Palisades Fire victims say governments must do more to help

Today, nearly 1,000 homes are currently in the permitting or construction pipeline, and completed builds will soon make progress much more visible. Still, Maryam Zar, president of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, said residents are struggling.

“People don't have enough money to build," Zar told The Center Square.

In addition to insurance disputes, Zar said there are rising material costs. Even if someone has the money to rebuild, the property owner still faces an uphill battle in finding a contractor.

Homeowners are not the only ones with difficulties.

Zar, who is also CEO of the Malibu Pacific Palisades (PaliBu) Chamber of Commerce, said many businesses were generations-old. She noted there just isn't enough money or will to bring back a one-story commercial property. That, she said, does not pencil out.

"The broader, second pillar of the problem is that government, local leadership has not stepped up,” said Zar. “I've been dancing around this topic for a while, because there's really no artful way to say there's been no leadership at the helm."

This is an election year. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is seeking her second term, but Zar said the mayor has “just checked out.”

The Center Square reached out to Bass for comment, but did not hear back by publication time.

This week, Bass and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger sent letter to congressional leadership, the Los Angeles County congressional delegation, and the chairs of U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees asking for “critical federal investment” to support the long-term recovery from the Palisades and Eaton fires.

“We will not stop until every family has returned home and every business has reopened its doors,” said Bass in a news release. “The scale of this recovery requires continued assistance from every level of government to rebuild our communities and the critical infrastructure that supports them.”

Even so, Zar said Pacific Palisades lacks what many large-scale disasters have benefited from: a dedicated recovery authority or recovery district with the ability to coordinate agencies, align infrastructure investments, prioritize projects and remove bottlenecks across the entire rebuilding ecosystem.

"Today, recovery is largely being carried out by thousands of individual homeowners, each trying to navigate an extraordinary process,” said Zar. “Right now, individual homeowners are trying to solve those challenges one property at a time, rather than through a coordinated recovery effort."

Zar said the issue isn't receiving enough attention by the media. She noted that even peak media attention missed the mark by leaning into narratives instead of real recovery issues. “Even when we were getting a lot of news stories, they weren't really covering the right stuff."

If news coverage picks up, Zar said that does not mean success.

"The measure of success isn't where we are 18 months after the fire,” said Zar. “It’s whether we’ve created the conditions for thousands of families to return over the next several years."