LA Fire Victims Are Betting on a Radical Idea to Help Them Rebuild
As costs soar and climate risks mount, there are no easy answers for LA’s recovery. So one block in Altadena is working together to get home.
Kim and Chien Yu’s love story began with a giant dalmatian costume. Kim was donning the head of a Sparky the Fire Dog suit for a public awareness day at the Pasadena Fire Department when she spotted Chien, a former high school classmate turned firefighter. Kim, who’d recently started a job as a hazardous materials inspector for the city, struck up a conversation—easy to do in the guise of a friendly canine. Their shared history led to a date, and within a few years they married and had two sons. In 2018 they bought a house a few doors down from one of Kim’s co-workers, Phyllis Lansdown, who’d always raved about her block on Highview Avenue in nearby Altadena. “I would just joke about how, ‘Oh my gosh, it would be so amazing to live on your block someday,’ ” Kim says. “And then we found ourselves being neighbors, and it was everything that she said it was and more.”