{"id":498080,"date":"2026-01-07T04:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/498080\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T04:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:25:09","slug":"house-committee-report-questions-distribution-of-fireaids-100-million-for-l-a-wildfire-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/498080\/","title":{"rendered":"House committee report questions distribution of FireAid’s $100 million for L.A. wildfire relief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released a report after its own investigation<\/a> into FireAid, the charity founded by Clippers executives that raised $100 million for wildfire relief efforts in Los Angeles last January.<\/p>\n

The investigation \u2014 led by Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) under committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) \u2014 began in August when Kiley \u201csent a letter to FireAid requesting a detailed breakdown of all non-profits that received money from FireAid.\u201d Kiley expressed concern<\/a> that the money had gone toward local nonprofits rather than as more direct aid to affected residents.<\/p>\n

FireAid promptly released a comprehensive document detailing its fundraising and grant dispersals. After reaching out to every named nonprofit in the document, The Times reported that the groups who successfully applied for grants were quickly given money to spend in their areas of expertise, as outlined in FireAid\u2019s public mission statements. A review conducted by an outside law firm confirmed the same.<\/p>\n

The new Republican-led committee report is skeptical of the nonprofit work done under FireAid\u2019s auspices \u2014 but cites relatively few examples of groups deviating from FireAid\u2019s stated goals.<\/p>\n

Representatives for FireAid did not immediately respond to request for comment on the report.<\/p>\n

Out of hundreds of nonprofits given millions in FireAid funds, \u201cIn total, the Committee found six organizations that allocated FireAid grants towards labor, salaries, or other related costs,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The committee singled out several local nonprofits, focused on relief and development for minorities and marginalized groups, for criticism. It named several long-established organizations like the NAACP Pasadena, My Tribe Rise, Black Music Action Coalition, CA Native Vote Project and Community Organized Relief Efforts (CORE), whose activities related to fire relief they found \u201cunclear,\u201d without providing specific claims of misusing FireAid funds.<\/p>\n

The report \u2014 while heavily citing Fox News, Breitbart and New York Post stories \u2014 claims that \u201cFireAid prioritized and awarded grants to illegal aliens.\u201d Yet its lone example for this is a grant that went to CORE, citing its mission for aiding crisis response within \u201cunderserved communities,\u201d one of which is \u201cundocumented migrants\u201d facing \u201chigh risk of housing instability, economic hardship, exploitation, and homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report said that $500,000 was used by the California Charter Schools Assn., Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, LA Disaster Relief Navigator, Community Clinic Assn. of Los Angeles County and LA Conservation Corps \u201ctowards labor, salaries, or other related costs,\u201d which the committee said went against FireAid\u2019s stated goals.<\/p>\n

Yet the examples they cite as suspicious include NLSLA using its FireAid grant to pay salaries to attorneys providing free legal aid to fire victims, the Community Clinic of Los Angeles \u201cexpanding training in mental health and trauma care\u201d through grants to smaller local health centers, and the L.A. Regional Food bank allocating its funds to \u201cmobilize resources to fight hunger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report singled out one group, Altadena Talks Foundation, from Team Rubicon relief worker Toni Raines. Altadena Talks Foundation received a $100,00 grant from FireAid, yet the report said Altadena Talks\u2019 work on a local news podcast, among other efforts, \u201cremains unclear\u201d as it relates to fire relief. <\/p>\n

The report\u2019s claims that \u201cinstead of helping fire victims, donations made to FireAid helped to fund causes and projects completely unrelated to fire recovery, including voter participation for Native Americans, illegal aliens, podcast shows, and fungus planting\u201d sound incendiary. Yet the evidence it cites generally shows a range of established local nonprofits addressing community-specific concerns in a fast-moving disaster, with some small amounts of money possibly going toward salaries or overhead, or groups whose missions the committee viewed skeptically.<\/p>\n

FireAid still plans to distribute an additional round of $25 million in grants this year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released a report after its own investigation into FireAid, the charity founded…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":498081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[223820,1582,276,223819,223823,41512,63175,6139,5169,223822,2961,223821,224,2444,5337,6459,8622,20797,1630,16931],"class_list":{"0":"post-498080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-altadena-talks-foundation","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-committee-report","12":"tag-community-clinic-assn","13":"tag-concern","14":"tag-fireaid","15":"tag-grant","16":"tag-group","17":"tag-l-a-wildfire-relief","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-local-nonprofit","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-times","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-money","24":"tag-nonprofit","25":"tag-relief","26":"tag-report","27":"tag-salary"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115851920906504871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498080","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=498080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}