"As local and state leaders celebrate the fastest wildfire debris removal in modern American history, the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates - a rent-controlled, 170-unit enclave off Pacific Coast Highway - remains largely untouched since it burned down in January. Weeds grow through cracks in the broken pavement. A community pool is filled with a murky, green liquid. There's row after row of mangled, rusting metal remains of former homes."
"Both mobile home parks requested federal cleanup services, records obtained from the corps show. And both Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles lobbied the agency to include the properties in its mission. In a May letter approving the corps' cleanup of the Tahitian, FEMA noted that the property, riddled with asbestos and perched above the busy Pacific Coast Highway, was a public health hazard and that the owners, with limited insurance money, probably would struggle to pay for the cleanup."
Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates, a 170-unit rent-controlled park, burned in January and remains largely untouched, with overgrown weeds, a murky pool, and rusting debris. Nearby Tahitian Terrace, by contrast, has been cleared by the U.S. Army Corps under FEMA-directed cleanup, leaving empty lots. Both parks requested federal cleanup and both Los Angeles County and the city lobbied for inclusion. FEMA prioritized assistance to local residents over properties owned by real estate companies and judged that Tahitian's owners lacked funds and posed a public health hazard. FEMA excluded Palisades Bowl because it assessed those owners as more likely to rebuild, leaving affordable housing losses unresolved.
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