Construction Labor Shortage Complicates Rebuilding in Paradise After Camp Fire

Wearing a bright orange Ridge Construction T-shirt and work boots, Jon Hornback stood in the middle of a construction site in Paradise — just a foundation and wood framing.

“Where we stand right now is in the middle of a kitchen slash dining room, living room area of a residence of a local person who lives here in town, a businessman," Hornback said.

The home was destroyed by the Camp Fire, which broke out a year ago and became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, killing 85.

It almost completely leveled the town of Paradise, which now faces a variety of roadblocks to recovery, from polluted drinking water to damaged septic systems. There’s also a shortage of construction workers to rebuild businesses and homes like this one.

It’s a challenge Hornback is facing as he tries to rebuild this and one other home in Paradise. Hornback says two projects are all his company, Ridge Construction, can handle, because so many laborers and tradespeople were displaced due to the fire. Some 23% of construction workers in Butte County lived in Paradise and neighboring Magalia, which was partially destroyed by the fire, according to the Chico Builders Association.

“And so, you know, they've not come back,” Hornback said. “And so consequently, those people that we would have had maybe some pool to pull from — your manpower, laborers, skilled tradespeople — are not here.”

It’s difficult to quantify how many construction laborers work in Butte County, said Kate Leyden, executive director of the Chico Builders Association. But she does know, anecdotally, that there was a labor shortage before the fire, when there were around only 1,000 new homes built in the whole county each year. Nearly 14,000 homes burned in the Camp Fire.

“So we're pretty sure we don't have the right number of workers,” Leyden said.

To help connect contractors with workers, the Chico Builders Association is helping to build a database of tradespeople and their skills.

“And then when a general contractor is looking for a plumber, ideally he or she will be able to look up the plumbers in this directory and give him a call and see if they're available to help,” Leyden said.

Some workers from Sacramento and the Bay Area have offered to come to Paradise, but Hornback said they were asking for around $80 per hour — much higher than the $50 hourly rate that’s standard in Paradise.

“That makes it kind of tough because you're paying somebody an awful lot more than you normally would to do the same job, or you just struggle along with the help that you have,” Hornback said.

He has opted not to hire workers from out of town, because his clients and other Paradise residents can’t afford the extra cost. Before the fires, homes had a median value of about $260,000, according to the online real estate company Zillow. That’s a far cry from the median home value in the Bay Area — almost $1 million.

Normally, Hornback would have a crew of six people per house. But, for right now, it’s mostly him and his son-in-law, Michael Richardson, bouncing between their two projects and occasionally bringing in some extra help.

Bill Sharrett, the homeowner, is anxious about the construction setbacks and the possibility that the project could be delayed even more if it’s not watertight by the winter.

“It’s very frustrating,” Sharrett said. “We currently live in Oroville. We have our mother- and father-in-law that live with us. They have a bed in the living room. We have a two-story house. They can't go upstairs. So it's a tough condition to be in. And the sooner we get up here, the better.”

But Richardson was optimistic, despite the challenges of having only a two-person crew.

“It's frustrating, but it always works out,” Richardson said. “The Buzzards, the first house that we started, they want to move in by Christmas. We're two guys,” said Richardson, pausing to laugh, “but we're gonna try our hardest to make it happen.”