By Iris Craige, Assistant Director of Policy and Research

August 27

Building on spatial analysis from Compounding Disaster, the team behind our May 2025 report is pleased to share Confronting Disaster: Curbing Corporate Speculation in Post-Fire Altadena. This new report analyzes the displacement risks facing long-term Altadena residents–especially Black Altadenans–in the wake of the Eaton Fire, and makes concrete policy recommendations intended to mitigate predatory speculation and prevent the racialized displacement of Altadena residents.

January’s Eaton Fire struck in the wake of demographic changes and intensifying gentrification pressures in Altadena, historically home to one of the largest communities of Black homeowners in Los Angeles County. Following the fire, corporate acquisition of land accelerated in Altadena neighborhoods substantially. Of the 151 post-fire sales from February 11 to July 5, 2025, 74 (49%) parcels were purchased by corporate entities–compared to only 18 of 181 (10%) during the same period the previous year. Notably, post-fire property sales have been concentrated within already-vulnerable BIPOC communities.

The full report combines parcel-level spatial data, lessons from other post-disaster recovery efforts, and a policy platform that centers the economic and social wellbeing of residents most impacted by the Eaton Fire–not corporate investors. Policy recommendations include:

• State leaders should pass Assembly Bill 851 (McKinnor) to reinstate, and extend until 2027, the Governor’s expired Executive Order prohibiting below-market unsolicited offers to buy land in the burn area. The bill would also extend the prohibition to any unsolicited offer, regardless of price; giving homeowners the right to rescind any sale they were unscrupulously induced to enter up to four months after the close of escrow.
• The State and County should adopt and fund the Altadena Community Acquisition Fund, a community-backed proposal for a $200 million investment to resource trusted community groups to acquire and hold Altadena properties that are listed for sale.
• The State and County should also adopt a Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) policy, giving qualified community organizations, like community land trusts and land banks, an opportunity to buy properties before they hit the more-resourced private market.

These protections are necessary to keep predatory speculators at bay and give Altadena residents time and space to make the best decisions possible for their families and communities. Plus, these strategies would keep community members and organizations at the forefront of fire recovery—so that they, not Wall Street, shape Altadena’s future directly.

“It should come as no surprise that investors are targeting the areas with the highest investment return. If we want to support one of the few examples of neighborhood-wide Black homeownership in Los Angeles County, we will need strong policy intervention to ensure there is an alternative to this pattern of opportunistic, profit-centered purchasing,” said Cynthia Strathman, Executive Director of SAJE. 

As noted in the report, “if properties are not preserved and held in trust for the community now, it will be too late for any future community planning process to make a difference.”

This community-driven research was produced through a partnership – between SAJE, Inclusive Action for the City, morenastrategies, Public Interest Law Project, the UCLA Veterans Legal Clinic, and theworksLA – and includes an earlier spatial analysis that was released in May 2025 showing where displacement risk is concentrated in Altadena.

Read the full report here.