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.


