It’s been six years since the CZU fire burned nearly 700 homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Less than one-third of those have been rebuilt.
Tonia Weakland-Wilhelm lost her family home in Boulder Creek and says Covid supply chain issues, and now tariffs, have made rebuilding expensive.
"That's part of why I almost gave up," she said. "I put all my insurance money into the pre-clearances, the septic, and geotechnical and stuff like that, and then it came to a point where I wasn't gonna be able to do it."
She was about to put her land on the market when she learned about the Long Term Recovery Group of Santa Cruz County. The local nonprofit helped her rebuild from the ground up.
"It made my life so much easier," she said. " I can't even explain or put a number on the value of them doing all of the paperwork and everything for me."
Executive director Tonje Switzer formed the long term recovery group after rebuilding her own home, which burned down in the CZU fire. She still remembers the kindness of a neighbor whose house had not burned. He ran PVC pipes from his well to his neighbors.
"I just came back on my property one day, and I had water," she recalled. "And that is sort of the impetus of this. That is that community effort—the barn raising of it."
That helped inspire the nonprofit, which works with people affected by fires and major storms. It’s the only group in the county doing that kind of case management.
"[Recipients are] financially vetted and also vetted for vulnerabilities, and, of course, to make sure that the damage to their homes is disaster related," she said.
Switzer says because of careful groundwork, they have a high success rate. Volunteer work and donations keep the projects well below market rate. Weakland-Wilhelm’s house would have cost around $700,000 to rebuild, but the Long Term Recovery Group brought costs down to $250,000.
Still, Weakland-Wilhelm, like many homeowners, had to borrow. Switzer says the group is happy to talk to hesitant lenders.
"When Tonia presented the budget, they looked at her like, 'What do you take us for? Nobody can build for that amount of money. It's impossible to build what you're proposing,'" Switzer said.
So, the Recovery Group sat down with the bankers and explained what they do.
"And with that, she was able to achieve a construction loan to build the home, to bridge that gap," Switzer said.
Most of their projects have been renovations. Weakland-Wilhelm’s house is the first the Long Term Recovery Group has completely rebuilt from architectural plans.
Powered by volunteers
Standing in the newly completed home, construction project manager Dylan Childs says the project would not have been possible without committed volunteers, who spent weeks working on the foundation, framing and walls.
"The dedication they have, the willingness to come out on this hill to do this hard work with me has just been tremendous," he said, "and I can't thank them enough."
Childs worked at Habitat for Humanity for years. He brought some of the volunteers and traditions over, including a special gift for Weakland-Wilhelm’s house dedication.
"One of our volunteers was a high school wood shop teacher for a career. He made sure to build very detailed jewelry boxes for each homeowner, and we gifted them their keys inside the jewelry box," Childs said. "John Reisdorf isn't with us anymore. He made a few extra boxes. This one's for you. Welcome home, Tonia.”
Childs says the old growth redwood of the box was likely milled from some of the same trees as Weakland-Wilhelm’s original home. The new house also includes redwood from some of the trees cut after the fire. That was important to Weakland-Wilhelm.
"I had to find someone to mill them, and that was an expense," she said. "But, you know, I'm so glad I did that."
She says one of the best construction moments was raising the first wall with family and volunteers.
"Hopefully this story will inspire people to keep persevering through their hardships and to support people that need it," Weakland-Wilhelm said.
As soon as she has final clearance from the county, Weakland-Wilhelm will move back in along with her mother, who owned the land before her.
