Affordable housing in northern California after wildfire last year still elusive for many families

Thursday, May 23, 2019

By Elizabeth Zach, RCAC staff writer

Public housing
Photo by by Larry D. Moore

By some estimates, more than 1,000 families are still homeless around Paradise in rural Butte County after losing their homes in the Camp Fire wildfires, contributing to a growing homelessness crisis.

“We’ve really lost our ability to produce housing that is affordable to our citizenry and this is the larger tragedy,” Ed Mayer, director of the Butte County Housing Authority, told National Public Radio.

Although county officials believe about 1,000 more housing units are urgently needed, others suggest that number is low. Some displaced residents are living off the grid or unofficially in campers or single wide trailers in someone’s yard.

To read more, go here: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721057281/more-than-1-000-families-still-searching-for-homes-6-months-after-the-camp-fire