The chimney of the Fair Oaks home is all that remains after the Eaton Fire. Photo: Brian Woodruff
One of the casualties of the recent Eaton Fire was Norman, a 10-foot animatronic werewolf who often drew the local community to the “Fair Oaks Home” in the Pasadena area, one of four sober living residences that had been operated by the Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel.
“Norman was an ugly, scary thing that turned beautiful and took on a life of its own,” says the Rev. Tim Hartley, executive director of the Jubilee Homes. Community members took selfies with Norman. Someone clothed him in an oversized yellow slicker during heavy rains; decked him out in beachwear in the summer and in a Santa suit during the holiday season, Hartley said.
Martialing community spirit, a Facebook page dedicated to Norman appeared, and locals sent messages for the gentle giant to residents of the home, at Fair Oaks Avenue and Mariposa Street, which housed ten men, and which also was destroyed.
The Eaton Fire, which burned 14,000 acres, destroying more than 9,400 structures, including schools, churches, residences and businesses, resulted in 17 fatalities, injured nine firefighters and damaged another thousand structures. The fire, nearing containment, is believed to have been started by electrical sparking at a utility transmission tower near Altadena.
Brian Woodruff stands in the ruins of the Fair Oaks Home
Brian Woodruff, residential manager of the home for eight years, recalled watching but not really believing the fire would spread so quickly and so extensively. “We were keeping an eye on it,” he told The Episcopal News in a recent telephone interview. “I grew up in La Crescenta and lived by the mountains my whole life. I’ve watched those mountains burn over the years; no one thought it would ever come down to our neighborhood.”
As flames grew closer, the air thickened with smoke, winds shifted, he watched the fire do just that. “It came straight down the mountain. We left,” Woodruff said. “We saw downed trees everywhere, up Fair Oaks. It was like a nightmare movie, with structures on fire. We hit a wall of smoke so thick, all you could see was embers. We ended up at the Pasadena Convention Center.”
The sober living homes have been, for Woodruff and many others, a lifeline. The Rev. Bill Doulos, retired deacon who founded the ministry and who still serves at Our Saviour, hired Woodruff about eight years ago, as house manager.
After multiple rehabilitation attempts and relapses, the position’s responsibility and the community’s spirit “gave me the step I needed at the time I needed it. It gave me the opportunity to give back what was so freely given to me. It gave me the foundation I needed, where I spent enough time in sobriety that I can say, you can burn down my house, take everything from me and the thought of having a drink did not even cross my mind. That was amazing to me.
“For alcoholics,” he said, “No matter how long you’ve been sober there’s always this thought in the back of your head that, ‘one day, I can drink and enjoy it like a normal person.’ But, for some reason, we have one drink and want more, and more, and more and we don’t stop until we destroy everything. This gave me the opportunity to get my life back.”
Prior to the fire, “I had saved a lot of money. I had my teeth fixed,” he said. He has since found another place to live.
Sober living residents typically “are just getting out of treatment and have lost everything,” he said. “You witnessed miracles every day at that house. Guys come in broken, not knowing how to live,” he said, his voice breaking. “Many have been using drugs or drinking the majority of their lives; they’ve destroyed relationships with their families, have lost touch with their children or have had Children’s Services take their children from them.”
In those eight years, “I’ve seen miracles of staying sober and working the program, and making amends to those we have hurt, which is a huge part of the deal. I’ve had people die, people leave and are dead within a month. But many lives are saved, and many families are brought back together.”
Hartley said residents must be sober sixty days and usually are referred by a treatment program. “We help with subsidized rent, so they can get back on their feet,” and there are other services and activities, including monthly community dinners, an annual Dodger game and Super Bowl party. Hartley fundraises to offset program costs.
Rents average about $400 per month, residents must be at least 18 years of age, are expected to be employed, to participate in activities, care for the homes and support one another in sobriety. Together, the four homes house about 55 men and women.
Emily (her name has been changed at her request), 43, along with her 2-year-old daughter, are residents of the “Washington House”, which can accommodate 14 women.
The move “was a life changer, a life saver,” she told The Episcopal News. Her first child was born when she was 18, and in and out of prison because of a methamphetamine addiction. “I would get clean here and there, but I didn’t keep sobriety for too long,” she recalled. In 2020, her oldest daughter’s death at age 20 sent her into a tailspin and she ended up homeless and on the streets.
“I was using really bad, and very depressed; I had mental health issues, PTSD. I was on the streets for quite a while; not really grieving, just numbing the pain.” The discovery that she was pregnant “slowed me down, but I didn’t stop using,” she said. After an emergency delivery, she was released to a shelter and her daughter was placed in foster care.
The sight of her daughter motivated her. “When I saw my baby, I said, ‘I’ve got to get it together’,” she recalled. Step by step, a day at a time, she entered rehab, worked the program and eventually found her way to the Washington House. “I’ve been here a year and a half,” she said. “My daughter has been in my custody since she was one. I couldn’t have done it without Jubilee.”
“Housing is the biggest issue you run into, as a newly clean person. You’re working, but you don’t have that much money. It’s really rough out here.” She now has a job near the sober living home and attends 12-step meetings. “I’ve recovered my old bank account, got a car, stayed at my same job and I’m raising my daughter at the house. It’s been wonderful. God does for you what you can’t do for yourself.”
Hartley, who “had the utter joy” of baptizing Emily’s daughter recently, said both are a gift to the house and her progress has been nothing short of miraculous. “She is the hardest-working, most wonderful mother” and the foster family who cared for her daughter is still in their lives. “They are amazing friends, and godparents to the baby.”
“What we’re looking for is that residents build relationships and help each other. Ideally, they can stay two years, but some have been there longer, as long as they contribute to the house and make progress.”
Doulos said his own sobriety inspired him to purchase homes, with the aid of investors, to support others. The ministry began at All Saints Church in Pasadena and was later transferred to Our Saviour, he said.
“The four homes are now three, because of the one that burned, the one I bought in 1985,” he told The Episcopal News in a recent telephone interview. He disobeyed the mandatory evacuation order to visit the site, he said.
The ruins of the Fair Oaks Home after the Eaton Fire
“I went up there through smoke and soot and terrible winds and fires on both sides of me. It is bleak. It would have been light out, but it was dark because of the smoke. I thought this is where the house is supposed to be, and it wasn’t there. That’s when I knew it had burned down; the whole block burned down.”
Hartley said the same community spirit that drew local residents to visit Norman prevails, and plans are in the works to rebuild the Fair Oaks home. A Go Fund Me page for the rebuilding of the house has already raised more than $5,000.
In the meantime, some residents displaced by the fire have been placed in other sober living homes or are staying with family members and have been dispersed throughout the area. Clothing and other items have also been provided to them.
“I’m working with insurance, and we want to rebuild. There are a lot of moving parts” but it will happen, Hartley said, adding that his visits to the homes represent “some of the best church I’ve ever experienced. God shows up in any number of ways, and boy, am I so lucky and fortunate to be there to experience it.”