California wildfires devastate working-class families, destroying homes and livelihoods
Lower-wage workers in some of the homes and businesses ravaged by fires are scrambling to find housing and jobs with little to fall back on.
For years, Aurys Hernandez worked alongside her mother, who two decades ago started the family’s day care business in their home in Altadena, California. It only took hours for the wildfires that leveled entire Los Angeles area communities last week to consume their home, and their livelihood.
The blazes destroyed the remodeled garage where they had their licensed child care business. Gone is the brightly lit room where 12 to 15 children from mostly working-class families from Altadena and Pasadena played with multicolored toys and filled out worksheets. The photos of kids that adorned the walls are now cinders.
“In three hours, everything’s gone. Our house, our homes, our job, everything,” Hernandez, 45, told NBC News.
Along with mansions and wealthy enclaves, California’s still raging wildfires have charred and turned to ash communities of working-class families. The merciless flames left gardeners, caregivers, domestic workers, child care providers and others without the tools needed to do their jobs. The conflagration wiped out the businesses where they worked and the homes of many employers and clients.
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