By When Layla Hawkins returned to the ruins of her longtime home after the Palisades fire, she found her late husband’s basketball hoop still standing. She walked over and wrapped her arms around it.
“I remember I walked over and I gave it a big hug,” she told Today. “I hugged it so tight because I was hugging my home. I was hugging Tommy.”
Today, Hawkins is rebuilding on the property she shared with Tommy Hawkins, the former NBA player and Los Angeles Dodgers executive. With help from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles and volunteers, the place where she lost so much is becoming a home again.
Hundreds of volunteers united to help @HabitatLA rebuild homes in the Palisades.
Layla Hawkins, who lost her house, was in tears seeing her fellow neighbors step up.
"I kind of lost hope…I cried and I cried."
Habitat for Humanity says 3 out of 4 residents in the burnt out… pic.twitter.com/cKx8L9nlQN
— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) September 30, 2026
Hawkins had lived in Malibu for 40 years when the January 2025 fire swept through her neighborhood. She had evacuated during previous fires and returned to find her house safe, but this time she had only minutes to escape with her husband’s ashes and her dog, Shiloh.
“I lived in Malibu for 40 years. I had gone through quite a few fires and we have always been ready to go and get everything ready and come back,” Hawkins says. “That day, it was something out of a movie script. We only had about eight minutes to vacate and leave.”
As she departed, Hawkins tried to reassure herself that this evacuation would end like the others. But a final look at the house left her fearing she would never see it again.
When she returned, almost everything was gone. Among the wreckage, however, she spotted a small blue starfish bank where she and Tommy had left notes for each other.
“I looked in that massive destruction, and I saw that little starfish, blue, deep blue, just staring at me,” she says. “I just went over there, and I remember I kneeled, and I said, ‘Tommy.’”
The surviving basketball hoop offered another connection to the life they had built together. Tommy had played a decade in the NBA, including time with the Lakers and Cincinnati Royals, before later serving as the Dodgers’ vice president of communications. For Layla, embracing the hoop helped strengthen her resolve to rebuild.
Progress came slowly until an unexpected email brought an offer of help from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles. Through its ReBUILD LA initiative, the organization began helping her navigate paperwork, permits and construction.
Hawkins says she is “forever grateful.” She describes the support as “like having an army of relatives surrounding you and giving you hope, love and generous hugs. That’s priceless.”
During a four-day community build in September, volunteers framed walls and worked on landscaping at her property and others nearby. Their presence brought neighbors and helping hands back to land the fire had cleared.
Her new home is projected to be finished in June 2027, weather permitting. As construction moves forward, the basketball hoop remains a connection to Tommy and the home they shared — and a part of the new beginning taking shape around it.
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