What LA’s Fires Mean for the City’s Housing Shortage
Los Angeles leaders have pledged to quickly rebuild, but housing advocates are warning that the recovery process risks deepening the region’s ongoing affordability crisis.
Altadena homeowners Brian McMahon (left) and Emily Philips (right) survey what’s left of their house on Jan. 13, 2025.
Photographer: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images
Even as firefighters still struggle to contain the historic wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles over the past week, questions are swirling about how the city can address a now even-more-dire housing shortage — and how the fires will intersect with the region’s ongoing affordability challenges.
More than 12,000 structures — most of them single-family homes — have been destroyed or heavily damaged since the wildfires erupted on Jan. 7.