Brandon Eugene Owens has stayed in the desert longer than he anticipated.
Owens, a musician who grew up in Long Beach and lived near Pasadena, was staying in Palm Springs following a New Year’s Eve event when the devastating wildfires struck Los Angeles on Jan. 7. His mother was evacuated from her Pasadena-area nursing home, so he brought her to the desert.
After a week in Palm Springs, he and his mother moved to a Motel 6 in Twentynine Palms for a more affordable, accessible place to stay. While he safely returned his mother to another Los Angeles facility, he’s since bounced around at least eight rental properties in the Morongo Basin. Owens has made a habit of jumping from one short-term rental to another, looking to secure affordable weeknight stays between exorbitant weekend bookings.
“Luckily, I’ve been able to survive so far. It’s not sustainable, though,” he said. “Hopefully I can figure out something very quickly that’s more sustainable, whether it’s in Joshua Tree or somewhere else. But it’s very hard to do. There are no short-term leases.”
Owens is one of many people who left Los Angeles after the wildfires and is figuring out their next steps. Around 19,000 people found a free or discounted place to stay through Airbnb via a partnership with 211 LA. More than 160 hotels in the Southwest stepped up with free or discounted rentals in the immediate aftermath, according to Travel + Leisure.
Locally, the city of Palm Springs made it easier for property owners to open their homes by easing up on annual rental limits through the end of February. Various hotels from the Palm Springs Hospitality Association gave discounted rates to those coming to stay.
But the influx of evacuees further strained the desert rental market, where low-priced inventory is hard to come by. While services like Airbnb and Vrbo were a boon to desert tourism and bolstered city revenues via increased transient occupancy tax payments, they also brought lasting changes to neighborhood character and increased housing costs. One property manager who spoke to the Independent said some vacation-rental owners are shifting to long-term rentals as tourism demand cools, or to better keep up with their own expenses—but that shift isn’t happening fast enough for folks like Owens to find a place to stay.
“I’ve had friends of friends looking for affordable places for people who were displaced, and I do what I can to refer them to others, but we’re kind of booked up.”
Travis Winn, who owns a short-term rental and manages a long-term rental
Travis Winn, of Joshua Tree, owns a short-term rental and manages a long-term rental. He said the evacuees exacerbated an existing problem with unaffordable housing.
“I’ve had friends of friends looking for affordable places for people who were displaced, and I do what I can to refer them to others, but we’re kind of booked up,” he said.
While some evacuees are heading back home, others don’t have a home to head back to—or they no longer feel comfortable in what was their home. Jenn Gladysz is a Joshua Tree resident who operates a property-management company called Cocoon that specializes in vacation rentals in the Morongo Basin. She said she’s fielded numerous requests from people looking for long-term stays, and pointed them toward others in her network.
“I’ve seen the market begin to correct itself (as evacuees return home), which is a good thing,” Gladysz said. “But now, (even) with the fires gone, we’re just getting more inquiries. People are trying to get out of L.A. and live somewhere else.”
January, she said, is typically slow in the weeks following the holidays—but when the fires hit, she and her team navigated an influx of bookings. Gladysz decided to list Cocoon’s available properties through Airbnb.org to provide more places to stay. Cocoon also relaxed some regulations, like allowing cats on its properties.
“We made exceptions, because we were just trying to make things work for people—offering discounted rates or accommodating their needs,” she said. “We had so many people who just needed to get out of L.A. quickly. They were either evacuated or under evacuation orders, or just needing to get away from the smoke.”
Owens isn’t sold on going back. His Los Angeles-area apartment was not in an evacuation area, but he was put off by bad air quality and the smell of smoke when he returned at one point. He’s also worried about price-gouging, with many studios and one-bedrooms easily costing more than $2,500 a month.
In the desert, Owens has felt welcomed, especially among musicians in Pioneertown and while walking through downtown Joshua Tree with his dog, Svn (“like ‘Seven’ but with no vowels”). He enjoys the local music scene and the vast landscapes. But staying is proving difficult: In the span of two weeks, he had eight different Airbnb stays, which means paying eight separate cleaning fees. Searching for a place to stay is a crapshoot, with properties on the weekends often going for $600 a night or more.
“They can make in a weekend what they’d make in a month, and understand it,” he said. “But because of everything happening in L.A., I can’t be there, and I want to be here. But I can’t really afford to be here.”
These stories are made possible in part by a grant from the IE Journalism Innovation Hub + Fund of the Inland Empire Community Foundation. To submit ideas, comments or questions to the Coachella Valley Independent about housing in the desert, head to this Google Form.