Home Care In Pacific Palisades, CA

PACIFIC PALISADES, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Six months after a devastating fire, Pacific Palisades is mostly empty lots as families figure out what's next. Some are in different stages of the rebuilding process, some are in limbo with their insurance and others are selling their land.

Everyone's situation is different, but for two neighbors, the Lopes and the Fiksdal's, they just want to get back home.

"The Palisades is home. It's magical. We have the ocean. We have the mountains. We have our community. We have our street. We have our trees and our flowers. And our land is our land regardless of whether there's a house on it right now," said Erika Fiksdal, who lost the home she grew up in and had been living in.

"It's a chapter that we want to finish over here. And we don't just want to leave with things undone. We want to stay here and, again, finish this chapter strong," said Walter Lopes, who also lost his home in the Palisades Fire.

And the Lopes are on their way to doing just that. Four months into rebuilding, the framing is up on their home and they could move in as soon as January 2026. The Fiksdal's however, have a more complicated path to rebuilding.

"There's just not enough money left for a rebuild, with building costs what they are," said Fiksdal. "We had a 2,800-square-foot home and we can't afford to rebuild a 2,800-square-foot home. But, we own the lot and we're not selling. We're not going anywhere. We're definitely getting back there somehow or another."

For 47 years, the Fiksdal's called the palisades home. Erika Fiksdal was raised here along with her two sisters. Her 77-year-old mother planned to live out the rest of her life here. They've applied for a prefab home through Rick Caruso's non-profit Steadfast LA, and if they're not accepted into the program, they'll look at an ADU or a mobile home.

"They have their house going up right next door and it's tough in its own way because it's hard for us to know we're not going to have that... but, we're happy for them," said Fiksdal.

Both families say they aren't concerned about living in a neighborhood where they could be the only residents for months, possibly years. They just want to get back as soon as they can, even though the Palisades currently looks very different.

"I believe this neighborhood will come back stronger. People are going to be even better neighbors. We're going to have an even better community," said Allesandra Lopes, who also lost her home in the fire.

There's no doubt the Palisades will look different, but both families believe it's too special a place to give up on, even though it's not one size fits all.

"So much of the city, of the country, the world, thinks of the people that live in our town as wealthy and certainly that's not the case for so much of the population. Yes, it's changed, brought growth and new families. New energy. All of that's wonderful, but we can't forget about the people like my mom," said Fiksdal.

Someone who doesn't want to start over somewhere else and, hopefully, with some help, won't have to.

Pacific Palisades neighborhoods were closed to the public for months after a January firestorm devastated the community, but since its recent reopening, there have been sightings of a new, disturbing visitor in the neighborhood: disaster tourists. Busloads of them.

“My office and others have received numerous reports about commercial tour operators conducting disaster tours in the Pacific Palisades,” Los Angeles City Councilmember Traci Park said at a council meeting this week. “They’re looking to profit off of destruction and other people’s losses. It’s really gross and it needs to be stopped.”

In a bid to stop the trend from becoming routine whenever disaster strikes the area, the City Council unanimously approved restricting “disaster tourism” buses from the Palisades fire zone and any disaster zone.

On Jan. 7, the Palisades fire tore through Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas, destroying more than 6,000 structures, many of them homes, and leaving 12 people dead. Although officials vowed to have a speedy recovery, the rebuilding process for the worst disaster in the city’s history has been challenging — and slow.

Park said the tour buses were not only unsettling but also potentially distracting and hazardous for crews continuing to work in the area.

“It’s also ... dangerous because we’re still actively clearing fire debris,” she said.

As a result of the vote on Park’s motion, the city’s Department of Transportation will restrict tour buses from any area declared part of a natural disaster emergency, and the ban will last through the duration of the emergency response.

The motion also called on the department to consider permanent tour bus restrictions in certain areas of the Palisades once the emergency expires, given the Palisades’ narrow, winding and steep streets — potentially unsuitable for large buses even before the fire.

What you need to know: The $101 million being made available today will support the development of affordable multifamily rental housing in Los Angeles, prioritizing the needs of displaced residents in the fire-devastated regions.

Los Angeles, California – Six months after the LA Fires, Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) announced the release of $101 million to help rapidly rebuild critically needed, affordable multifamily rental housing in the fire-devastated Los Angeles region. Thousands of families are still displaced by the wildfires that raged through the Greater Los Angeles Region in January 2025, placing an incredible strain on an already tight rental market.

Tomiquia Moss, Secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency: “The State’s special Multifamily Finance Super NOFA will galvanize the collective public-private response to the wildfires in Los Angeles County, expediting and expanding opportunities to build affordable housing for low-income residents. By prioritizing affordable housing projects that are ready to go, these funds will accelerate household stability, climate and health outcomes in communities.”

Today’s funding

HCD’s Multifamily Finance Super NOFA (MFSN) allows affordable housing developers to apply to multiple funding programs through a single application. In February 2025, HCD released a MFSN Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) announcing $382 million available for development of affordable multifamily rental housing statewide. A separate $50 million Tribal MFSN was released in March 2025.

The special MFSN NOFA announced today (MFSN-LA Disaster) provides an additional $101 million in funding to support recovery and rebuilding efforts from 2025 wildfires within Los Angeles County. This MFSN-LA Disaster NOFA has been designed to meet the immediate housing needs of disaster-impacted areas and residents in Los Angeles as quickly as possible by prioritizing projects that are: close to wildfire burn areas; ready to begin construction immediately upon award; and include a resident preference for households displaced by the Los Angeles County wildfires.

HCD Director Gustavo Velasquez: “HCD has taken a program built on efficiency and further refined it specifically to help the Los Angeles region rebuild from unimaginable tragedy. Our team has gone above and beyond to ensure this program is designed to provide housing stability for fire-displaced families as quickly as possible.”

This MFSN-LA Disaster NOFA provides a two-phase award process to accelerate the delivery of affordable housing. If funds remain after all applications for shovel-ready projects have been assessed, applications will continue to be accepted for all eligible projects until the funds are expended.

Funding available through this MFSN-LA Disaster NOFA includes grants for the infrastructure needed to facilitate housing development with a focus on disaster resilience and mitigation, low-interest loans for the development of new multifamily units affordable to low-income and very low-income households, and operating subsidy reserves to support the long-term financial feasibility of the projects. All projects will be required to remain affordable for at least 55 years.

Multifamily Finance Super NOFA (MFSN)

This year marks the third round of MFSN, which provides applicants the opportunity to apply simultaneously for a combination of awards from the Multifamily Housing Program (MHP), Supportive Housing MHP, Infill Infrastructure Grant Program, Transit-Oriented Development Program, and Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program. This is the first MFSN round to offer capitalized operating subsidy reserve funding through MHP to support operations.

MFSN makes funds more accessible to developers (including emerging and community-based developers), enables the funding to further serve the lowest-income Californians, and increases the range of potential applicants and target populations to achieve better outcomes in health, climate, and household stability.

Application materials for MFSN-LA Disaster will be available July 21, 2025. Applicants applying for the first phase of funding must upload all required application documents to the HCD website no later than August 21, 2025, at 4:00 p.m. PDT.

For more information, including webinars and workshops, please visit HCD’s Multifamily Finance Super NOFA webpage.

Historic fire recovery

Today’s announcement builds on Governor Newsom’s broader efforts to cut red tape and expedite the rebuilding of homes and businesses to support disaster survivors.

Yesterday, the governor announced the substantial completion of the public debris removal program from more than 10,000 fire damaged parcels — marking the fastest major disaster cleanup in American history. The Governor also signed an executive order removing more barriers to rebuilding homes and schools. He also joined local officials to unveil a new blueprint for recovery, a step-by-step plan to accelerate rebuilding and provide support to impacted families and communities. The near-completion of the public debris removal program comes months ahead of schedule.

This week, reality TV show star Spencer Pratt posted multiple videos on social media savaging a proposed state bill on wildfire rebuilding. In one, Pratt told his 2 million TikTok followers that he consulted an artificial intelligence engine about Senate Bill 549. He said it told him the legislation would allow L.A. County to buy burned-out lots in Pacific Palisades and convert them to low-income housing, strip away local zoning decisions and push dense reconstruction. He urged people to oppose it.

“I don’t even think this is political,” Pratt said. “This is a common sense post.”

None of what Pratt said is in the bill. But over the last week, such misinformation-fueled furor has overwhelmed the conversation in Los Angeles, at the state Capitol and on social media about wildfire recovery. Posts have preyed on fears of neighborhood change, mistrust of government authorities and prejudice against low-income housing to assert, among other things, that the wildfires were set intentionally to raze the Palisades and replace the community with affordable housing.

The chatter has unmoored debate over a major rebuilding proposal from L.A. County leaders. Under the plan, a new local authority would be able to buy burned lots, rebuild homes and offer them back at discounted rates to the original owners. The idea is to give property owners struggling to rebuild another option to stay in their communities. There are no changes to any rules that require zoning amendments or approvals for individual housing developments.

State Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), the author of SB 549, which creates the local authority, said he understands legitimate policy disagreements over the new powers granted in the bill.

But those discussions have been overshadowed, he said.

“It’s become this total meme among the right-wing blogosphere and, unfortunately, picked up by some lazy-ass journalists that don’t bother to read the bill that say this bill seeks to turn the entire Palisades into low-income housing,” Allen said.

Some of his own friends who lost homes in the Palisades, Allen said, have been texting him asking why he’s trying to force low-income housing into the neighborhood.

“People are saying I want to put a train line in there,” Allen said. “It’s insane.”

The frenzy, in part, is due to an issue of timing. Last month, a 20-member expert commission impaneled by L.A. County proposed the local authority as a key recommendation for rebuilding after January’s Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed 18,000 homes and other properties.

Commission leaders then approached Allen about writing a bill that would allow for its implementation. Allen wanted to do it, but deadlines for introducing new legislation had long passed.

Instead, Allen took SB 549, which had nothing to do with wildfire rebuilding but was still alive in the Legislature, and added the rebuilding authority language to it. This is a common legislative procedure used when putting forward ideas late in the year.

Allen decided as well to keep the original language in the bill, which called for significant spending on low-income housing in an unrelated financing program. Multiple news articles conflated the two portions of the bill, which added to the alarm.

The version of SB 549 with the wildfire rebuilding authority in it had its first hearing in a legislative committee on Wednesday. Allen spent much of the hearing acknowledging the confusion around it.

Misinformation over the rebuilding authority was fueled by a separate announcement California Gov. Gavin Newsom made this month.

State housing officials carved out $101 million from long-planned funding allocations for low-income housing and dedicated it to building new developments in Los Angeles.

The money will be used to subsidize low-income apartment buildings throughout the county with priority given to projects proposed in and around burn zones, that are willing to reserve a portion to fire survivors and are close to breaking ground.

The fires exacerbated the region’s housing crisis. Higher rents persist in nearby neighborhoods and low-income residents continue to struggle. Newsom cast the announcement as assisting them in regaining their footing.

“Thousands of families — from Pacific Palisades to Altadena to Malibu — are still displaced and we owe it to them to help,” Newsom said when unveiling the spending.

Like the proposed rebuilding authority, the funding does not change any zoning or other land-use rules. Any developer who receives the dollars would need separate governmental approval to begin construction.

Nevertheless, social media posters took the new money and the proposed new authority and saw a conspiracy.

“Burn it. Buy it. Rebuild it how they want,” said a July 15 post from X user @HustleBitch_, who has nearly 124,000 followers. “Still think this wasn’t planned?

Newsom called the situation another example of “opportunists exploit[ing] this tragedy to stoke fear — and pit communities against each other.”

“Let’s be clear: The state is not taking away anyone’s property, instituting some sort of mass rezoning or destroying the quality and character of destroyed neighborhoods. Period,” Newsom said in a statement to The Times. “Anyone claiming otherwise is either misinformed or deliberately lying. That’s not just wrong — it’s disgraceful.”

Not all of the debate about the rebuilding authority is based on false information.

Allen and local leaders acknowledged the need for more consensus over its role, especially given the sensitivities around recovery. Still unresolved were the authority’s governing structure, and whether it would encompass the Palisades or be limited to Altadena and other unincorporated areas.

Pratt lost his Palisades home in the fire and has sued the city, alleging it failed to maintain an adequate water supply and other infrastructure. In social media videos this week, Pratt said he and other residents didn’t trust the county with increased power over rebuilding when he believed leaders failed to protect the neighborhood in the first place.

“We’re a fire-stricken community, not a policy sandbox,” Pratt said. “We do not support the county becoming a dominant landowner in the Palisades.”

Representatives for Pratt could not be reached for comment.

By the end of Wednesday, Allen conceded defeat on SB 549. There were many legitimate hurdles to the bill passing before the Legislature adjourns in mid-September, he said. Notably, a representative for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the legislative committee that she was opposed to the bill because the city had yet to be convinced of its efficacy.

But the misinformation surrounding the bill made it even harder to envision its success, he said. Allen decided to hold the bill and have it reconsidered when the Legislature convenes again in January.

“If we’re going to do this, I want the time to do it right,” he said.

A controversial Senate bill that could bring more affordable housing to Pacific Palisades has been put on pause.

State Senator Ben Allen sent out a written statement on Wednesday evening addressing the issue.

"I appreciate the input of the folks who have weighed in about the bill, and along with legislative colleagues have decided that it would be best for us to pause the bill until next year to give us more time to see if we can get it right," said Sen. Allen. "For me to feel comfortable proceeding, the bill will have to be deeply grounded in community input, empowerment, and decision-making, including the support of the impacted councilmembers."

The controversial Senate Bill 549 was approved by the California Senate. However, many people in Pacific Palisades have been strongly voicing their concerns.

"It does sound quite a bit like Big Brother deciding what’s good for all of us," said Aileen Haugh, a resident. "It’s irritating to think that other people [not local residents] are going to make decisions of what gets built and how it gets built."

In its most simply described meaning, SB 549 would allow Los Angeles County to make a so-called "Resilient Rebuilding Authority." The group would target housing shortages and issues with rebuilding from the Palisades Fire. It would also buy fire-destroyed lots and rebuild a percentage of them for low-income housing units.

"We had some low-income housing, and we had affordable housing," said Jessica Rogers. "We want what we had on January 7 [the day of the Palisades Fire]. Nothing more, nothing less."

Rogers is president of the Pacific Palisades Residents’ Association. When she heard about the new possible law, Rogers wrote a letter voicing opposition to lawmakers. In less than a week, more than 23,000 locals have signed along with the resistance.

"[Lawmakers are] asking for a land grab," said Rogers. "This is a rebuild, this is not a politicians get to decide a pet project on what they’re going to decide in the Palisades. This is residents of this community get to decide what happens in our rebuild phase, period."

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sent a letter to State Senator Allen expressing her opposition to SB 549. Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted Wednesday that, "The claim that the Governor wants to bulldoze fire victims’ neighborhoods and replace them with ‘affordable housing’ is absurd…"

While the bill is now paused until 2026, many residents are still watching it closely.

"Other than bringing us safety, and fire safety, we don’t want anything else," said Rogers. "Give us our homes back and protect us from fire."