A Just Recovery For Altadena Fire Victims

Wildfire relief

East LA San Gabriel Valley

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Disasters do not affect everyone equally. Such devastating and unexpected events often exacerbate long-standing inequalities. A New Way of Life has been working in women’s reentry for over two decades. Because our residents arrive at our safe homes with zero resources, we have a deep understanding of the challenges of starting over with little to nothing.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to rebuilding after displacement. The process needs to start by meeting individuals where they are, hearing their needs, and building a foundation with basic necessities. That is where we come in.

This grant will support our fire relief distribution center in Montebello, created in response to the January wildfires that devastated families and worsened preexisting disparities and vulnerabilities. In partnership with a local church, A New Way of Life is providing essential goods—including food, toiletries, clothing, and gift cards—to low-income families struggling to get back on their feet. Our initiative prioritizes those most often excluded from traditional disaster aid: Black and Brown communities, women-led households, and justice-impacted individuals.
While rooted in immediate relief, this project is working from a community-led model for disaster response. We are leveraging our deep relationships, trauma-informed approach, and reentry infrastructure to deliver aid with dignity and care. Grant funds will help us expand distribution efforts, improve tracking systems, and develop a replicable framework for equitable crisis intervention. Our goal is not only to help families recover—but to ensure that future disasters don’t further marginalize the same communities time and again.

If our work is successful, Los Angeles County will be a place where communities disproportionately impacted by disaster are not left behind. Families in Altadena will recover not just with goods in hand, but with the community beside them. Our fire relief initiative will model an equitable, community-led response. In the long term, we envision sustaining our distribution efforts to help individuals restore stability after a crisis and move forward after devastation. By building a nimble infrastructure for crisis response within our reentry-focused framework, we are creating a template for how social justice–focused organizations can lead in times of disaster—building trust, mobilizing resources, delivering care, and reshaping what equitable recovery looks like in Los Angeles County and beyond.