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Where Did $100 Million in LA Fire Relief Money Go?
Congregants look through the remains of Community United Methodist Church, which was destroyed by the Palisades Fire on January 10, 2025 in Pacific Palisades, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Some Southern California residents say there are few signs of the ‘direct relief’ promised by FireAid.
By Madeleine Rowley
07.24.25 — California
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Quentin Fleming was one of the thousands of people who lost their homes in the wildfires that ravaged Southern California in January. He received $750 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a few thousand dollars from the Red Cross, and assistance in finding a rental home from an insurance company. He has lived there ever since then.

But there have been few signs of help, either for Fleming or his neighbors in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, from the highly publicized “FireAid” benefit concert, which raised $100 million for what organizers said would be “direct relief” to victims and communities.

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Madeleine Rowley
Madeleine Rowley is a former investigative reporter at The Free Press. She is a 2023-2024 Manhattan Institute Logos Fellow with previous bylines in The Free Press, City Journal, and Public. As a U.S. Army spouse for almost a decade, she's lived in six states and spent two years in Jerusalem, Israel. She currently resides on the East Coast with her husband and daughter.
Tags:
Cities
Los Angeles
City on Fire
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