From Disaster to Blueprint: How Greenline's Model Could Transform Post-Fire Recovery

In the aftermath of the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California this past January, the Greenline Housing Foundation mobilized. 

In just six months, they’ve become one of the leading organizations helping members of the Black and Hispanic community in Altadena recover, rebuild, and remain in the neighborhood.

It’s still early days, but Greenline has been moving fast. Their work could become a blueprint for community-based rebuilding that other communities can adopt and adapt. And for investors seeking opportunities to participate in a resilient and equitable rebuilding process, Greenline’s blended capital fund could become a template for other funds across the country.

As members of Altadena face difficult decisions and lower-than-expected insurance payouts, Greenline created the Eaton Fire Relief Fund, a blended capital stack of philanthropy and debt that can be deployed swiftly after disaster strikes to help members of the community find interim housing, access capital to rebuild homes that were destroyed, and even buy land before it gets scooped up by speculative investors.

In this profile of Greenline’s work, we examine how the principles of rebuilding with resiliency can drive a recovery that preserves wealth and gets residents back home. This blueprint is relevant as disasters become an ever-present part of everyday life in the United States.

The “beautiful microcosm” of Altadena

The Greenline Housing Foundation sees its work as a response to the long history of redlining in the United States. The foundation is on a mission to reverse the effects of systemic racism in housing and restore the lost opportunity to access homeownership for Black and Hispanic communities across the United States. It does this through downpayment grants to support people in purchasing a home, financial education, and homeownership preservation.

The Altadena neighborhood has been a bright spot for Black homeownership in the last half century. Following the passage of the Fair Housing Act, many families migrated to Altadena in the 1960s and 1970s. Before the Eaton Fire, Altadena was known as one of the most diverse areas in Los Angeles County, with 58% of its residents identifying as People of Color (and 18% identifying as Black).

According to Greenline, eight out of ten Black residents in Altadena are homeowners, almost double the national Black homeownership rate.

Nearly half (48%) of all Black-owned homes in Altadena were destroyed or sustained major damage from the Eaton fire, and the majority of those homes were owned by people older than 65.

Altadena has been a sanctuary for the Black community. For Jasmin Shupper, who founded Greenline in 2020 and lives in Eaton Canyon, Altadena is “a beautiful microcosm of what could have been, had access been easier and had segregation not been intentional.”

The Eaton Fire not only threatened that legacy, but it also threatened a future where homes and businesses could be passed down, helping Black and Hispanic families build intergenerational wealth, wealth that enables economic resilience amidst accelerating climate hazards.

The Eaton Fire Relief Fund

Shupper thinks of the recovery from the Eaton Fire as “a marathon, not a sprint.” But Greenline has been quick out of the gate with immediate support through the Eaton Fire Relief Fund.

The fund has two phases:

Phase 1: Long-term temporary housing & rental assistance

The foundation of recovery and rebuilding post-disaster is interim housing. Before people can make plans to rebuild and remain in the community, they need stable housing. So far, Greenline has deployed over $500,000 in interim housing assistance to 28 families from Altadena. Greenline has signed corporate leasing agreements with one building near Altadena (and has two others pending). It then enters into subsidized lease agreements with displaced individuals and families who otherwise wouldn’t qualify to rent an apartment.

Greenline has also partnered with the Sola Foundation to provide free ADUs for homeowners who lost their homes. Sola provides the ADUs and Greenline provides the application platform and vetting process, creating a pathway for homeowners to live on their land while rebuilding their homes. The ADUs can then serve as additional housing for intergenerational living or generate passive income as a rental.

For renters impacted by the fire looking to purchase a home, Greenline provides down payment grants and, in some instances, will buy vacant land and serve as the lender to a buyer planning to build, if a lender won’t underwrite a loan on a vacant lot.

Phase 2: Rebuilding assistance

Greenline also provides rebuilding assistance to homeowners facing a gap between the money they receive from insurance payouts or FEMA disbursements and the actual cost of rebuilding their homes.

According to Shupper, homeowners have recently received their insurance settlements. “We've seen a lot of people who say, ‘I’m $200,000 short.’ ‘I’m $150,000 short.’ ‘I’m $300,000 short.’”

Greenline is stepping in to fill the gap with rebuilding assistance grants. They’ve just received a $1.35 million philanthropic commitment to anchor the Eaton Fire Relief Fund from the California Endowment and Walgreens, which will eventually provide up to $250,000 per family for 50 families. Shupper views this philanthropic fund as a key instrument to help families rebuild wealth and stay in their community. Greenline has received additional philanthropic support from backers like Weingart Foundation, California Community Foundation, the Lemelson Foundation, and California Wellness Foundation.

Landbanking

In addition to rebuilding assistance grants, Greenline was the first organization to purchase a lot in Altadena as part of an anti-speculative development effort. This “landbanking” strategy protects the community from speculative investors, ensuring Altadena’s residents can remain. Greenline’s landbanking strategy is in response to the potential for speculative investors to do in Altadena what has happened elsewhere. 

Consider Lahaina, Hawaii. After the 2023 fire, speculative investors made offers to homeowners just days after the tragedy. It’s unclear how many “off-island” investors purchased homes in Lahaina, but there was a considerable effort to keep transactions within the community. It appears to have been successful; many house transactions have taken place between family members, friends, and neighbors. 

Greenline has secured debt from impact investors, the California Wellness Foundation, and CDFIs, including Clearinghouse CDFI (in the form of a Program-Related Investment) to purchase an additional 10 lots within the next few months (by October 2025) and 40 more within the next year (by July 2026). Upon the sale of the specific lot, Greenline returns capital to its investors in that transaction, and the land remains within the community.

A blueprint for community-based rebuilding

Greenline’s blended capital stack of philanthropy and debt could become a model that can scale across the U.S. Altadena isn’t the only community where this model could work. Greenline is looking nationwide. They have established partnerships in Atlanta and are in discussions to expand into Baltimore, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Rebuilding after a fire requires multiple sources of capital: housing assistance stipends, insurance settlements, FEMA payouts, philanthropy to bridge the construction cost gap, debt capital to purchase land, and other financial products that help rebuild communities and preserve wealth.

But for organizations that are looking to emulate Greenline’s model and build a relief fund for when the next disaster strikes, Shupper recommends the following four approaches:

1. Establish deep ties in a community

Build relationships with residents, local community organizations, CDFIs, and philanthropic partners before disasters hit. Greenline’s rapid deployment within days of the Eaton Fire was possible because they were already embedded in the community and had earned the trust of residents and other community-based organizations.

2. Focus on partnership over competition

Shupper is quick to acknowledge that the only route to a comprehensive and holistic recovery is through partnership with other capital partners and organizations. “It's very naive to think that we can serve all of these problems with just philanthropic capital,” she said in an interview with The Epicenter. Greenline’s effectiveness so far stems from being able to identify partners who can provide different pieces—housing assistance, construction loans, legal services, community organizing—and establish nimble partnership agreements that allow organizations to specialize in what they do best.

3. Create multiple capital structures based on the need

There is no one-size-fits-all model. The most effective responses design capital stacks that can move at different speeds for different purposes. Philanthropic capital is best suited for immediate needs like interim housing. It can take longer to pool debt capital from impact investors and CDFIs into a landbanking fund, but the rebuilding process doesn’t happen overnight. Not everything is urgent. Matching 1) the community need with 2) the right type of capital and 3) the appropriate time horizon will ensure that community needs and investor interests are aligned.

4. Set expectations, align interests, and drive the agenda

Greenline is an intermediary organization that sits at the intersection of community needs and impact capital. This is a crucial role, but it requires managing a wide range of stakeholders. Setting clear expectations, aligning interests (and spotting even the slightest misalignment), and driving the agenda all combine to establish authority and trust with community members and capital allocators.

Greenline’s model and future opportunities

Greenline’s work is not easy. It requires building alliances, raising capital, and structuring complex financial transactions. But Greenline’s emerging model shows that such a path is possible.

Extreme weather and climate disasters pose a material threat to communities when they threaten to permanently displace residents. But as Greenline demonstrates, viable solutions exist to adapt communities in the U.S. to be better equipped to withstand the associated economic hits of climate disasters like the Eaton fire. Greenline’s model—from rental assistance to landbanking—represents a powerful and strategic approach to strengthen the economic resilience of communities hit by climate disasters. It offers a blueprint for post-disaster housing financing and housing infrastructure that can enable community members to stay in their community.

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