As Developers Swoop in Post LA Fires, One Nonprofit Offers an Alternative to Altadena Sellers
This article was originally published March 30, 2025 on laist.com.
Many who lost homes in the Eaton and Palisades fires have been asking themselves whether they should rebuild or if it’s time to pull up stakes.
For some, rebuilding may be too costly, too time-consuming, too heartbreaking.
But if they sell — to whom? No shortage of developers are swooping in to buy properties. In Altadena, that’s stirred up concerns over whether the community will retain its socioeconomic diversity or a Black homeownership rate that at 81% was nearly double the national average.
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Sell to a nonprofit
One nonprofit says sellers have other options.
This month, Greenline Housing Foundation in Pasadena made what’s believed to be the first Eaton Fire lot purchase by a community organization: a 6,800-plus sq. foot parcel on West Altadena Drive.
“We bought the property at $520,000, completely demolished and with a lot of debris on it,” said Greenline’s founder and president Jasmin Shupper.
Shupper said after seeing the listing, she had reached out to the seller’s agent, expressing interest in submitting an offer.
Shupper made her case to the agent: “Here's our mission. We're trying to keep land off the speculative market. We're trying to avoid mass purchases by developers who might not be community- minded.”
“And so we just started the conversation from there,” Shupper said. “And then he said, ‘Let me talk to my seller.’”
It was a smooth transaction that Shupper hopes to be a forerunner to future purchases in Greenline's bid to do more land banking for the social good.
Greenline’s start
Shupper founded Greenline five years ago to help remedy decades of racial housing discrimination by offering financial education and down payment grants.
“It would only follow that we would show up consistent with our same mission in the Eaton fire recovery," Shupper said. “Specifically, that means home ownership preservation and wealth restoration to the Black and Brown communities.”
Greenline wants to rebuild on the burned-out property and sell it at a below-market price to a first-time homebuyer. Shupper said its mission seemed to resonate with the seller who had already been thinking about selling their house before the fires.
In February, the property was listed at $425,000 — covered in rubble. Still, Greenline came in nearly $100,000 over asking.
“We wanted to come in a little bit higher, to be competitive, and also to ensure that it wasn't a lowball offer and that people were compensated fairly,” Shupper said.
A partnership
Greenline was able to make the purchase because of a half million dollar grant from the Pasadena Community Foundation.
“We all want to keep Altadena in friendly hands,” said Sarah Hilbert, a spokesperson for the Pasadena foundation and an Altadena resident. “I think that's a paramount goal for all of us who are connected to the community.”
There’s a sense of urgency to act. Dozens of parcels have already been sold since the Eaton Fire. And dozens more are on the market.
“Lots of those housing parcels are being sold for cash only, and we know that a lot of them are being sold to speculative developers,” Hilbert said. “When that happens, we know that erodes the ability of people who have roots in the community to have a say and a role in that recovery, in that rebuild.”
Hilbert noted that in recent years gentrification has sped up in Altadena.
“It's a desirable place because it is so creative and so diverse and [there's] the beautiful natural setting,” Hilbert said. “So we know that those are the forces that we're kind of racing against the clock.”
Hilbert says the Pasadena foundation recognizes what Greenline wants to do by "land banking" is an important way to keep Altadena in community control and continues to be in conversation with Shupper about future partnerships. In the meantime, the Pasadena foundation is helping fund another Greenline initiative to get Altadena homeowners into interim housing until they can start to rebuild.
All hands on deck
When time is of the essence, how can a nonprofit like Greenline bank more land while competing with all-cash buyers?
“You're kind of swimming against a flood, you know?” said Jon Christensen, who teaches and conducts research at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
Christensen says it will take multiple approaches – and more than philanthropy to protect Altadena from speculative developers.
“There are also investors who are not looking for the biggest profit [who say] 'I want investments to have some positive social impact,” Christensen said.
Christensen says these types of investors could help those who lost their homes stay in Altadena — by putting in, say, 20% of the capital needed to rebuild "with the expectation that [the investor] could get [their] capital out with some reasonable return that wouldn't be burdening the homeowner."
Next step: the build
Christensen says as outsiders come into Altadena to help, gaining the community’s trust will be key. That’s where a local organization like Greenline has an advantage.
And because of its work in the area, founder Jasmin Shupper knows of many potential buyers for its newly-acquired parcel.
“We already have a Rolodex of people that would be interested in purchasing this lot,” Shupper said. “Identifying people is not the problem.”
The more pressing issue at hand is what can Greenline afford to have built on the lot. That will depend on yet another round of funding the group is trying to raise.
