ALTADENA Is NOT FOR SALE!

We, the undersigned, are residents of the neighborhoods devastated by the recent Los Angeles wildfires, and other concerned persons, who are urgently calling on the city, state, and federal governments to ensure that those who have been displaced can secure compensation for their lost homes and personal items and are at the center of rebuilding efforts.

Relief and reconstruction must be people-led and put human needs over profit. Already, the corporate vultures are circling Los Angeles. They see this fire, and the rebuilding effort, as an opportunity to remake the city to serve their interests. We will fight back.

If our community members are not given the relief they need now, many families will be set back generations, forced to leave the city they call home or even be forced to live on the streets. Many are full-time caretakers of children, elderly families and others with disabilities. It is unconscionable that survivors of these fires would now be doubly victimized by their own government. The resources do exist with the federal, state, and city governments to provide relief so we can survive. If the federal government can find limitless resources for bank bailouts and wars abroad, they can find them for an emergency like this.

We are calling on the city, state, and federal government to use their resources to ensure the following demands are met:

1. Free and suitable housing: open up vacant hotels and residences to fire victims

• Thousands of luxury apartment units and homes sit empty across LA, kept vacant so that development companies can ensure maximized profits in a city experiencing some of the worst housing and homelessness crises in the country. Fire victims and evacuees must be provided with free housing and utilities in these vacant residencies as they recover.

2. Full compensation now: guaranteed by the federal government and funded through a heavy surcharge tax on Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, PG & E, SoCal Edison and other energy companies

• Entire livelihoods have been destroyed from wildfire destruction. State officials have enacted measures that are not only insufficient to meet the scale of the loss but they are coming too late. Fire victims must receive full compensation to the fullest extent possible from the State for all their losses, to rebuild neighborhoods, recover from job and wage loss, and treat long-term health risks from smoke and debris inhalation.

3. Cancel rents and mortgages: stop all payments for residents in evacuation zones

• As residents face uncertainty and monitor ongoing evacuation orders that change daily, rental, mortgage, and utility payments are the last thing they should be worrying about. All payments must be halted and cancelled for all units with evacuation orders received.

4. Stop the price gouging: protect LA renters from soaring rents

• LA rental housing markets have sharply increased as tens of thousands of residents are experiencing displacement due to the wildfires. Rental costs near affected areas soared by thousands of dollars as landlords and corporations take advantage of disaster capitalism to turn a profit off of our suffering.

5. Fight the fire, not the people: stop the criminalization of Angelenos

• Governor Newsom called in the National Guard to help law enforcement catch and arrest “looters” as Los Angeles fire personnel publicly critiqued the vastly inadequate budget allocated to local emergency services. While incarcerated California prisoners are forced to fight wildfires and endure extremely hazardous conditions, law enforcement continues to criminalize poor and working people instead of diverting critical resources towards fire response and community aid. Stop insurance scams and prosecute the real looters: the corporate executives who make millions off of defrauding working-class Americans through insurance policy.

6. Resist disaster capitalism: rebuild LA by putting people over profits, not through greedy corporate redevelopment

• Corporations and private actors such as insurance and development companies exploit and leech off of disasters to line their pockets with profit. We resist the encroachment of corporate redevelopment threatening burned-down neighborhoods, and we must fight to firmly place the power to rebuild in the hands of the people who have been in the frontlines providing grassroots leadership and aid to their fellow community members during this crisis.