Mary Martin loved her home in Royal Oaks Mobil Manor in Phoenix, where she moved in 2013.
“It was old,” she said. “But it was mine.”
She loved the neighbors, her backyard and the pool. Most of all, she loved her big, east-facing picture window.
“I'm not much of a sleeper,” she said. “I could sit right on my couch and watch the sun come up in the morning.”
She planned to live there for the rest of her life.
But Martin was one of thousands of people who were displaced by the Almeda Fire on Sept. 8, 2020.
Five years later, Royal Oaks is still not fully rebuilt.
‘The monster’
The day of the fire, Martin said she had no idea what was going on. She didn’t have a go bag prepared. The only reason she knew to evacuate was because a sheriff’s deputy yelled, “Get in your car and leave!”
Pulling out of Royal Oaks with a neighbor, Martin looked in her rearview mirror and saw the fire.
“I saw the monster,” she said tearfully. “Just that big black billowing smoke, and I saw it. I said, ‘Oh my God!’”
They drove around and went to a friend’s house before ending up at the Jackson County Expo.
Martin had left almost everything behind, but her biggest loss was her black cat, Cambria. She wouldn’t come out from under the bed, and Martin said she heard Cambria’s voice telling her, “Mom, just go.”
“All I could picture was her under the bed,” she said. “And that freaking fire, how scared she must have been.”
She had checked before she left to make sure Cambria had enough food and water.
“I locked the freaking door,” she said. “I still have my house keys.”
In total, the Almeda Fire killed three people and destroyed about 2,500 homes, most of them manufactured. Many of the people displaced were older or Spanish speakers.
While some housing projects came back more quickly, it would take almost five years for Royal Oaks to be rebuilt.
‘What went wrong’
In 2021, Oregon spent almost $24 million on 140 modular homes from Nashua Builders in Boise, Idaho.
State Representative Pam Marsh (D-Ashland) was excited about using manufactured homes to rebuild, rather than relying on conventional construction, which takes longer.
“Had that bet paid off,” she said, “we would have had housing on the ground well before any of the other housing that materialized later on.”
But the bet didn’t pay off.
The state didn’t have a place to put the homes, and it took some time to find a site. Eventually, 118 of them were slated for Royal Oaks.
Two years later, as families were preparing to move in, inspectors found mold, leaking water and other code issues. Officials have said the problem was the construction, not the fact that the homes were sitting.
In November 2024, the state sued the manufacturer and the broker, Pacific Housing Partners, for breach of contract and negligence. That case is ongoing.
“I don't even try to speak to what went wrong because I can't figure it out,” Marsh said. “I don't know if we should have sent Oregon people up there to watch the construction.”
Meanwhile, the state promised to rebuild the defective homes. Then, seven months later, they said they’d just replace them. Oregon eventually spent $17 million on 118 new homes, this time using a local manufacturer, InteliFab in Klamath Falls.
In an effort to recoup some of the millions it lost, the state has also auctioned off about half of the defective homes. A spokesperson for Oregon Housing and Community Services said a plan is being made for the remaining homes.
“OHCS’ role in long term-housing recovery is organized around having accessible, understandable, and timely solutions driven by local communities,” the state agency said in a statement. “The path to recovering from a wildfire is long and steep for most people.”
But none of this helped fire survivors, some of whom are to this day living in hotels and other transitional housing.
“I don't think it's unusual,” Marsh said. “I think it's unacceptable.”
‘We have to learn’
Since the Almeda Fire, Marsh has been focusing on what the state could have done differently and how it can be better prepared.
“I don't know what went wrong. What I know is we need to do it differently next time,” she said. “We need to be strategic in how we are supporting the resources we're going to depend upon in the next disaster.”
She has sponsored two bills that provided $35 million to develop manufactured housing in the state.
When the fire first happened, Marsh said they were told it would take five to 10 years to recover, and she didn’t believe it.
But she also highlighted the strength and resilience of the community, as people have stepped up to support one another in recent years.
She thinks people are more prepared for disasters now.
“People have looked risk and danger and destruction in the eye, and they have chosen to deal with it,” she said. “That's huge.”
‘First step of recovery’
Royal Oaks is starting to show signs of life again. A man waters a tree in front of his new home. Some of the units are occupied; most sit empty. The new playground is quiet.
Meanwhile, the day-to-day work of finding permanent housing for fire survivors continues.
Denise Lupton, homeownership programs supervisor at the social services nonprofit ACCESS, said much of the process has been out of her control.
“I don't know what the holdup was or why there was delay. That part's tough,” she said. “I feel like had it gone as smooth as we had anticipated it would, we would be in a different place today.”
Earlier this year, the first wave of homes was placed on site at Royal Oaks, and residents started moving in.
Priority goes first to former Royal Oaks residents, then to fire survivors from other mobile home parks, followed by homeowners and renters displaced by the fire. Applicants must earn less than 80% of the area median income. Residents are given a home and pay for rent and electricity. The Jackson County Housing Authority owns and manages the site.
Lupton said nine people have moved in so far, and ACCESS is working with 20 other former Royal Oaks residents. In addition, they have 20 former homeowners and 20 fire-affected renters in the works.
“It's kind of exciting to see how many people we can pull out of transitional housing, get them out of those situations and back into homeownership,” Lupton said. “It's just that first step of recovery, really.”
Ryan Haynes, director of development at the Housing Authority, said 40 homes are ready for move-in, with 40 more expected by Christmas. The final group of residents will move in next year.
Lupton said a big part of her job is keeping people’s hope alive, as programs repeatedly run out of funding and they remain in temporary housing.
“They give up. It's too much, and so they just stay where they're at, and that's always a little disheartening,” she said. “Had some of the solutions been in place when we originally started, we could have a lot more people re-housed a long time ago.”
‘A new spot’
Mary Martin is one of the ones who decided not to return to Royal Oaks, where she had planned to live out her golden years.
After the fire, she moved from friends’ homes to a FEMA trailer to an apartment.
Earlier this year, she got a state grant and purchased her own manufactured home in Ashland.
“I have a new spot. I still miss my old spot a lot,” she said tearfully. “And I wish it could have been the same, but… it's just new. I don't like new.”
She’s still adjusting, but she has two cats to keep her company, as well as the ashes of her black cat, Cambria.
And, like at Royal Oaks, her new home has big windows so she can look out at the hills.
