{"id":1028712,"date":"2026-08-28T03:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T03:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1028712\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T03:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T03:22:16","slug":"la-fire-survivors-have-now-waited-the-longest-for-federal-disaster-recovery-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1028712\/","title":{"rendered":"LA fire survivors have now waited the longest for federal disaster recovery funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been nearly 600 days since the L.A. fires became one of the most destructive in U.S. history, yet the federal government has still not appropriated more than $15 billion in long-term recovery funds to help survivors get back home. That\u2019s longer than the previous record of 500 days survivors of the Maui fires had to wait, according to After the Fire USA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIt’s really like nothing we’ve ever seen before,\u201d said Jennifer Gray Thompson, the nonprofit\u2019s founder and CEO.<\/p>\n

Deep partisan divides and repeated government shutdowns under the Trump administration have been major causes for the delays, officials say.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisaster relief should not be a political bargaining chip \u2014 but that\u2019s exactly how the Trump administration has made it out to be,\u201d Sen. Alex Padilla said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n

The state has also lagged, with $2.5 billion in recovery funds only just starting to be released, according to reporting by NBC4<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, L.A fire survivors are facing massive financial gaps to rebuild<\/a>, on average between $200,000 and $500,000, even with insurance. And as temporary housing insurance dissipates, many are now being forced to decide whether they can afford to rebuild at all.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aThe community is struggling and is fighting to come back \u2014 and determined to come back \u2014 but we are really lacking the state and federal support that is necessary to help get us there,\u201d said Sam James, a sixth-generation Altadenan whose family lost multiple generational homes in the Eaton Fire.<\/p>\n

James founded the Altadena Recovery Team<\/a> to support fellow survivors in lieu of reliable government and insurance-funded safety nets. Multiple local creative financing efforts<\/a> are also cropping up more quickly feed that gap.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe delay is just really hard to rationalize given how much need there truly is on the ground,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In recent months, delegations of local officials<\/a> as well as Eaton and Palisades fire survivors<\/a> have traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak with lawmakers about the much-needed federal funds, which experts say can often be used to fill such gaps in finances.<\/p>\n

In June, the White House requested more than $85 billion<\/a> in supplemental funds, primarily to support the war on Iran. The next month, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger sent letters<\/a> to the Senate Committee on Appropriations urging disaster needs be included in such requests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s on D.C. to begin to move the narrative from an ask to a make it happen,\u201d Barger told LAist.<\/p>\n

Four U.S. senators from states affected by recent disasters \u2014 including two Republicans from Utah and North Carolina, as well as California senators Padilla and Adam Schiff \u2014 sent a letter<\/a> in July expressing their concern that no disaster funds were included in the White House\u2019s supplemental appropriations request.<\/p>\n

The senators called the omission<\/a> an effort by the Trump administration to punish Los Angeles and the state of California.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested more than $10 billion<\/a> for what\u2019s called \u201cCommunity Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery,\u201d which can help survivors finance their rebuilds, as well as help local governments rebuild infrastructure, such as water systems, community centers, roads and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s the largest bucket of money any community receives in order to recover after a disaster,\u201d said Thompson, from After the Fire USA. \u201cIt can really help fill the gaps that people need to get home.\u201d<\/p>\n

On average, the wait for such funds \u2014 from appropriation to allocation \u2014 is two years, Thompson said. Yet it\u2019s been nearly two years since the L.A. fires, and the funds have yet to be appropriated at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been nearly 600 days since the L.A. fires became one of the most destructive in U.S. history,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1028711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[21053,1582,276,17473,2961,28708,224,5337,17466,87938,1558,277],"class_list":["post-1028712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-altadena","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-eaton","tag-la","tag-la-fires","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-palisades","tag-rebuild","tag-recovery","tag-trump"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117170991663492093","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1028711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}