They Were One Disaster from Losing It All. Now Disasters Keep Coming.

Alicia and Aurys are two home-based child care providers who lost their homes in the January wildfires in Los Angeles. Both immigrated to the United States with dreams of improving their lives. Both became passionate about serving their local communities by providing quality child care. In January, both evacuated their neighborhoods because of the wildfires that burned over a thousand acres of land within hours. The next day, both learned that their homes—and, by extension, their decades-old businesses—were gone.

Alicia had the financial means to temporarily rent another house. By early February, she was settling into her new home. Her husband was able to continue working, providing their family with a steady source of income.

Meanwhile, Aurys, her husband, and her children hopped between short-term rentals and friends’ couches for almost four months. Their savings were enough to cover their immediate needs, like food and new clothes. However, they could not afford to rent another home, especially with the immediate price gouging that ensued. Aurys had no source of income, and her husband was without pay for a month because his workplace was in an evacuation zone.

Aurys and her family waited two months for their insurance claim to be approved. Due to insurance stipulations, the housing support could only be used for an apartment. They navigated the housing market for weeks and finally found an affordable apartment in late April. Aurys was most happy for her children, who finally had a stable place to sleep.

“Hay veces digo que esto ya pasó, que estoy fuerte. Pero cuando empiezo a hablar otra vez,” said Aurys in tears. “Todavía me sigue afectando.” (In English: “There are times I say that [the fires have] passed, that I’m strong. But when I start to talk about it again… It still affects me.”)

It has been over two hundred days since the L.A. wildfires. I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, which, while not in an evacuation zone, experienced weeks of heavy smoke and a blanket of ash carried over from the fires. With the health of immunocompromised family members at risk, my family and I evacuated the city. (A study at the University of California, Berkeley found that approximately two of every five Angelinos reported their physical health or the physical health of a family member harmed by the wildfire smoke.)

Since the fires, families have been able to create a new normal. In cases like Alicia’s, this has been aided by a personal financial safety net. But her wealth isn’t a panacea, like the unimaginable wealth of some Angelinos able to retreat to a second or third home after evacuating. For most families working in Los Angeles, life has become a patching together of resources and small grants to get themselves and their family through each day.

“There’ve been different organizations that I have been able to get funding from, which I’m very grateful [for],” said one home-based child care provider who asked not to be named, whose home partially burned and became uninhabitable. Without a source of income, the provider relied on external organizations for financial assistance, basic resources like clothing, and wellness. She was able to secure funding for temporary housing from an outside organization while her home was cleared of debris.

The contrasting experiences of these providers show how personal wealth can safeguard providers during times of disaster. Wealth influences not just the circumstances of the family that lost their home, but the families who relied on the providers’ child care. Families and communities without such wealth may, like Aurys, be more at risk for prolonged instability. Factors like low household wealth and income—which are correlated with ethnicity and race—influence families’ vulnerability during disaster. Preexisting economic and racial gaps challenge assumptions about what it takes to survive. As in Aurys’ case, working hard and saving were not enough when disaster came.

While the child care providers I spoke with are based in L.A., the undervaluing of child care is a nationwide problem. Yet it is essential to communities, especially in times of disaster. As policymakers and stakeholders work towards recovery, I am writing to remind them: Don’t forget about child care. Don’t forget about the children and families who thrive with quality care.

“I witnessed child care providers act with urgency and care to ensure babies and toddlers impacted by the fires had a safe place while their families began the journey to recovery,” wrote Cristina Alvarado, executive director of the Child Care Alliance of Los Angeles. “Six months later, the child care providers who stepped up heroically during the devastating fires remain undervalued, and the sector as a whole remains in critical condition. It’s time to prioritize child care before the next disaster strikes.”

Community members and leaders must reimagine the ways we care for each other. In the case of the L.A. fires, community solidarity was critical. One child care provider shared how she and her co-owner—who lost her home and the base of their licensed child care facility in the fires—were supported in rebuilding their business. By March, they were able to reopen their child care business.

“People were reaching out to those they knew in L.A., asking who needs help,” she shared. “We were connected with a family in San Diego, and they organized all their friends for us and a school in Altadena. They sent us supplies. It was really sweet.”

Such community-based support does not have to solely in times of emergency. It can be the way we do things every day.

The lesson learned may seem trivial: solidarity matters, prioritizing each other’s well-being matters. This lesson is a matter of survival when disasters keep coming.

In the months since the fires, passing national headlines represent very real disasters for families. In L.A., it is not just climate disasters that families face, but manmade policy disasters. In April, federal agents attempted to enter two elementary schools with students as young as four years old, the first time agents have conducted such searches. California’s National Guard was federalized, and approximately four thousand National Guardsmen with seven hundred Marines were deployed to the city. L.A. has been sued over its status as a sanctuary city. The L.A. school district—the second largest in the country—is facing critical threats to its funding. In the latest show of physical federal force as of this writing, the city’s first woman and second Black mayor stood between Angelinos and agents on horseback and in tanks in an immigration sweep.

Community members and leaders should not normalize disasters, natural or manmade. Instead, we should normalize practices of support, especially for those without the financial means to support themselves. Lives were put in jeopardy during the fires and, months later, families’ well-being and dreams are still in danger.

What does normalizing support look like? It means reimagining paths to resources that foster security and success. Reinvesting in community services and public safety nets. Valuing and listening to the expertise of the local community so that these resources can reach those who want them.

“Our community was a mix of people from all walks of life. And we were a family. You knew your neighbors, their parents, their children, their pets. We were this close before,” says Alicia, who remains active in supporting her now-scattered neighbors and frequently hosts gatherings at her new home. “Now we’re holding onto each other for dear life.”

Today, I am thinking of families like Alicia’s who may have the financial means to personally help themselves after disaster strikes, yet are still waiting to return home. I am thinking of families like Aurys’s, who hold onto hope in unstable times for the sake of their children. I am thinking of families who are not connected to preexisting networks of support, and whose stories remain untold. I am thinking that, along with a plan for climate disaster preparedness, we need a plan for protecting families against manmade disasters. We need more ways to reach the American dream.