Deep in In the thickly forested foothills of southern Oregon, near the town of Butte Falls, Lanette and Steve Martin lived with their son and family until last year when wildfire drove them from their homes. When embers the size of charcoal briquettes landed on their front deck, the retired couple and their family jumped into their cars, leaving five chickens and a cat. “If we had waited 10 more minutes, we would have gone up in flames,” said Steve Martin.

On the same day, September 8, 2020, a city fire fueled by hot, dry weather and high winds ripped through the nearby towns of Talent and Phoenix in Rogue Valley. Alma Alvarez, a migrant worker, was working about 15 miles away when the fire raged toward Phoenix, where her two younger children, ages 10 and 13, were home alone. Alvarez hurried back to find that the neighborhood was already on fire. The family escaped with the children’s birth certificates and their cat, but everything else was gone. That night they slept in their car. “All we would think about was the fire and if it could put us to sleep,” Alvarez said recently in Spanish. The next night, they checked into a hotel, the first of many that they would be staying at for the coming months.

Alma Alvarez and her three children were one of the first families to move into the Redwood Inn.


“All we would think about was the fire and if it could bring us to sleep.”

The fires, which were part of what would become Labor Day fires, killed three people and displaced about 8,000 in southern Oregon, Jackson County. In mid-April, after shuttling between temporary homes for more than seven months, both Alvarez and the Martins finally ended up in the same place: the Redwood Inn in Medford, Oregon. This wasn’t a coincidence. The motel is part of Project Turnkey, a nationwide initiative worth $ 65 million to convert hotels and motels into free accommodations for survivors of the September 2020 fires and other homeless people. For Alvarez and the Martins, Project Turnkey provided the much-needed stability – and a step towards a more permanent home.

ON A BUSY STREET lined with inexpensive motels, the Redwood Inn is one of 20 motels Oregon plans to buy by the end of June. Together they could accommodate up to 1,000 households. Project Turnkey is modeled on a similar program in California that began last summer. Cities and nonprofits have long been renting hotel rooms for people who are not housed, but states that are actually buying hotels are something new, sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for socially distant housing. Ernesto Fonseca, who heads Hacienda Community Development Corporation (CDC), an Oregon housing association serving Latino communities, said supporting the Turnkey project was “a no-brainer”; it is a relatively quick and inexpensive way to provide emergency shelter and shelter. “(But) it’s not a permanent solution either,” he said.

The state provides the money to buy the buildings, but local organizations have to run them – and cobble together the funds for them. Rogue Retreat, a nonprofit, and the City of Medford received $ 2.55 million to purchase the 47-unit Redwood Inn, which gives priority to forest fire survivors. Later the motel will house residents of the general homeless who pay a small rent. But for now, local and state grants, along with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursements, are covering the estimated monthly running costs of the Redwood Inn of $ 91,000.



Lanette and Steve Martin are moving into the Redwood Inn on April 12th.

When the Martins pulled into the motel parking lot on April 12th, they breathed a sigh of relief. When a handful of new residents were outside to move in, the Martins said their move-in date had been repeatedly delayed. Only that morning had the state informed them thatThen they could have one of the first eight rooms that were ready.

In the seating area of ​​a makeshift lobby, Rogue Retreat staff told them about and emphasized a program that can connect residents with permanent living There is no time limit for your motel stay. Steve Martin seemed close to tears as he signed the paperwork: “Our next option was the back of my pickup,” he told staff.

“Our next option was the back of my pickup.”

The couple passed around a phone with pictures of their former home, a four-bedroom house that housed them and their son’s family of three. Lanette Martin called it her “Shangri-La”. For five years they were administrators of the 40 hectare property, where their electricity came from solar panels and their water from mountain springs. In return, the Martins – who live on a steady income – only paid $ 700 a month in rent. Now the couple can’t even find a studio apartment at that price: in 2020, rents and home values ​​skyrocketed amid high demand from the fires and influx of arrivals outside of the states during the pandemic. The Martins lived in several friends’ houses after the fires, but had to leave the last house when it sold in less than 24 hours – a common occurrence these days in Jackson County, where Medford is located.

From 2013 to 2017, nearly a third of Jackson County’s residents were heavily burdened with rent and spent more than 50% of their monthly income on rent, according to Oregon Housing and Community Services. And that was before the forest fires in September 2020 exacerbated the already acute shortage of affordable housing in the district. Of the nearly 2,500 homes destroyed in Jackson County, 60% were RVs.

The Martins didn’t have tenant insurance and hadn’t applied for FEMA assistance. However, her son’s family now lives in a FEMA trailer, one of about a hundred Jackson County households that the agency houses; another hundred are on the waiting list. The state is providing hotel rooms and RVs to an additional 765 survivors of the Jackson County fire.

When the Martins were sorting their few belongings into their room at the Redwood Inn, their 7-year-old dog Keyeva stretched out on the bed. Keyeva had made it out of the fire, but the Martins’ five chickens died in their coop and their cat was nowhere to be found. Rent-free living at the Redwood Inn means they can save on a down payment on a home, the Martins explained. “We’re not looking for a handout,” said Steve Martin. “We’re only looking for a hand.”

“We’re not looking for a handout. We’re only looking for one hand. “

A FEW DAYS LATER THE AROMA Pork tacos and homemade salsa filled the air of an upstairs motel room at the Redwood Inn. Alvarez and her family used the kitchenette in their room; Rogue Retreat had spent additional time preparing units that already had kitchenettes to cater to people with special nutritional or medical needs. Lanette Martin has type 2 diabetes and two of Alvarez’s three children have hemophilia, a blood clotting disorder.

After moving in, one of Alvarez’s first jobs was to give her ten-year-old son, Anthony Gonzalez, the weekly injection that helps his blood clot. Alvarez and her children moved to Oregon from California last year, drawn to the state’s good public schools and the booming hemp industry. But the forest fires burned down many farms in the area, and Alvarez struggled to find jobs cutting hemp.

“We cannot allow people to sleep in their cars right after a disaster or an emergency.”

According to the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute report for 2021, forest fires in the state are expected to become more intense and frequent. Fires tend to have the greatest impact on marginalized communities, whose members often have limited resources after climate-related disasters, said Alessandra de la Torre, a collaborator at Rogue Climate, a climate justice organization in southern Oregon. The group is helping run a mutual aid facility in forest fires that was still providing food and clothing to around 300 people a week seven months after the fires. “We can’t let people sleep in their cars right after a disaster or emergency,” she said. “Because at the end of the day you still have to go to your job the next day. Your children have to go to school. “



Alma (13) and Anthony Gonzalez (10) in the motel room they now share with their mother, older brother and cat.

Alvarez’s two younger children sank into their new beds at the Redwood Inn eagerly asking their mother and 22-year-old brother Diego Gonzalez about school – when they could start and whether it would be in person or virtually. They also asked if they could get there on foot or by bus, as their mother and brother had to work. Instead, while the family took care of transportation, the children spent their first days at the motel watching TV, playing video games, and tending to their cat, Biscuit. “You don’t go out anywhere,” said Alvarez. “You are locked up.” Now the children wait outside most days of the week for a bus to take them to school.

Meanwhile, after finally landing one of the few remaining local hemp jobs, Alvarez returns to the motel every night, exhausted from the 10-hour days saving up for a small rental house or apartment. Alvarez’s 13-year-old daughter, Alma Gonzalez, squirmed on the edge of a motel bed and said she hoped to have a room of her own and a dog one day. Anthony Gonzalez said he wanted a back yard to walk around in. “We just want to be kids,” added his sister.

But for now, the family huddles together at the Redwood Inn. “Hopefully,” said Diego Gonzalez, “it’s not far from here to have a home.”



After the Labor Day fires burned down thousands of homes in Oregon’s Rogue Valley last year, Alma Alvarez and her three children, including Anthony, shown here, hopped between more hotel rooms than they could count. Now they have finally settled into a converted motel room in Medford, Oregon, funded by a new state forest fire accommodation program.

Hanna Merzbach, an Oregon-based freelance journalist, writes on social justice issues, state and local politics, and covers topics such as housing and homelessness, education, and health equity.

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