The Disaster Case Management Program pairs survivors of the January 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires with case managers who help with insurance, FEMA and Small Business Administration issues, financing and rebuilding, according to Los Angeles County.
If the program ends Wednesday, Sept. 30, about 109 staff positions will be eliminated and more than 1,500 survivors will lose their case manager, the Eaton Fire Collaborative said in a press release.
More than 1,000 of the program’s active cases involve Eaton Fire survivors, four California members of Congress wrote Sept. 10, citing program providers.
The California Department of Social Services has said the program will be forced to end Sept. 30 because FEMA has not provided enough funding, according to that letter.
California first requested about $26 million to run the program, and FEMA approved about $13 million but has paid about $3 million, the lawmakers wrote, citing providers.
In a Sept. 24 follow-up, they wrote that one installment of about $3 million had been released and the other three remained under FEMA review. FEMA approved the program on May 5, 2025, to run for 24 months, they wrote.
On Sept. 11, FEMA’s Region 9 denied California’s request for an additional $6,568,265.60, and the state has appealed, according to the Sept. 24 letter. FEMA’s denial said the state had not provided sufficient cost justification for money beyond the original award, the lawmakers wrote. FEMA also attributed the installment delays in part to prioritizing non-disaster grants whose deadlines could have “placed funding at risk,” according to the letter.
Reps. Judy Chu and Brad Sherman and Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla sent that letter to FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton, urging the agency to grant the appeal, release the remaining installments and prevent an interruption in services.
“The State’s supplemental funding request is not an effort to unnecessarily expand DCMP,” they wrote.
Their Sept. 10 letter had asked for a response by Sept. 18, and the Sept. 24 letter said none had come.
“It would be unacceptable for that program to collapse prematurely not because the need has disappeared, but because FEMA has failed to release already-approved funding and denied the additional resources necessary to keep it operating,” the lawmakers wrote.
As of Sept. 25, Chu’s office reported that FEMA had not responded to its inquiries and had given no payment date, the collaborative said. In a Sept. 12 television interview, Chu said FEMA’s regional leadership had indicated it intends to release the $10 million but that other cases were ahead of it, according to the release. “Our communities’ survival is not up for debate,” Chu said, according to the collaborative.
“It’s been eighteen days since we asked FEMA to keep its word, and we still don’t have a payment date,” said Bree Jensen, public information officer for the collaborative, which is based on West Woodbury Road in Altadena.
Program providers reported 1,397 open cases and about 700 more survivors on a waitlist, the lawmakers wrote Sept. 10. The collaborative said those cases would shift to community organizations that are already overextended, and that survivors risk losing housing, loan assistance and rebuilding resources. The Sept. 24 letter cited different provider figures: more than 3,000 survivors served, 1,288 active cases and 84 survivors on an immediate waitlist, with 1,023 cases at the highest complexity levels. A broader provider database indicates 7,000 more survivors awaiting a case manager, the lawmakers wrote.
Since January 2025, program referrals have helped survivors access more than $100 million in direct assistance, providers reported, according to the Sept. 10 letter. The services matter especially to older adults, people with disabilities and people with limited English proficiency, the lawmakers wrote. Two in three survivors remain displaced, including 85% of those who lost their homes entirely, the collaborative said.
FEMA rental assistance for Los Angeles wildfire survivors is scheduled to expire Oct. 9, the lawmakers wrote. As of Sept. 17, 801 households were receiving it, including 623 renter households, with 329 applications pending, according to the letter.
The program was established under the federal disaster declaration for the January 2025 fires, DR-4856, and is administered by the state Department of Social Services, the collaborative said. Catholic Charities of California, CORE, the Little Tokyo Service Center and Jewish Family Services LA deliver it, working with Los Angeles County’s long-term recovery groups, according to the collaborative.
The collaborative is asking Hamilton and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the remaining $10 million and reverse the denial of supplemental funding. The lawmakers asked FEMA to answer their questions by Monday, Sept. 28, two days before the scheduled end.
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