{"id":453209,"date":"2025-12-17T12:33:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T12:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/453209\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T12:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T12:33:13","slug":"palisades-housekeeper-struggles-to-find-work-after-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/453209\/","title":{"rendered":"Palisades housekeeper struggles to find work after fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Via de Las Olas was once a scenic drive in Pacific Palisades, perched above Will Rogers State Beach, offering sweeping views of ocean and sky. Now it resembles an archaeological site of its former self.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were beautiful homes here, people would walk with their dogs in the morning when I would get here,\u201d said Amalia Atayde, recalling as she gazed at the street. \u201cI would park and stand here and watch the ocean. It was beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now there were charred trees, excavators and weeds sprouting from cracked foundations where multimillion-dollar homes once stood.<\/p>\n

The neighborhood embodied wealth and privilege in Los Angeles, but for 49-year-old Atayde, a housekeeper, it only represented one thing \u2014 opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could always come here and there would be work,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

In January, when the wind-driven Palisades fire swept through the area, killing 12 and destroying thousands of buildings, it uprooted families from the community and eliminated jobs for hundreds of general contractors, gardeners, pool cleaners and housekeepers.<\/p>\n

Since then, Atayde and dozens of service workers have been showing up at the Malibu Community Labor Exchange, waiting for work to return so they can earn money and pay for groceries, rent and bills.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018We could always come here and there would be work.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Amalia Atayde<\/p>\n

She said two of the homes she once cleaned were destroyed in the fire. A third house, an Airbnb rental, is still standing. But with tourism down, there\u2019s been very little work.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s left her unable to pay her monthly $1,500 rent, forcing her to surrender her room at the apartment she shares with her brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sleeping in the living room,\u201d she said. \u201cThe owner of the Airbnb rental lets me stay twice a week in the back guesthouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Amalia <\/p>\n

Amalia Atayde holds a flower plucked from outside a home she used to work at.<\/p>\n

She said she is not the only one struggling. Some of her companions at the labor exchange have returned to their countries due to grim employment prospects and an aggressive campaign by the Trump administration to deport undocumented immigrants. Some workers are homeless and afraid to leave the area should work return. Other workers are unable to afford the bus fare and come only when they can afford it.<\/p>\n

Why hasn\u2019t Atayde left to find work elsewhere? She said it comes down to both pay and work opportunities \u2014 the labor exchange also caters to Malibu homeowners. Beverly Hills, she said, lacks a labor center where house cleaners can easily find work. In other parts of L.A., she said, jobs are not as plentiful. <\/p>\n

So she and others are waiting for Pacific Palisades to start rebuilding and for the jobs to return. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have hope,\u201d Atayde said. \u201cIt will get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Via de Las Olas was once a scenic drive in Pacific Palisades, perched above Will Rogers State Beach,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":453210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[207926,207928,7910,136848,1582,276,5025,207929,8042,2961,224,2444,5337,207927,936,17254,207925,8167,8066,17253],"class_list":{"0":"post-453209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-49-year-old-atayde","9":"tag-airbnb-rental","10":"tag-area","11":"tag-beautiful-home","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-fire","15":"tag-general-contractor","16":"tag-job","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-times","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-malibu-community-labor-exchange","22":"tag-ocean","23":"tag-palisades-fire","24":"tag-palisades-housekeeper","25":"tag-rent","26":"tag-work","27":"tag-worker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115734931395862548","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453209","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=453209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}