More Than 1,000 Families Still Searching For Homes 6 Months After The Camp Fire
Six months after the deadly Camp Fire raced into Paradise, Calif., destroying thousands of homes and businesses, an estimated 1,000 or more families still haven't secured even temporary housing.
Even before the fire, there was already a severe housing shortage and a growing homelessness crisis in rural northern California. The November disaster peeled back the band aid, says Ed Mayer, director of the Butte County Housing Authority, exposing just how vulnerable rural communities can be.
"We've really lost our ability to produce housing that is affordable to our citizenry and this is the larger tragedy," Mayer says.
Paradise, once a town of 27,000 people in the pine-cloaked Sierra Nevada foothills 90 miles north of Sacramento, was a cheaper bedroom community to the nearby college town of Chico. The area was also an affordable beacon for people like Dominica Sprague who said she'd been priced out of the San Francisco Bay Area.
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721057281/more-than-1-000-families-still-searching-for-homes-6-months-after-the-camp-fire?utm_source=twitter.com