Days after the Lahaina fires in 2023 I traveled to Hawaii to provide pro bono legal aid to fire victims navigating everything from home insurance & business contracts, recovering legal documents, immigration status & more. I supported ~50 families personally. One constant theme: Private equity vultures offering them pennies on the dollar for their destroyed properties. I suspect the same will happen in SoCal. Vultures exploiting people's desperation. It's criminal, or at least it should be. smh

Do not let anyone call SoCal fires a "natural disaster." It's is a predictable disaster from decades of climate injustice, water exploitation, & underfunding. Now, the billionaires who enabled this disaster are planning how to profit off this tragedy.

Why SoCal Burns & Who’s to Blame

Five harsh truths about these devastating fires that we must acknowledge if we hope to meaningfully prevent future fires and climate catastrophe

Experts warn rents will balloon in wake of LA fires. US Census Bureau reports that USA has ~17M vacant housing units, i.e. 35 vacant units for every homeless person in USA. Meaning—our housing shortage & unaffordable housing crisis is in major part due to private equity firms buying & hoarding hundreds of units. The loss of countless homes due to disasters like these—in one of the most densely populated regions of the country—further exacerbates an already fragile/broken system. Unsustainable