Gov. Newsom Directs $101 Million for Low-Income Housing to Replace Pacific Palisades Mansions
Meanwhile, only 800 permits have been issued after over 18,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in the Greater LA Wildfires. And finding a construction workforce may be challenging, given CA’s treatment of the middle class.
The recovery of the Greater Los Angeles area is going more slowly and more painfully than I imagined.
And while I had an idea that the recovery of the area from the wildfires of 2025 was going to be slow, I had not anticipated that the pace was going to be absolutely glacial.
As I have noted, over 18,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in the regional conflagration. As of now, reports indicate only 800 permits related to reconstruction have been issued.
More than 800 homeowners in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas affected by January’s wildfires have applied for rebuilding permits, according to a Times analysis of local government permitting data.
Of those, at least 145 have received approval to start construction on major repairs or replacement of their homes in the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu and Pasadena and in Altadena and other unincorporated areas of L.A. County, the analysis found.
At events this week commemorating the fires’ six-month mark, state and local leaders have celebrated the pace of cleanup efforts, touting their completion months ahead of schedule. Nearly 13,000 households were displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires, which ripped through the communities Jan. 7 and 8.
“Now we turn the page to rebuilding, and we’re doing it with a clear plan, strong partnerships and the urgency this moment demands,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
During the disaster, Governor Gavin Newsom gave a disturbing interview in which he seemed gleeful about rebuilding by developers.
January: Gavin Newsom does his weird shoulder shimmy dance while talking about developers buying up all the property devastated by the California wildfires
March: Land Grab https://t.co/QKvkxhXKEM pic.twitter.com/f8PWF4LzDH
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) March 4, 2025
Seven months later, the reason is clear. Newsom has announced the allocation of $101 million for the building of low-income housing in Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and Malibu.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is releasing the funding through an existing program with the goal of “expediting and expanding opportunities to build affordable housing for low-income residents,” according to Tomiquia Moss, secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency.
“Los Angeles has taken significant steps to rebuild after January’s fires, but the devastation is significant and there remains a long road ahead. Thousands of families – from Pacific Palisades to Altadena to Malibu – are still displaced and we owe it to them to help,” Newsom said in a statement Tuesday.
“The funding we’re announcing today will accelerate the development of affordable multifamily rental housing so that those rebuilding their lives after this tragedy have access to a safe, affordable place to come home to,” he added.
Pretty sure that was the plan.
— WindTalker (@nmlinguaphile) July 10, 2025
I have recently been reflecting on another challenge contributing to this problem. And, like the conditions that contributed to the wildfire, this problem was brought on by California’s loathsome politicians.
California’s construction industry, comprised mainly of middle-class American workers, has fled the state. The exodus has been driven by a combination of high taxes, rising living costs, and a complex regulatory environment hindering the initiation of building projects.
But if you’re not rich, and you’re not poor, but just work, pay taxes, and pay for everything you need with after-tax earnings and without government assistance, California is a hostile environment. The numbers on out-migration are unequivocal. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an astonishing 8.5 million people have moved out of California since 2010. In 2023 alone, the last full year for which estimates are available, 690,000 people left. In 2022, 818,000; 2021, 841,000. No other state has sustained anywhere near this 15 years of unrelenting mass exodus.
As a result, illegal immigrants have found lucrative work in the construction industry. One report indicates over 28% of construction workers are not here legally.
Almost half of California’s agricultural workforce (46%) is undocumented, the report found — but corporate and family farming are only a couple of the industries deeply dependent upon such labor. In Los Angeles County, 28.7% of the construction workforce is undocumented, along with 17.5% in manufacturing, 16% in wholesale trade and more than 15% in retail trade.
While the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids may open slots for Americans, many are now enjoying steady work in other parts of the country.
In a nutshell, Newsom, Bass, and their cronies slowed the recovery even before the first blaze ignited.
Stay tuned for even more California fail, as this sad saga continues.
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Comments
I love it!!
called it when it happened and sure enough
lefty being lefty
until americas weakness >>gop is fully exposed
lefty will keep winning
Someone is making a lot of money off of this and the politicians are going to reap a bonanza from the contributions. May be perfectly legal but definitely immoral.
so why were so few permits issued?
the owners didnt want to rebuild
ORRRR
the government shuffle
so that the newsom palm greasers could make THEIR way into the system
Shit like this is circumstantial evidence of what conspiracy theorists have claimed about the origins of these fires
Put it in the stack
They could put up some housing where former residents could live locally while re-building, and only then make them more affordable. But, of course, the people in charge, starting with Greasy Gavin, are too incompetent to find practical solutions. They are good at making things worse, however.
Newsom may think he’s doing things right, but more exposure will have a negative effect, especially the new improved angry man. The guy should be on Broadway. He is best at performing. His fakery will be legend, like so many before him, and one can wonder if he will even make it past the quarter pole.
Politically connected “non-profit” housing developers get their plans for high density housing units advanced to the front of the waiting line for approval? Private home owners get their plans lost in the office behind the filing cabinet?
Fast forward five years from now, property owners will still be renting apartment far away, while low income housing projects are going up all around their former neighborhood where they used to live.
CA under dem super majority, one party rule. Elections have consequences.
Relocate or remain and enjoy the decline.
1) The “dependent” class is not the illegals but everyone else. They can shut down commerce as if a union… thought there The narcotic of cheap labor.
2) ICE eliminating the gray economy could also bring LA to its knees. Socialism going cold turkey. The former continues the march to communism, the latter to integrity of the country. This weekend was the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Now LA is stormed by Bass-Steal.
that gray economy was the (mostly) sole domain of the blm crowd
and thats why they were most upset when those brown guys came in and stole it
then when the fjb era actually redirected gov funds to the brown guys???
omg…blck people opted for trump to stop that inflow of migrants
and outflow of “their” money that was now going to them
“Emperor Nero is often blamed for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, but historical evidence suggests he was not responsible for starting the fire. Instead, he was away from the city when it began and returned to lead relief efforts, although he did exploit the disaster to rebuild parts of the city according to his vision.”
Sounds familiar.
Unpopular opinion:
These fires if not outwardly deliberate in their origin are absolutely deliberate in the response of public officials – don’t let a crisis go to waste.
I do feel badly for those killed and displaced – they certainly never saw this coming – but just as the case with any communist takeover (and make no mistake that those in charge are aligned with Marx/Engles and not Smith) those that support the revolution are always the first to the gulags, etc when the utopia arrives.
IMO, the key lesson here is get out of places where one party rule and Cray Cray public policies are administered by an unaccountable bureaucracy with an incompetent political class making things worse. Don’t wait, don’t delay. Don’t be like the guy who owned a $9.5 million property and wouldn’t lower his price to get out. Doing that cost this guy 2/3 of the purported value in the aftermath. All you can control is what you have direct influence over. If you believe a similar ‘opportunity’ was presented to your own one party, Local and State Political class and they might use it to transform your neighborhood ….why stick around and find out when it will be far too late?
As I first thought, all this is a land grab. It makes no sense to build low income housing on expensive real estate as the whole character of those neighborhoods will change with a consequent lowering of property values and tax revenue. All part of the eventual replacement of traditional Americans of European ancestry with people from Third World. A big piece of the middle class has already left California. I’m one of them. My expenses in Texas are way lower, for everything, and no state income tax.
I know people from one of the fire ravaged areas. Nice Jewish Berkeley liberals who have no clue as what’s going to happen to them. The same process is underway in Europe, especially in the UK and Germany. I regularly read the Daily Skeptic to see what’s going on in Britain. The latest: do away with trial by jury. A dead island. I won’t set foot in the place. But what’s happening there could be our future. It might take a civil war to stop it.
thanks
thanks for the daily skeptic site
when researching the site via the dominate lefty pov
the site has /is proving to be a real pain in the side of lefty
as even leftys attempt to discredit the site backfires like an old buick running on the wrong fuel
So replace high income earners/tax payers with low income/low tax payers?
Turning nice places to live into ghettos is always the sh*tlib “solution” for community development. It is also one of the keys to lining their own pockets, so they can afford to live in gated communities far away from those they ruin.
“Slum” is a four letter word the “progress”ives love to say under their breath.
.
Also, under their breaths and when the mask are removed, the words are n1663r, sp1ck, g00ner…
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
while they scream racism when whites either move in to fix the places
or run in fear for their lives
and yet the continued capitulation to the lefty agenda
70% residents of pacific palisades voted dem last election cycle.
How is that working out?
yeah but those people can set up camp somewheres else and make that the newest $$$ enclave
and the middle class near the former enclave turn into bigger usa sh tholes
that the middle class has to pay for
I remember in my youth, pretty much all my friends and I lusted after moving to California. Now, no one I know or my kids know want to live there. One of my sons-in-law owned and ran a company that was one of the leaders in the actual work of keeping the container shipping industry going in SF Bay. The taxes , regulations, and interference reached the point where they moved the company [and the jobs] to another state’s port city that did container shipping and prospered.
IF you are an entrepreneur, if you want to live a decent and legal lifestyle without having to fight the government at all levels from the Governor on down; move yourself, your family, your business and assets out of California to a state that is part of America. And realize that in the process of doing so you will probably lose some family, friends, and assets. but it will be worth it.
Subotai Bahadur
$101 million? So 10 units.
I’m a bit baffled how the authorities can tell you what you an do with YOUR land after a natural disaster destroyed the use to which it had been put for 50-100 years. That’s absolutely a taking.
You still need a permit and to get all the other hoops jumped through before you can build like clean up certification for hazardous materials. Any grandfathered exceptions to building code for the old home would be lost. So if your now destroyed home was only 20 feet set back from road and the new code demands 40 feet then you gotta comply. Same for materials, fixtures, secondary structures, insulation, ventilation for bathrooms… all sorts of things updated and incorporated into code over the decades. IOW you can’t build the same home with same materials as an exact replacement/replica b/c it won’t be code compliant in 2025 if it was built in 1950.