improving access to land and capital for public and nonprofit entities to acquire fire-impacted properties, streamlining approvals for small-scale multifamily housing, and building countywide rental data infrastructure.

The full policy brief is available at latino.ucla.edu.