Two Mayors Work to Keep Altadena’s Historically Black Community Intact

It took a fire disaster for Altadena, Calif., to gain national respect for its unassuming diversity. Nearly 6 in 10 residents are people of color. More than 20 percent are Black and at the time of the fire about three-fourths of them owned their homes, twice the national rate for Black home ownership.

Two former mayors are trying to help Altadena retain this diversity as it rebuilds following the Eaton Fire.

Michael Tubbs and Aja Brown, former mayors of Stockton, Calif., and Compton, Calif., respectively, founded the Altadena Community Development Corporation to foster a “community-driven, integrated, efficient and equitable” strategy to guide recovery efforts.

At 26, Tubbs became the first Black mayor of Stockton and the youngest person ever to lead a major city in the U.S. He implemented the first mayor-led guaranteed income program in 2019, the same year Stockton was named among the most fiscally responsible populous cities. Stockton was twice named an “All-America City” by the National Civic League during his tenure, and Tubbs’ reform efforts were the subject of a 2020 HBO documentary.

As Compton’s mayor, Brown created and launched a strategic plan that attracted more than $3 billion in new investment. During COVID-19, she established the Compton Pledge to create a safety net for at-risk residents. The two-year guaranteed income program was the largest of its kind at that time.

Both continue their work with government through multiple roles in the private sector. Tubbs founded the nonprofit End Poverty in California and is an economic mobility adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom. He plans to run for lieutenant governor in 2026. In addition to consulting work and ongoing involvement with economic development in Compton, Brown is a strategic impact partner for FORWARD, a company that develops technology to streamline access to government assistance.

In the aftermath of the fire, both recognized that preserving diversity and generational wealth could be secondary considerations in a scramble by federal, state and local governments to respond to a disaster of such scale.

As a phase one activity, Tubbs, Brown and their allies raised $1 million to be distributed to 500 Altadena families through the Dena Care Collective. They also led the design of a strategic response that has been adopted by community-based groups and philanthropic organizations.

“Mitigation, response, recovery, and rebuilding are highly interdependent and often occur simultaneously,” they write. The approach they propose encourages coordination throughout this process and includes a single point of entry where people and businesses affected by the fire can access every resource they might need to recover and rebuild, including case management.

Community input should drive recovery efforts, they say. Land banking, a mechanism through which government or nonprofit entities can acquire at-risk property and hold it for later sale, could mitigate speculation and help keep property in Altadena available and affordable. (See chart below for other elements of the framework.)

In a conversation with Governing, the mayors talked about what they hope to bring to rebuilding Altadena. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.




What motivated your involvement in Altadena’s recovery?

Michael Tubbs: We knew from our experience as mayors that government can work if it wants to work, but without enforcing it to work, it won't work well, particularly in times of crisis.

We had both set up guaranteed income programs while we were mayors and we saw the ways cash was able to help people through the COVID-19 pandemic. It was those learnings and a desire to make sure that Altadena wasn't left behind in the conversation about the many fires happening in L.A.

We have a focus on people who are just beginning to build wealth, to make sure that they have what they need to be able to rebuild and to persist.

Aja Brown: Government was never designed to respond to emergencies. It is designed to deliver basic services in known conditions. Any time there is a significant demand on immediate services, it is not equipped to respond quickly.

Understanding the history of Altadena and the families that historically concentrated there, including my family, heightened my personal response and sense of urgency to ensure that there was responsive and dynamic infrastructure, not just immediately, but also in the long-term recovery arc.

What are your areas of focus?

Aja Brown: The Dena Care Collective was very much a phase zero, immediate response.

In the second phase, Mayor Tubbs and I and our team created a comprehensive recovery strategy based on community economic development principles that have the priority of preserving the community. We gathered a collective of experts across industries and we're working directly with state and regional government, and the philanthropic, financial and development sectors to streamline processes.

How does your experience with guaranteed income come into play?

Michael Tubbs: It seems novel, but it's not. It's something that both Mayor Brown and I pioneered when we were mayors of some of the first cities in this country to do a guaranteed income program. This is something we know that works.

We can trust people with money; you can invest in people. With all the money that's been raised, why hasn't that been the primary strategy? There is enough evidence from programs that we've helped pioneer in over 100 communities across the country that says if you can't figure out something else, at least give people money. That's the least you should do.

How would you describe the gap in the response to date that you hope to fill?

Aja Brown: This is one of the largest natural disasters in our history, especially for this area. To have a status quo response for such a significant catastrophe is not adequate. This is not a two- or three-year process, it is really a seven- to 10-year process, especially for those populations that are most sensitive.

Our hope is that there will be alignment from government and philanthropy to invest in a system that could provide comprehensive case management, technical support, financial support and qualified information to ensure community integrity as people are making decisions as to whether or not they will rebuild or transfer their property.

Is it your goal to provide this integrated response, or just to make sure that it happens?

Aja Brown: We are now six months out, and we're still missing a coordinated entry system. We're still missing integrated data to truly understand how people are recovering, what their needs are, what philanthropic support hasn’t reached the community, where the gaps are even spatially within Altadena.

The strategy we laid out is the solution. We're just committed to ensuring that it's implemented at every stage of recovery.

Michael Tubbs: I'm less interested in who is leading or who is doing. I'm more interested in being sure it’s being done, because this is necessary for the folks there.

I remember being a teenager and watching Hurricane Katrina and being so appalled at the lack of response or coordinated response from our federal government. I refuse to have that happen now that I'm an adult with some experience.

That's why we started the Dena Care Collective. That's why we've been advocating. It’s really about ensuring that there's some fidelity to a strategy, ensuring that we're not just going to talk about how bad this is without actually trying to do something about it.