Updated 01.12 | Published 00.52
unsaveSave
Tens of thousands of Los Angeles families were branded with fate long before the firestorm came to town.
Last spring they were dumped by their insurance company.
Shockingly high prices forced others to live without insurance.
– I have no tears left, says Maria Sanchez to the LA Times.
Here, fire tornadoes sweep across the mountains
0:49
The fire disaster in Los Angeles has wiped out entire neighborhoods. So far, approximately 160 square kilometers have burned. It is almost as large an area as the entire municipality of Stockholm.
Left in the ruins are tens of thousands of people who have literally lost everything.
As recently as this spring, insurer State Farm General canceled 30,000 home insurance policies in the region, many due to fire risks in California, the LA Times reports.
1,600 of them just in fire-stricken Pacific Palisades.
Or the premiums were shockingly raised, another way of terminating customers.
Not just the super rich
It is not only super-rich Los Angeles residents who have had their homes destroyed, but the majority of those affected are working and middle class people who lived in Eaton and Pacific Palisades long before housing prices skyrocketed.
One of them is personal assistant Francis Bischetti, 55. For Bischetti, Farmer Insurance raised the annual premium from SEK 50,000 to SEK 200,000 from one year to another, writes the LA Times.
A sum he could not possibly afford.
He decided to “be naked”. He figured if he kept the plot moist year round he would be safe.
It wasn’t enough. His house was completely destroyed.
– It was surreal. I grew up and lived here for 50 years. I have never in my entire life experienced this, he says to the LA Times.
expand-left
fullscreenHere is a house left at the top of the hill in Pacific Palisades. Photo: Noah Berger/AP
expand-left
full screen Several families were left without insurance when the fires struck. Photo: Ethan Swope/AP
Canceled the insurance
School coordinator Maria Sanchez lived in multicultural Altadena in Eaton with her family, ten cats, chickens, roosters and two rottweilers.
The day after the fire, she talks with her head down.
– We canceled the insurance yesterday.
She managed to save the animals, but the house is gone.
– I have no tears left. I cried all night. My heart is broken. Our life savings, all gone. We don’t know where to start. I need everything, she says.
Most major insurance companies have stopped selling insurance in the area, and if you already have insurance, they are trying to find ways to cancel the contract.
45-year-old elementary school teacher Matt Knight lives in Altadena with his wife and three children. They lost their insurance with Safeco Insurance because “a tree hung over his garage”.
Got rejected
He fixed it, but they made new claims.
In the end, he had carried out measures for almost SEK 350,000 on the house, but was still rejected.
Thankfully, he managed to get a new policy with the company Aegis this summer, just days before his policy expired.
The result after the fire may be that ordinary people can no longer afford to live in the beautiful natural area just a stone’s throw from downtown Los Angeles.
Many residents are disappointed by the heavy focus on all the superstars in the fire, when most of those affected are ordinary Americans who have lost everything.
– It’s hard to believe that you have nothing at all. Everything they ever fought for was in that house, said 22-year-old Samanta Santoro, whose parents’ house in Altadena burned down.
expand-left
full screenKenneth Snowden (left) inspects his now burned down home. Photo: Jae C. Hong/AP
The poor are forced away
The concern now is that the whole area will be gentrified and become a new upper class area after the fire.
Many find it difficult to pay for the construction of their houses, and may have to sell the plots for below market value.
– Someone will buy it and develop who knows what on it. And it will change the character of Altadena. Those with less resources will be disproportionately disadvantaged, says Altadena city council chairwoman Victoria Knapp to WTV.
57-year-old Kenneth Snowden’s family was one of the black families who had the opportunity to buy a house in Altadena in 1962.
It’s gone now.
– Give us the opportunity to rebuild, to restart our lives. If you can spend billions of dollars on war, then you can spend billions of dollars on helping us get back to where we were, Snowden tells WTVY.