Just Communities Protocol: Altadena Case Study 2025

Just Communities Protocol

Altadena Case Study 2025

Author: Dr. Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall, Dena’s Just Futures

Date: August 30, 2025 

THE CONTEXT – Community restoration and reconstruction from one of the most deadly and destructive fires in California’s history.

From January 7-21, 2025, the town of Altadena and parts of East Pasadena were engulfed by the Los Angeles Eaton Fires, which killed 19 people, burned more than 14,000 acres, and destroyed over 9,000 homes and businesses. A community-led recovery was required in Altadena because it is an unincorporated town in Los Angeles County, which means that it does not have a mayor or city hall planning department to represent its restoration and reconstruction interests.

The community-led Eaton Fire Collaborative has been established as a quasi-governmental body made up of 55 large and grassroots community organizations, non-profits, and members of the Altadena and Pasadena town councils to make decisions regarding the restoration and reconstruction of the Dena’s. The EFC meets weekly to coordinate activities across 15 clustered working parties and has established an Executive Leadership Council.

THE CHALLENGE – Building community leaders’ confidence that they can lead their own restoration and reconstruction planning process in ways that prioritized vulnerable survivors.

As a racially and ethnically diverse, middle-class community of 42,000 people (ex. the 18% of Black residents had 80% home ownership), Altadena residents have existing knowledge and “lived expertise” in fighting for the equitable and regenerative planning of their town.

As its first goal, Dena’s Just Futures sought to credential that existing “lived expertise” and put it within global standards of excellence, so that community leaders would have confidence in their ability to push back against commercial interests who would define the future of the town’s recovery for them. The community’s opposition to this is expressed as “Altadena’s Not For Sale”.

As the first step in a two-step community planning leadership training process, Dena’s Just Futures provided 20 paid online asynchronous Accredited Practitioners training for community leaders in the Just Communities Protocol. The online asynchronous version was selected as a trauma-informed approach that would allow the community leaders, the majority of whom are fire survivors, to complete the modules at their own pace over a period of two weeks.

THE APPROACH – Embed Just Communities Priorities and Commitments into a tactile and interactive group planning activity.

The second goal of Accredited Practitioner training was building a shared language around the Pillers, Priorities and Commitments, and Actions in the communities equitable and regenerative restoration and reconstruction process.

As the second step in the two-step planning leadership training, Dena’s Just Futures embedded the five Just Communities Priorities (i.e. Belonging, Opportunity, Well Being, Mobility, and Environment) into its Care-shops and carebook structures. The focus was on aligning specific community features with a grounded set of shared values. Each community feature icon was color coded against one or more of the five priorities.

Provided with a set of community feature stickers with the Just Communities Priority-color-coded icons, community leaders discussed and negotiated in groups of five their preferred placement of community features on a map of the Dena’s. The requirement to prioritize and negotiate community features was optimized by the allotment of only $25,000 in Dena Dollars to each community member at the table.

AND THE OUTCOMES – Increased Confidence and Validation through the Commitments.

After the training, Dena’s community leaders have expressed a greater sense of self-determination and confidence that their knowledge and skills can lead their community’s planning process for restoration and reconstruction. The next step is for the community leaders to roll out the Care-shops to 500 Dena’s community members.

The Just Communities Protocol externally validated their own ideas as they closely aligned with the Commitments. For example, the community leaders who had undergone the online training ahead of the Care-shop could connect the Just Communities Commitments to their actions of:

• engaging in C1: civic participation;
• prioritizing affordable C2: housing access, including homes with ADUs and low-density bungalow clusters to support displaced elderly who may not want to rebuild their single-family home or returning renters;
• advocating for Altadena to maintain its diverse C3: culture & identity, etc. and memorialize its loss heritage, especially Black heritage;
• seeking to support small businesses’ return to the C4: local economy;
• seeking to rebuild its schools to support C5: education;
• advocating for local workforce training in skills required for rebuilding C6: employment and workforce;
• ensuring better C7: digital connectivity in the foothills, where poor digital infrastructure cost lives;
• arguing for more open space, sidewalks, and horse trails to enhance C8: active living;
• setting up community-led C9: health systems to address the emotional trauma and increased risks of physical health due to toxic soil, air, and water environment caused by the fires;
• redefining C10: safety to include protections from fire harm;
• reestablishing C11: parks and open spaces with native fire-resistant vegetation;
• prioritizing the rebuilding of organic food co-ops as a source of healthy C12: food;
• advocating for additional stop signs and sidewalks to optimize the C13: street network;
• seeking the introduction of more bike lines and horse trails to improve C14: multimodality;
• asking for the tram to be brought back as free local public C15: transit;
• advocating for Indigenous stewardship of controlled burning to reduce C17: climate wildfire risk;
• wanting to rebuild homes and business with all-electric infrastructure and not gas as the source of 18: energy;
• educating each other and demanding resources to clean the toxic 19: water, 20: air quality, 21: biodiversity and ecosystem health, especially the remediation of the soil, and the eliminate safely of all toxic materials in the 22: waste caused by the fires.

The Just Communities Protocol has helped the Altadena community leaders face their challenge to build confidence to their ability to lead their own restoration and reconstruction planning process in ways that prioritized vulnerable survivors.