Friday, September 25, 2026

Pasadena Congresswoman Presses FEMA to Reverse Denial for Fire Survivors’ Case Management

[photo credit: Judy Chu]

The Disaster Case Management Program serves survivors of the January 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires. Chu, Rep. Brad Sherman and Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla wrote to FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton on Sept. 24. They asked the agency to grant California’s appeal, release money it has already approved and, answer their questions by Sept. 28. 

The program is FEMA-funded and provides case management to survivors with unmet disaster-related needs, according to FEMA. 

Case managers help survivors with insurance, FEMA or Small Business Administration issues, financing, floor plans and contractors, according to Los Angeles County. The program is administered by the state Department of Social Services and delivered by Catholic Charities of California, CORE, the Little Tokyo Service Center and Jewish Family Services LA. 

FEMA approved the program to run for 24 months on May 5, 2025, the lawmakers wrote. 

Of about $13 million FEMA approved, one installment of about $3 million has been released, and the other three remain under FEMA review, according to the letter. 

On Sept. 11, FEMA’s Region 9 denied California’s request for an additional $6,568,265.60, and the state Office of Emergency Services has appealed, the lawmakers said. 

In denying the request, FEMA said the state had not shown sufficient cost justification for money beyond the original award, according to the letter. The lawmakers also wrote that FEMA attributed the installment delays in part to prioritizing non-disaster grants whose deadlines could have “placed funding at risk.” 

The lawmakers disputed that reasoning. 

“The State’s supplemental funding request is not an effort to unnecessarily expand DCMP,” they wrote, saying it reflects the cost of continuing services through the period FEMA already approved. 

“FEMA approved this program because survivors needed sustained case management throughout a long and difficult recovery. Yet FEMA’s own funding delays still threaten to force the program to shut down months before the end of that approved period,” they wrote. 

Program providers report more than 3,000 survivors served, 1,288 active cases and 84 survivors on an immediate waitlist, according to the letter. The lawmakers wrote that 1,023 of the active cases are at the highest complexity levels and that a broader provider database shows 7,000 more survivors awaiting a case manager. In an earlier letter, they said more than 1,000 active cases involved Eaton Fire survivors. 

The lawmakers also pointed to FEMA rental assistance for Los Angeles wildfire survivors, which is scheduled to expire Oct. 9. As of Sept. 17, 801 households were receiving it, including 623 renter households, and 329 applications were pending, they wrote. 

“Allowing DCMP to terminate in tandem with this separate housing assistance cliff, risks leaving survivors without trained case managers precisely when many may need additional help navigating housing challenges and other unmet recovery needs,” the lawmakers wrote. 

The Sept. 24 letter follows one the four sent Sept. 10, which cited the state Department of Social Services in saying the program would end Sept. 30 for lack of FEMA funding. In that letter, the lawmakers said California had initially requested about $26 million, that referrals had helped survivors obtain more than $100 million in direct assistance, and that about 109 staff positions would be eliminated, all according to providers. They asked for a response by Sept. 18; on Sept. 24, they wrote that 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. 

Their five questions include what documentation FEMA needs to approve the request and when it will release the remaining installments. They asked for answers by Sept. 28, two days before the program is set to end.