Reflections After Year One of Rebuilding in Los Angeles
2025 and a blueprint for how to build safer, more wildfire-resilient communities.
Key Takeaways
Success depends on collaboration across multiple stakeholders: homeowners, lenders, insurers, builders, and nonprofits.
Rebuilding with resilience is hard work, and together we’re on the right track.
In 2026, Resilient LA will expand and deepen its work through the Delta Fund pilot programs, LA Convening, and more.
One year ago, the Eaton and Palisades wildfires disrupted thousands of lives and entire communities in the Los Angeles area, forever changing how we think about home safety in California and across the country.
Now more than ever, we need to build and fortify homes for our current climate reality. In LA, the idea that we must go above and beyond current code and construction standards is finally taking root—and challenging how we’ve approached post-wildfire construction and recovery in the past.
In 2025, as an organization, we learned a lot about the importance of rebuilding with resilience, especially right after a disaster. Although there is so much left to do, all of us involved in rebuilding LA have not just an opportunity, but an obligation: Wildfires will keep coming, and in this moment, we can help develop a blueprint that empowers affected communities everywhere to come back stronger. We see a future where resiliency is the status quo and standard of business.
This is hard work, and, together, we’re on the right track.
The Rebuilding Community Has Been Hard at Work
LA needed a dedicated effort to connect home construction and financing partners, facilitate stakeholder conversations, and move towards a shared vision for resilient rebuilding. As a collective, we’ve made a lot of progress.
In April, the community came together at LA Climate Week for Resilience & Rebuilding Day, hosted by SidePorch, a Santa Monica-based management consulting firm. Attendees explored how fire-damaged housing and infrastructure could be rebuilt to better withstand future wildfires.
Two months later, hundreds of industry leaders gathered for Rebuilding LA with Resilience. Over two days of interactive panels and breakout sessions, policymakers, builders, investors, lenders, and insurers worked through strategies for how to incorporate resilience into recovery efforts. The conversations reinforced what many already knew: shifting towards climate-resilient rebuilding requires collaboration across every sector.
In between and around these milestone events, organizations across the ecosystem built and continue to run programs worth celebrating:
Greenline Housing Foundation launched a relief fund to help historically marginalized groups rebuild their homes, awarding up to $250,000 per family in construction support to restore and maintain neighborhoods.
“In January 2025, in the wake of the Eaton Fire, we launched our Eaton Fire Relief Fund: Rebuild, Restore, and Remain. In our first year of recovery from the fire, we’ve awarded over $2.5 million in grant assistance. Through our long-term temporary housing and rental assistance initiative, we’ve helped 35 families who lost their homes in the fire find temporary housing so they can focus on recovery and rebuilding. We’ve awarded over $500,000 in rental assistance, averaging over $20,000 per family. Through our rebuilding initiative, we’ve provided three underinsured families who lost their homes in the fire with rebuilding grants to bridge the gap between what their insurance will pay and the actual cost of rebuilding. To date, we’ve awarded over $500,000 in rebuilding grants for an average of $184,000 per family. Additionally, through our land-banking initiative, we’ve invested over $1.5 million back into the community by purchasing properties to ensure that the future use of these properties is community-centered and informed. We’re keeping Altadena land in Altadena hands. While this past year has been so devastating, it has been inspiring to see individuals and organizations alike collaborate and rally around Altadena to assist with both the short and long-term needs of the community. However, there is still so much more work to do, and we look forward to continuing to help the community rebuild, restore, and remain in Altadena.”
The Foothill Catalog Foundation is streamlining the rebuilding process by providing survivors with preapproved home plans that meet California’s Very High Fire Severity Zone requirements.
“The Foothill Catalog Foundation has been deeply grateful for the opportunity to support survivors of all backgrounds and means in returning home safely and sustainably. Over the past year, we’ve individually met with hundreds of households to understand their needs and have developed a growing catalog of over twenty preapproved, fire-resilient home designs rooted in the character, climate, and realities of our region. By reducing design, permitting, and construction barriers, we’ve helped make high-quality, resilient homebuilding more affordable and attainable for families across a wide range of incomes. When homes are designed for the place they’re built and the people who live in them, rebuilding becomes not just possible, but hopeful, and the future of our community becomes stronger by design.”
The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) released a step-by-step blueprint to help local leaders rebuild a more insurable and survivable Los Angeles after the fires.
“Wildfire resilience happens when science meets collaboration. IBHS is privileged to work alongside partners across the rebuilding ecosystem—and with the homeowners and communities most directly impacted—to translate proven research into real-world action that supports safer and more insurable homes, stronger neighborhoods, and a more resilient Los Angeles.”
Case Study: Adapt identified ten leading architecture firms to redefine residential design in LA and help sixteen families rebuild homes that are not only beautiful, but also resilient and affordable. Construction is set to begin soon.
PostFire LA provides free, tailored, step-by-step recovery plans and an online portal designed by experts to help survivors navigate the road back to their homes.
These are just a few examples of how leaders and organizations are stepping up and championing rebuilding with resilience.
The Key Players in Rebuilding with Resilience
None of these accomplishments would be possible without the engagement and commitment of all stakeholders involved in wildfire recovery. Changing how we respond to these disasters requires teamwork and a shared understanding that the choices we make now will have an impact for decades to come.
The following groups play an invaluable role in making climate resilience a reality.
Homeowners: Our mission begins and ends with homeowners affected by wildfires. When they choose to rebuild homes that are safer and better able to withstand wildfires, they shape communities that are stronger on both the individual and neighborhood level. We hope that, in making educational and financial information more accessible, this choice will become easier to make.
Lenders: At a minimum, we need lenders to offer new loan products that support resilient rebuilding. But more than that, we need home financing providers who understand that, after a wildfire, they’re no longer just a mortgage lender; they’re a construction lender and key partner in whether a home gets built to a higher standard.
Insurers: We need insurers willing to incentivize and reward homeowners for rebuilding to higher standards, and who share the same goal as their customers: to ensure homes remain standing over the long term.
Construction: We need builders, architects, and contractors experienced in top-of-the-line, fire-safe construction methods, such as the IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home Base and Plus standards. And as demand for resilient rebuilding increases, we need to make sure the industry has the capacity and skill to meet it.
Philanthropy: We need donors and nonprofits equipped to help homeowners navigate the complexities, costs, and unforeseen challenges that come with losing a home. These groups provide both hope and resourcing as the rest of the homebuilding ecosystem coalesces around a new status quo.
Community Leaders: We need trusted voices who can bridge the gap between what’s possible and what feels out of reach. Community leaders, from neighborhood associations to local officials to grassroots organizers, are the ones who help legitimize new ideas, build networks where none existed, and create the social infrastructure that turns individual decisions into collective momentum.
We’re grateful for these, and many other partners, and the different ways they meet the needs of Eaton and Palisades fire survivors.
Looking Ahead
In 2026 and beyond, we will deepen our work in the community, expanding on what we’ve done over the last twelve months.
“As a program of The Resiliency Company, our work through Resilient LA will continue to be a steady drumbeat for change—an inspiring and hopeful voice, rooted in community, pragmatism, and mobilization—that everyone can rely on as we rebuild,” says Abby Ross, CEO of The Resiliency Company.
To execute on this vision, we will:
Announce a series of pilot programs and partnerships funded through the Delta Fund to help homeowners begin their journey toward resilient rebuilding, in collaboration with community organizations.
Disseminate our Post-Fire Resilience Grants Playbook to help leaders operationalize funding for resilient rebuilding.
Host LA Convening 2026, an event aimed at discussing actionable strategies for funding, policy, and innovation for a more resilient Los Angeles—stay tuned for a formal announcement.
Help homeowners navigate the rebuilding-with-resilience process by connecting people with qualified builders, insurers, and lenders through the PILLAR platform.
Continue to engage with homeowners and the community through workshops and resource fairs like this one hosted by USGBC-CA.
Together, we will create a stronger, safer LA, setting a national example for what climate-adapted construction can look like.