成人抖阴

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When the Almeda Fire hit southern Oregon on Labor Day weekend just over a year ago, Christy Brooks was on her way home from her daughters鈥� school after picking up books and a computer in preparation for the coming year. The air was smoky and smelled burnt, but Brooks doesn鈥檛 remember feeling overly concerned.

She stopped to buy drinks at a Chevron station. Five minutes later, when she came out and started driving to her mobile home at an RV park on the outskirts of the community of Talent, the sky had darkened and had an angry orange tinge. That was scary enough, 鈥渂ut when it started to rain ash, I knew something was wrong, something was really wrong鈥� said Brooks. She fled with her 6- and 12-year-old daughters, narrowly escaping the more than 4,000 homes across the region and scorched 1 million acres.

Brooks stayed at a friend’s house in nearby Junction City for a few weeks before returning to her trailer. It was still standing, so she wasn鈥檛 eligible for FEMA assistance, but it had been extensively damaged by smoke and heat, and the water that was used to fight the flames had caused mold to proliferate. Still, with nowhere else to go, she and her daughters stayed there until the Red Cross deemed it unlivable and put them up in a motel in Ashland, several miles away, for three months. Finally, the Phoenix-Talent School District provided them with an RV and a spot to park it at Emigrant Lake, just over 12 miles south of Ashland. It was in a different school district, and several other displaced families were also living there.

In the last three decades, climate change has聽聽the amount of area burned in the U.S, most of it in the West, and the fires to come are likely to be even聽. But not everyone will be equally affected. A recent study from the University of Washington found that聽聽are twice as vulnerable to wildfires as other, largely white communities.聽And children 鈥� who experience disrupted routines more acutely than adults 鈥� are hit the hardest. The sense of displacement, lack of a permanent home and constant, confusing reshuffling can lead to mental health issues and affect educational outcomes. 鈥淭heir concentration was shot after the fire,鈥� Brooks said, speaking of her daughters. 鈥淭hey need something stable 鈥� not wondering if they have to move somewhere else, or switch rooms. They need to feel safe.鈥�

Now, the city of Talent is working to provide that stability through a new initiative: providing long-term affordable housing in the local school district for those displaced by the fires.

Affordable housing was already lacking in the region before the fires, said Michelle Glass, director of Rogue Action Center, a southern Oregon housing justice nonprofit that works at the intersection of housing, climate and racial justice. So in 2019, the city began accepting proposals from developers to , a 4.5-acre mixed-use housing development with a focus on affordable housing.

Then the 2020 fires tore through the Rogue Valley, destroying an estimated 600 homes in Talent, including some of the last remaining affordable housing, many in low-income Latino neighborhoods. Between were displaced in Talent alone. The housing shortage had become a full-blown crisis.

More than 24,000 Oregonians applied for FEMA assistance after the fires, but  down. Now, a year later, hundreds of Oregonians are still living in hotel and motel rooms, far from their schools and workplaces.

The disruption was especially hard on school-aged children. 鈥淜ids are widely known to be the most vulnerable group post-disaster,鈥� said Betty Lai, a clinical psychologist at Boston College who studies how children respond to disasters. Children are more vulnerable to air pollution and physical trauma, as well as to the emotional impact of losing their homes and possessions. It also disrupts their education, especially when they end up housed in a different school district.

鈥�When you鈥檙e a child that is from a more vulnerable or marginalized group, you鈥檙e at higher risk of experiencing recovery stressors. So those are things like not being able to go back to school, missing more school days, having to move multiple times,鈥� said Lai. 鈥淎nd all of those pieces are risk factors for mental health distress and troubles with school.鈥�

Research consistently shows that children need to return to their own communities after traumatic events. This is especially true in places like Talent, where almost half of the children in the school-district are Hispanic and many children live below the poverty level. They rely on schools for more than just an education; they also need access to free meals, counseling and homelessness assistance.

鈥淲e know that kids are connected to their teacher and their peers and their activities in their school,鈥� said Brent Barry, superintendent of the Phoenix-Talent School District. 鈥淚t is so important to keep that continuity because that helps with academics, social, emotional and mental health.鈥�

After the fire, the Talent Urban Renewal Agency and the Phoenix-Talent School District switched gears and 鈥� with the help of donations from the state, private sponsors and nonprofit organizations 鈥� developed a plan to create transitional housing for fire survivors while permanent affordable housing is being built. Currently, 53 temporary housing units are available for local families who aren鈥檛 eligible for FEMA, with those who have school-aged children being prioritized. The families will start moving in this month. 

鈥淭his is the first time a city or state has taken an innovative project of creating transitional housing from a natural disaster,鈥� said Jon Legarza, executive director of the Talent Urban Renewal Agency, who is helping to build the project. Legarza has worked in post-disaster housing recovery for years. 鈥淣ormally, it鈥檚 just FEMA, and then everyone else is lost in the aftermath.鈥�

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a great project,鈥� said Erica Ledesma, though she doesn鈥檛 see it as a permanent solution and notes some frustration that the Latino community wasn鈥檛 included more in the process. The fire intensified the housing crisis in part because people didn鈥檛 own their land, she said; they simply rented, and so were also threatened with eviction. Plus, they lacked access to many of the state and federal grants for rebuilding designed for homeowners.

Ledesma, who worked closely with the Latino community after the fires, assessing their needs, was moved to co-found her own organization, . The organization aims to create more resident-owned communities or cooperative housing models to help  that exists. 鈥淢ost people want to buy their homes, but credit is such a barrier for people, especially when they’re seasonal workers,鈥� she said.

Brooks, who lives with a disability that currently makes it impossible for her to drive, is one of the 53 families selected to move to the Gateway project. She is relieved to find a stable place closer to the community services she and her children depend on. She鈥檒l be able to move onto a temporary spot in the Gateway project, and later on, she鈥檒l move into permanent affordable housing. 鈥淏eing in town would be the biggest blessing right now,鈥� she said. She鈥檚 excited to be inside the city and have grocery stores within walking distance, and be closer to the doctors and the school. 鈥淥ut here, we are so far away.鈥�

This originally appeared at  and is published here in partnership with the .

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