ALTADENA, Calif. (AP) — Throughout the arduous process to rebuild the Altadena home where she lived for nearly 50 years, Mary Landau has sometimes felt like giving up. Much of what has sustained her is the encouragement she receives from her disaster case manager.
“She said, ‘You can do this,’” said Landau, a 78-year-old retired teacher who enjoys studying Altadena history and cannot imagine living anywhere else, even after the Eaton Fire destroyed
her house. “She gave me hope and strength.”
Landau meets weekly with Veda Ashby Romero, a trained recovery expert who helps her navigate insurance, complete online forms and qualify for financial assistance.
Now Landau is one of roughly 1,400 households affected by the 2025 Los Angeles fires who are set to lose their disaster case managers by the end of October, as a standoff between California and the Federal Emergency Management Agency over the program's funding drags on.
The news has rattled Landau. “The safety net has been pulled out from under me, and the hope is not as strong as it was,” she said.
The program’s early termination is the latest setback for LA communities in the middle of recovery and awaiting billions of additional federal dollars. It also highlights how some disaster-impacted communities still face issues like delayed FEMA payments and inconsistent communication, despite President Donald Trump's administration pledging to streamline processes after long criticizing the agency’s bureaucracy.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment but has previously touted the assistance it has provided for the program. The White House says California has mismanaged the crisis.
Landau kept her insurance policy up to date for the 1938 two-bedroom, one-bathroom ranch home where she raised her three children and tended a wildflower garden. She still faced a shortfall of at least $200,000 to rebuild the modest home and owed $225,000 on her mortgage.
Ashby Romero supports her through the insurance process — a tedious one that has involved multiple adjusters and required creating an inventory of the half-century’s worth of possessions she lost. She also found Landau a grant to cover a year’s worth of mortgage payments. “I would never have gotten it without her,” Landau said. “I’m very bad with paperwork.”
Trained disaster case managers help people find rental assistance, new employment and money to close the gap between what insurance pays and the actual cost to rebuild. They guide survivors on how to avoid scams, challenge insurance payouts and appeal FEMA decisions.
“The recovery process is very complicated, and a lot of the systems are not designed to make it easy for people,” said Matt Gsell, disaster recovery manager at CORE, the nonprofit managing Landau’s case and one of five participating in LA’s case management program.
After the January 2025 fires, California requested $28 million for case management. FEMA instead awarded $13.2 million for 24 months, to be paid in four equal installments.
FEMA can fund disaster case management for presidentially declared major disasters. The money is reimbursed to the state, which usually contracts with one or more nonprofits to administer the program. In the case of an exceptional disaster, states can request extensions for up to 36 months.
By August, FEMA had made only one of the four payments, leaving the state to front the rest despite “numerous requests” for reimbursement, according to the California Department of Social Services.
FEMA also had not answered a March request for an additional $6.5 million to sustain the program the full 24 months, in light of high demand. Seven hundred households remain on a waitlist for services.
California then announced it could no longer float the costs and would shutter the program at the end of October. FEMA eventually reimbursed the outstanding payments but did not give an answer about the additional money.
Rep. Judy Chu, a Democrat whose district includes Altadena, told The Associated Press that FEMA also had not responded to questions from her office about the additional money. Failing to fund the program the full 24 months "risks abandoning survivors,” Chu said, adding that FEMA should also be prepared to extend the program for longer if needs persist.
With the projected end date looming, nonprofits are triaging open cases and trying to move as many as possible to other organizations that can continue the work using philanthropic dollars.
But there won't be enough resources to keep everyone in case management.
“They are overloaded,” said Bree Jensen, spokesperson for the Eaton Fire Collaborative and an Eaton Fire survivor. “You can’t put everything onto the local nonprofits.”
The uncertainty is destabilizing, as more than 100 case managers stand to lose their jobs and must weigh whether to seek new work now or wait for answers, Jensen said.
“We can’t go month to month,” said Gsell. CORE has already closed some of its less severe cases and is trying to transfer 200 of its 450 clients to other nonprofits.
The case management program is just a small part of the federal support California has requested to recover from fires that destroyed more than 16,000 structures.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, asked Trump, a Republican, and Congress for $15.7 billion, pared down from an earlier request of $33 billion, much of which would go toward rebuilding housing. Trump has not sent the Republican-controlled Congress a supplemental disaster request for the LA fires.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said the Trump administration has obligated billions of dollars for LA's recovery.
Landau is waiting for construction to begin on her new home. She is still wrangling with insurance and a bank to receive her final payment. She and her children lean on each other for support, she said, but pressing on won't be the same without Ashby Romero.
“To meet with somebody who cares about you, wants to see that you land on your feet in a good situation," she said, ”it was so important."
