Paradise Lost: Long-Time Residents Priced out of Fire-Devastated Town

Five and a half years ago, the town of Paradise, California burned in a devastating wildfire that killed 85 people. Today, many former residents are finding it hard to go home, displaced by deeper-pocketed transplants, wrrites Sam Mauhay-Moore in SF Gate.

“For three years in a row, data from California’s Department of Finance marks Paradise as the fastest-growing town in California. The town grew by 16.1% in 2023 (for reference, Lathrop, the state’s second-fastest-growing town, grew by only 5.4%).” And while that growth only represents 1,500 people, the change is dramatic for the small community.

“[Real estate broker Warren Bullock] puts the median price of a home in Paradise at about $450,000, a stark difference from the state’s median home price of over $900,000. But those prices are still too high for many pre-fire residents to afford, and the cost of rebuilding what they lost is also often out of reach.”

Local ordinances prohibit living in tiny houses or motor homes on residential lots, eliminating affordable housing options. Meanwhile, home insurance rates skyrocketed after the fire, a problem common across the state.

For its part, Paradise is on the road to recovery, repaving roads, undergrounding power lines, and building a new sewer line. The Camp Fire Restoration Project is using permaculture  principles to restore the land in the area and make it more resilient through tree giveaways, composting workshops, soil health projects, and other efforts.