“Is this our get-out-of-jail-free card?,” the cinematographer Gabriel Patay, 40, said he wondered after he and his wife, a documentary producer, lost the home they spent nine years restoring.
“We are tied to this property, we are stuck in L.A.,” he has thought. “Should we leave?”
Patay is cleareyed that his insurance will not cover the cost of rebuilding. He and his wife are looking into mortgage deferment and recently applied for hardship status with their bank.
Job opportunities have not been robust either. Patay recently finished work on a documentary for Hulu, but described current job prospects as “bleak.” Now the couple is considering rebuilding their home, slowly over time, if they can somehow make the economics work.
Some have rethought their futures in other ways.
Madeline Power, a 32-year-old producer, had been just about ready to leave Los Angeles before the diaster.
With no work, the past 12 months had been “the worst financial year of my life,” she said, noting that she took odd jobs babysitting and cleaning. She felt, at times, like the city itself was rejecting her.
Then her house burned down. She found purpose using her skills as a producer to help raise money for her neighbors, and when people heard of her situation, some came to her with job leads. Now she, too, has $30,000 in donations — more money than she says she has ever had.
There is no question in Power’s mind. She is staying.
“L.A. caught me,” she said. “L.A. came and just showed up.”
John Koblin contributed reporting from New York and Alyce McFadden from Los Angeles.
