Closing the Gaps Between Systems in Altadena
Eighteen months after the Eaton Fire in California, Ascend Fellow Shimica Gaskins is showing what it takes to align fractured systems — emergency response, housing, and the safety net — so that children and families don't just rebuild, but remain part of a thriving community.
By Adam Flango
Before the evening of January 7, 2025, Altadena was a vibrant community where generations of family members lived near each other. Its unincorporated status gave it a fiercely independent spirit. Locals tended a community garden and shared the bounty among area families, while residents with horses offered riding lessons to children. Black leadership was prevalent among small business, with many longtime owners mentoring the generations to come.
Then came the Eaton Fire.
Over the course of 24 days, the blaze burned more than 14,000 acres and destroyed more than 10,000 homes and buildings. Nineteen people died, thousands of residents were evacuated, and the community was shaken to its core.
“The displacement of whole families is really hard to bear. The grief is still very real.” says Shimica Gaskins, an Altadena resident. “But the fires didn’t take away our capacity to love one another and to have that love be the foundation for both our healing and the fight for accountability.”
Today, 17 months after the fires, Gaskins is part of a dedicated group of leaders and grassroots organizers who are fighting to restore the heart of a beloved community. As the President and CEO of End Child Poverty CA, she is focused on ensuring that the voices of children and families are heard as the community begins to slowly rebuild.
Says Gaskins, “The question isn’t just, Can families rebuild their homes? But can they remain a part of the community that they loved?”
Gaskins's work at both the local and state levels is a case study in what families need most after disaster: not a patchwork of disconnected agencies, but supports that move together. Where the fire exposed systems failing in isolation — a delayed evacuation order, a single fire truck for a whole side of town, a recovery effort scattered across county, state, and federal offices — Gaskins is building the relationships that force those systems into alignment around children and families.
"The fires didn’t take away our capacity to love one another."
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Leaning Into Local
End Child Poverty CA has always centered its anti-poverty solutions in place-based approaches. But until the fires, it hadn’t focused at the hyper-local level. The breadth of the fires – coupled with the organization being headquartered in neighboring Pasadena – forced Gaskins and her organization to adapt their approach in favor of a place-based approach.
“We’ve been trying to work to elevate the residents’ experiences, to advocate for transparency around the emergency response and recovery decisions, and then push for policies that protect the long-term community stability,” says Gaskins.
As Gaskins explains, there is a real sense of urgency from the local community. Since the fires, only 36 – or .06% of the significantly damaged or destroyed properties — have been rebuilt. Corporate entities account for more than half – 59 percent – of post-fire property purchases.
“We are fighting against displacement and protecting renters, homeowners, and ensuring that children and families are at the center of the rebuilding efforts.”
Strength in Relationships
To advocate for families, Gaskins has leaned into the core of End Child Poverty CA's work: coalition building — the work of connecting people, and the systems they navigate, around a shared aim.
"I think the strongest coalitions are the ones that are built around relationships and shared values, and then the policy follows," says Gaskins.
Alongside other Altadena residents, she helped organize Altadena for Accountability, one of several grassroots organizations that have sprung up since the fire. The Black-led group centers disproportionately impacted Black and Brown Altadenans, demanding accountability for "any possible negligence, civil rights violations, or unlawful conduct during the Eaton Fire."
The need is rooted in a long history of systems treating some neighborhoods as afterthoughts. "West Altadena, which is a historically Black part of Altadena, was known for being redlined in the '50s and '60s…They only had one fire truck in that whole part of town," Gaskins explains. One truck for one side of town is what misaligned systems look like at ground level — and what families pay for when the structures meant to protect them don't account for all of them. "This work is really about ensuring that we have independent analysis of what went wrong, so that we can have real solutions for the future, and real investments to make sure that it doesn't happen again."
That accountability is beginning to take hold. In February, after more than a year of advocacy from Altadena for Accountability, California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened a civil rights investigation to review “whether the systems and structures at play contributed to a delay in the county’s evacuation notice.” The state's own framing makes the point: the failure wasn't one agency, but systems and structures that didn't move together. Gaskins's coalitions are the counterforce — relationships built to make those systems answer to families as a whole.
Forward Momentum
While the fires have influenced its work, End Child Poverty CA is still focused primarily on policy change at the state level. Throughout California, Gaskins is buoyed by a shifting narrative in the state. The upcoming gubernatorial election has stirred new conversations about holding corporations and wealthy individuals accountable rather than laying the burden of economic justice on families.
“One of the challenges in the anti-poverty movement is countering the acceptance that working families have been asked to do more with less.” says Gaskins. “We’re seeing increasingly that people are recognizing that our ability to provide quality healthcare or nutrition assistance, childcare, housing, and other essentials really depends on having a fair and equitable revenue system.”
Achieving a fair and equitable revenue system requires rethinking the current economic structure, and Gaskins is excited at the buy-in from different stakeholders.
“I’m seeing a lot of momentum, and it’s not just those working for economic justice pushing for this fight. We hear the childcare folks and others all getting on board and talking about a different type of economy and what’s needed for everyday Californians to thrive,” says Gaskins “That’s exciting.”
As a leader, Gaskins is also sustained by the lessons she took away from her Ascend Fellowship. “I still return to the text we read during the Fellowship,” Gaskins says, referring to pieces from Audre Lorde and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that her cohort discussed together. “Those texts help remind us we’ve been here before. Being grounded in words from people who are courageous, who are visionaries, it helps to move us forward.”
Forward With Families is powered by bold leaders like Shimica Gaskins, who refuse to accept the status quo. Learn more about how to get involved here.
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