ALTADENA, Calif. — Painted rocks displaying words like “family” provide a hint of color to what remains of Art House — a home for recovering addicts on their journey to sobriety.
Darlene Dominguez is the supervisor at the facility and last week helped her 25 residents narrowly escape the fast-moving Eaton Fire.
“It’s devastating,” she said, fighting back tears. “It’s devastating.”
The experience of losing one’s home in a fire is traumatic for anyone but for those overcoming addiction, Dominguez said, it can be completely destructive.
“When you’re an addict, you know, you lose everything in your addiction,” she explained, “and then you come here and you start off new and you’re clean and you work hard to get where you’re at, and then it just goes. It’s very devastating for a recovering addict.”
She understands this deeply.
Dominguez is five years sober and once lived in Art House, which provides Recovery Bridge Housing. It’s where she graduated and where she then got a job. In other words, it’s an integral part of her sobriety story.
“It was like my new family,” Dominguez said. “My safe space. Like my safe grounds. I would go to work, and I knew I was around people who cared, and we were going to keep me straight and sober.”
Art House is part of the Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse, or LA CADA, which operates several facilities and programs in the area.
Four locations in Pasadena and Altadena had to be evacuated with 64 patients relocated to the site of a former residential program in Whittier known as the Allen House.
The space has been inundated with donations.
William Tarkanian is the organization’s chief strategy officer and also oversees LGBTQ+ services. He said the donation happened organically, many from members of the LGBT+ community, as well as alumni of the program.
“Within the LGBTQ+ community, we’ve really established a reputation of providing grace-filled, compassionate treatment to a, you know, a very marginalized population that hasn’t always been well received in traditional SUD settings,” he explained.
SUD stands for substance use disorder. Jay Jiminez introduced herself as a crystal meth addict, proudly adding that she was 118 days clean.
She evacuated from Serenity House, which is specifically for trans and nonbinary patients.
“It’s traumatic. It’s hitting us really hard,” she said. “The Serenity is our home. That’s where we’re recovering.”
Luckily, she will return to that location, which she called the perfect space to heal. But for others, the wait will be longer. Art House was destroyed and Start House sustained extensive damage from a fallen tree.
“I’m thankful and grateful that everybody is safe,” Jiminez said. “That’s the most important thing. Everybody in those houses is safe and sound. And that we’re all here in the same location.”
A handful of patients have left the program, but those that remain are doing the work, despite what could easily be a major setback. They may be sleeping on an air mattress surrounded by their few belongings, but they’re going to group meetings and private counseling, which now includes addressing PTSD.
LA CADA’s Priscilla Rodriguez said the resilience of the patients has shown is awe-inspiring, especially considering so many are still working through past traumas.
“They’re persevering,” she said. “You would think they would look to us for strength, but at the moment, we’re looking to them as strength.”
The destroyed facilities will be rebuilt, she said, including Art House. When it is, Dominguez will be there to open the door.
Recovery is a long road, and this was an unexpected turn, but they keep moving forward.
“Just to see everybody graduate and finish and go on with their lives, with their jobs, you know, and their sobriety,” Dominguez said of her hopes. “That the Art House gets rebuilt to start over again.”