The Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies

The January 2025 Eaton and Palisades wildfires destroyed or damaged nearly 18,000 structures across Los Angeles County, displacing thousands of households and exacerbating an already severe affordable housing crisis. This report, prepared for the Los Angeles County Development Authority (LACDA) as a UCLA Master in Public Policy Applied Policy Project, examines the housing recovery challenges facing low-income and informally housed renters displaced by the fires and evaluates policy options to strengthen LACDA's disaster housing response.Using a mixed-methods approach — including survey data analysis from over 2,300 affected residents, geospatial analysis of parcel-level fire damage, rental market analysis, legal and policy document review, stakeholder interviews, and comparative case studies — the report documents that renters faced substantially worse recovery outcomes than homeowners. An estimated 1,770 to 6,280 informally housed residents were displaced, and post-fire rents across the County increased by roughly 20%, with some neighborhoods experiencing spikes of up to 130%. The fires destroyed an estimated 4,555 renter-occupied units in areas with virtually no government-subsidized affordable housing.Seven policy options were evaluated using a Criteria Alternatives Matrix scored across five criteria — economic feasibility, administrative feasibility, socio-political feasibility, effectiveness, and time efficiency — validated through Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis. The report recommends a sequenced suite of actions: near-term improvements to disaster relief program navigation and a standardized self-attestation template for informally housed FEMA applicants; longer-term investments in affordable housing development and land acquisition in fire-impacted zones; and structural reforms including expanded disaster case management, formal measurement of the informally housed population, and a standing county disaster housing task force.