Camp Fire Survivors Race to Find Housing Before Last Shelter Closes

For survivors of last fall's Camp Fire, which killed 86 people and destroyed nearly all of Paradise in Butte County, a deadline loomed this week. The last shelter — operated by the Red Cross at the Silver Dollar fairgrounds in nearby Chico — was slated to close on Thursday. So did it actually close? Yes and no.

North State Public Radio reporter Marc Albert told KQED on Friday that the vast majority of fire survivors who were staying there have moved to local homeless shelters or FEMA trailers, or have found housing options with friends or family. But not everyone.

"There are several people there, including people with medical problems, who are under the impression that they will not be asked to move," Albert said. "The operators of the fairgrounds are offering people with RVs the opportunity to lease a parking space for $40 a day, not including hookups. That works out to $1,200 a month, which is quite a bit of money."

Former Paradise resident Anna Goodnight, who lost everything in the Camp Fire, is one of the shelter residents who hopes she'll be allowed to stay due to a medical condition. But that's not to say she's happy about conditions at the shelter.

"All we're trying to do is live the best we can," Goodnight said. "And then they put us down and then you get more depression. We're all suffering PTSD. And it's gotten worse. Only if they would do their job right and talk to us like we're not s***."

Disaster relief officials have been racing to find temporary shelter or housing for dozens of people at the shelter, who now face homelessness.

Many of the folks who are left at the shelter were already living on the economic margins when the Camp Fire destroyed whole towns and rural mountain neighborhoods.

Nicholas Soto, one survivor of the fire, has been moving from shelter to shelter. Since early December, he and his wife have parked their RV along a fence crammed with other campers abutting a Chevron station.

"You get tired of being pushed from one place to another, told you can't be here, you can't be there, it's a little tiring," said Soto. "We fled the fire only to jump into hell."

Soto suffers from chronic lung disease and diabetes. At almost 70, with long salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail, he often has to use a wheelchair.

The Sotos also rescue dogs. With four dogs and two cats, they're crammed inside the camper. It weighs heavily on Soto.

"Mentally, it's hard on the mind, you know," he says.

If the shelter's closure were actually set in stone, local officials worry it would exacerbate an already severe homelessness crisis in Chico.

"They will all have a plan before they leave the shelter," assures Cindy Huge, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross. "Whether that be a permanent house, temporary housing, they will all have a recovery plan. We just don't put them out and say we're closing the shelter — Red Cross doesn't do that."

Earlier this week, Butte County received a million-dollar grant that will go to help those who remain here find new housing — likely out of state. There was already a housing shortage in this rural area before 14,000 homes burned overnight. Even before the Camp Fire, vacancy rates fell between 1 and 2 percent most of the time.

Aside from the aid Red Cross is giving to victims, FEMA has processed about 26,000 applications for California fire victims since last November, the bulk coming from Butte County and the Camp Fire, including Soto. FEMA extended its deadline to apply for aid to Feb. 15.

With the aid he'd get from FEMA, Soto hopes to leave the shelter and drive up to Oregon.

"There's worse things that could have happened to us," said Soto. "We got our lives and we got our fur babies."

This story includes reporting from NPR's Hafsa Quraishi, North State Public Radio's Marc Albert, and KQED's Lily Jamali.

Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.