Eaton fire survivors urged a key state agency on Thursday to set aside more than $2 billion in the state’s wildfire fund to cushion against what they said is a looming crisis, as many face losing housing coverage in the coming months.
Leaders from the Eaton Fire Survivors Network called on the California Catastrophe Response Council, which runs the California Wildfire Fund, to urge Southern California Edison’s parent company, Edison International, to set aside $2.4 billion and provide immediate housing assistance to fire victims.
“We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for Edison to use its existing credit lines to front up to $200,000 per household in urgent housing relief now and be reimbursed later through the wildfire fund,” said Joy Chen, executive director of the survivors network. “It’s a simple cash flow solution that would stabilize thousands of families and finally jumpstart recovery.”
The ask from the survivors network – a grassroots coalition of 8,500 Eaton fire victims – came a day after Edison launched its Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program, designed as an alternative to what could be lengthy litigation.
The Rosemead-based utility’s plan compensates residents impacted by the fire. But the proposed settlement doesn’t include enough for housing costs and will not come in time to save survivors from falling into homelessness, advocates say. According to Chen, about 12,000 households were affected by the fire, with 6,000 suffering total loss and another 6,000 smoke damage.
But by Friday, Edison officials said they were squarely focused on the compensation plan.
SCE spokesperson Scott Johnson said the utility did review the network’s housing relief proposal and while “we understand that request, we are focusing our efforts on the current compensation plan.”
He added that applicants can report housing costs incurred post-fire, and that will be part of any compensation offer, which could come as soon as 90 days if using the plan’s “Fast Pay” option.
Edison’s plan requires survivors to sign legal liability releases before they can get aid. However, attorneys in the lawsuit against Edison and fire victims have said the new plan still doesn’t go far enough toward making survivors whole, shortchanging them for such things as toxic contamination and paying children less than adults for pain and suffering.
Some say victims would receive more money and fare better by staying with litigation.
But as temporary housing coverage ends for more than half of Eaton fire survivors this winter, families may feel compelled to forego their right to litigate in order to receive compensation quickly.
Chen said this goes against the council’s mission to ensure wildfire funds help communities recover fully and fairly, and it must ensure public policy protects survivors.
“People who don’t know where they’ll sleep next week cannot make fair or informed decisions about waiving their lifelong rights,” she said.
Chen said the kind of pre-settlement relief survivors were asking for has been offered before, even by a bankrupt utility such as PG&E.
“Edison is solvent, profitable and fully backed by the wildfire fund,” Chen said. “Californians have already stabilized Edison’s finances through higher rates and state guarantees.”
Chen stressed the urgency of the situation almost 10 months after the deadly fire. According to the nonprofit Department of Angels, eight out of 10 Eaton fire survivors are still displaced and running out of money to stay housed.
The meeting, held at the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento, also heard from Jennifer Hasbrouck, general counsel of Southern California Edison, and Matt Dwyer, director of corporate risk management for the company.
They presented the main elements of its Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program, which it launched the day before, on Wednesday, Oct. 29.
Hasbrouck reported the utility has received more than 200 applications to the direct claims program in the first 24 hours after it launched.
Andrew Wessels, Eaton Fire Survivors Network’s strategy director, also offered public comment during the meeting, criticizing Edison for offering survivors less than what bankrupt PG&E paid after the Camp fire in 2018.
He offered three amendments to the Edison plan: take possible insurance payments out of the compensation calculation for now and put it on Edison and insurers to settle later, especially since, he said, 70% of survivors are reporting insurance delays and denials.
A second suggestion is to update statistical models to clearly show where numbers, such as for personal property loss, are based. Wessels also asked the council to fix evaluation formulas that devalue children, ignore toxic contamination, and severely underestimate the real market rents families must pay while displaced.
Hasbrouck, Edison’s legal counsel, explained the reasoning behind their offering $75,000 per child as opposed to $115,000 per adult, when it calculated payments for residents of a destroyed structure. She said since adults bear the brunt of post-recovery efforts such as rebuilding, they were given more compensation.
But Chen said this belies the fact that for children, who haven’t developed adult coping mechanisms, the wildfire is a bigger trauma and will last all their lives, Chen said.
“Children will be living with this trauma longer than adults, they should receive more,” she said, questioning why the utility would “fractionalize” humans.
Krista Copelan, administrator of the Facebook group, Standing Structures, which has 3,400 members: collaborates with the survivors’ network. She advocated for owners and renters with smoke-damaged and contaminated homes for whom the economic and non-economic costs of the fire Edison caused far exceeds the compensation listed in the utility’s plan.
“Almost 10 months after this disaster, people seem to be feeling more overwhelmed, more scared, and more uncertain as the reality of how long true recovery takes is hitting them,” Copelan said.
The three survivors’ testimony got a boost from Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, who joined the call for Edison to provide housing relief to survivors, and also criticized the utility for tying assistance for impacted and displaced fire victims to the signing of a legal document waiving future legal rights.
In a letter addressed to Edison International CEO Pedro J. Pizarro, Pérez wrote the company’s recent earnings report proves it has both the means and the responsibility “to act now, to stabilize families, prevent mass displacement, and restart the Eaton fire recovery.”
“Families are facing severe housing insecurity as insurance coverage expires,” Pérez wrote. “Fire survivors remain displaced, trapped in a growing financial and emotional crisis. Emergency housing relief must be kept entirely separate from any settlement process.”
Pérez added that since Edison has acknowledged its potential role in starting the Eaton Fire, it must make sure fire victims can recover and rebuild their lives with the support they are owed.