LA Fire Case Management Program Expires Oct. 31: California's Appeal for More Funds Still Pending, About 1,400 Households Could Lose Case Managers
The communities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles County, California, were devastated by the Eaton and Palisades fires in January 2025. California's Disaster Case Management Program for survivors of the two fires is scheduled to end on October 31, and the state's appeal for additional federal money to sustain the program through the full 24 months originally approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is still pending. According to The Associated Press, about 1,400 households currently being served could lose their case managers, with roughly 700 more households on a waiting list.
Case managers help survivors work through insurance claims, temporary housing, loss documentation, rebuilding grants and FEMA and Small Business Administration (SBA) paperwork — long-term assistance for families whose recovery cannot be resolved with a single application.
On funding, California initially sought $28 million after the fires; FEMA awarded about $13.2 million over 24 months, payable in four installments. According to the AP, by August only the first installment had arrived and the state said it could no longer front the costs. According to the office of Representative Judy Chu, FEMA released the second and third installments, totaling $6.6 million, on September 30, the day the program faced a cutoff, and the state and its nonprofit partners then extended the program through October 31. On October 7, FEMA announced a final $3.3 million installment, saying federal funding for the program had passed $13 million and had supported more than 3,000 survivors.
Separately, California asked in March for about $6.5 million more to sustain the program for its full term. In a September 24 letter, Representatives Judy Chu and Brad Sherman and Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla wrote that FEMA's regional office in Oakland had declined a $6,568,265.60 supplemental request on September 11, citing insufficient cost justification; the program then had 1,288 active cases, and the state has appealed. "FEMA must do the right thing and approve the State of California's appeal for additional supplemental funding to sustain DCMP through the full 24-month timeframe that FEMA itself approved," Chu said in an October 7 statement.
The federal position is that the money it approved has been paid. FEMA says total federal assistance for the Los Angeles disaster has reached $6 billion, including more than $183 million in individual assistance to more than 35,000 households, $3.1 billion in SBA loans and $2.4 billion for debris removal, with more than 2.7 million tons of debris cleared. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the president reviews disaster aid requests more thoroughly than any previous administration and that the decisions involve no politicization.
The San Francisco Inquirer reported on October 24 that it had asked FEMA, the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services and CORE, one of the nonprofits running the program, about the status of the request and what happens after October 31, and that none had responded by publication time.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 2025年1月伊顿大火中被烧毁的 Altadena 民宅与车辆（资料图）。照片：经加州州政府公共记录申请公开，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / A home and vehicle destroyed in the January 2025 Eaton Fire in Altadena (file photo). Photo: released via a California public records request, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- 2026-10-09LA County to Bridge FEMA Disaster Case Management for Eaton and Palisades Survivors, Probes FAIR Plan Claims
- 2026-10-24LA Fire Case Management Program Expires Oct. 31: California's Appeal for More Funds Still Pending, About 1,400 Households Could Lose Case ManagersThis story
