California pours $369M in wildfire recovery funds into low-income housing but reserves none for fire victims

California funneled nearly $369 million in federal aid intended for victims of its deadliest wildfire year to low-income housing developers — without requiring them to house a single wildfire survivor, a California Post investigation found.The staggering sum was awarded to developers while thousands of Californians struggled to rebuild their lives after the devastating 2018 fires, which killed 103 people and damaged or destroyed more than 24,000 structures.Among them is motivational speaker and comedian, Mickey Schechter, 62, who lost his Cornell home and $60,000 in plumbing tools when the Woolsey Fire tore through the Santa Monica Mountains, destroying 37 homes in his community.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story Nearly eight years later, he is still living in a cramped, 350-square-foot guesthouse that survived the blaze, unable to afford the estimated $2 million it would now cost to rebuild his home.Schechter was furious when told where a large chunk of the federal cash had gone.“That’s our money.We’re the ones that suffer for it.

Give us our damn money.That’s bulls—t.

I’m pissed,” Schechter told the California Post.“Now I wanna know how can I possibly get money from that grant?” he said.“That’s not your money.That’s our money.”The federal government allocated more than $1 billion to California to help communities recover from the 2018 wildfires, including the Camp Fire that killed 85 people in Paradise and the Woolsey Fire that devastated communities north of Los Angeles.The Woolsey Fire killed three people, destroyed 1,643 structures and caused more than $6 billion in damage.The $1,017,399,000 allocation from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was intended to cover recovery costs not paid by insurance or oth...