August 13, 2025 • 50 mins
We got good news and bad news about the current status of Altadena as the city contiunes to recover from the fires of January 2025... and it's prolly exactly what you think it is.
Sources:
https://www.circlingthenews.com/lack-of-insurance-payouts-causes-problems-in-altadena-and-palisades/
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/67f5687fc4ea480d5d201fe5/t/68230c33dd9666630629967e/1747127348967/EFSN+Package+for+Commissioner+Lara+051225.pdf
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/03/nx-s1-5269609/la-fires-homes-insurance-state-farm-allstate
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Calls media. This ain't tardiness for you, because this pod
starts whenever you started. But for poor Matt who has
to edit this. I try to get this thing into
him as early as possible. But I was slowed down
because when I was about to start recording, I just
heard what sounded like with a high speech chase and
(00:26):
some like dodging of cars and screeching and stuff. And
then when it didn't stop, I realized, like, oh, there's
a street takeover. Some dudes is outside doing donuts right
down the street. So the thing is, since I still
live in city limits, that's gonna happen. You know, little
burnout circles. You could do your YouTube searches on that.
(00:51):
And I wasn't so like excited or mad as much
as I was just annoyed, like, hurry up, bro, you
becoming nimby quickly, which is probably what's gonna be the
tap end this week anyway, to live and die in La.
(01:12):
Speaking of which, what's going on with the six two
six hook politics? Y'all? I am from the six two six,
(01:35):
and that's so neatly about twenty minutes east of east
Lost in between the inland and the coasts. I talk
about being from this area of town almost all the time. Now,
those who know me by junior high would say, were
you talking about you're from the Inland Empire. Well, we
(01:55):
moved to the Inland Empire while my parents were still together,
and then by the time high school started, my parents
split and at that point I was in a joint
custody situation. And since I really didn't have a desire
to stay out in the Inland Empire, I definitely leaned
towards more and spending as much time as I could
at my pasta's house back in lat Point, there where
(02:19):
I found most of my origins. Now some of y'all
are like I thought you was from the east side
of South Central I was. We moved a lot, you
understand what I'm trying to tell you. But since I
ain't really put in no work out there in South Central,
always say I was born in South Central. My family
is from South Central I. However, as you hear in
(02:41):
every song, I say, is from the six to six.
Now the six to six is the area code now.
When I was there as a child, it was the
eight one eight, but eight one eight is now associated
with the valley where miles of gray is from on
the daily side Ice up there in North Hollywood and Chatsworth.
(03:03):
My brother lives out there now, Granada Hills. That's the
great one eight, you know what I'm saying. But A
one A used to be where I was at. Then
we got our new area code all and this is
all important for a number of reasons, one of which
(03:26):
the experience of being someone black in this area. Now
this is a little LA history. Okay, we had redlining,
we had zoning laws, and then we had white flight.
Now a lot of this happened before I was around, Right,
I'm backing into what I'm about to talk about. Just
(03:49):
stay with me. Now, this is a to live and
die in LA episode, So I'm gonna be very specific
to CALLI. Then we're gonna get national later. Like I've
mentioned so many times before, my family came here from Wali.
My father's side came here from Texas, from Dallas, you know,
after Jim Crow. They came because of the watch Towers projects,
and then they settled in this band of streets that's
(04:11):
essentially from the northernest part gauge. None of this matters
if you're not from here all the way down to
an area called Watts and some of us, some of
us were in Compton and then east all the way
to Inglewood, where someone like A D Smoke is from. Right,
So this area is south central, right. But as times change,
(04:35):
as migration happens, as people spread out, and because again,
like I said, we had redlining, and then white flight
black people started dispersing. One of the areas they dispersed
was up northeast of Los Angeles. Right now, I'm going
to get into the more specific history around that white
(04:56):
flight a little later, which created the city of Altadena,
which is what we're about to talk about. Because didn't
catch on fire, y'all heard anything about what's been going on,
since that's what this show is about. But I'm going
back into why I'm only talking about Alta Dina and
not the Palisades. Hint is blackness. So my memory was
(05:17):
if you were a part of an African American community
that had moved into this area that's called the San
Gabriel Valley, which has been I mean, it was Mexico,
so it's very Latino. But when it became an incorporated
city again it was there had to be a displacement
of the of the Mexican population with white people in
(05:41):
cities like San Dimas, Covina, stuff like that. But that
was a little further north of me. I, like I said,
was in La Point there Belinda, but where the black
people were were up a little higher in a city
called Dwarti or d'warte, which is so funny to me
because they're all Spanish terms. Right now, as you go
(06:01):
west back towards La proper city limits, this part of town,
the ward is is is a little north if you will,
butting up against the foothills. What's strange about La which
is very unique, a unique part feature of this city
is there's actually a mountain range that goes through the city.
It's what separates La from the Valley and the Hollywood Hills.
(06:25):
Is a part of a mountain range Angelus Cress all
the way out to Mount Baldy and mountain like it's
there's a mountain rangelits a city. It's very so but
butting up on the foothills again, as you go west,
you start hitting Monrovia, then the city called Arcadia Sierra Madre.
Then you hit Pasadena, and right north of Pasadena was Altadena.
(06:46):
Now if you again were a black family that moved
out this direction. You have to now find where's the
Baptist church, where you're gonna get your hair cut, where
you're gonna get your hair grease, right, because some of
this stuff is not so much racial as it is practical.
Like one of the hardest things. I remember when we
(07:06):
first moved after I got married and my wife was
in you know, refer to her by her prefix was
in her PhD program. We were living in Irvine, which
is South Orange County now as in the OC, as
in all the TV shows, Real Housewives, all that Orange County.
I was like, I don't know where we can get
(07:26):
just some tortillas, where I'm gonna get some hair grease
like this just the practical sense of even the stores
don't sell the products I need. So as far as
I was concerned, I had no idea. I never connected
the dots between Pasadena and the Tournament of Roses Parade
being white as all get out. I never thought about
(07:48):
it because Pasadena Altadena was so black to me John
Meyer High School, like like it was just it was.
It was such a black space for me. The thought
never crossed my mind either, why it was so black right,
because in Pasadena there's a lot of bloods up there,
but those are really nice homes. It's a gorgeous like
(08:12):
there's like redwood trees and big his like have to
be five hundred year old pine trees that like line
the streets. It is beautiful. Sona mop Session is on
Conan O'Brien needs a friend. I do listen to that
show because I think it's hilarious. Uh, she lost her
(08:34):
house during the Altadena Farres because she lived in Altadena.
I remember feeling like it was so bizarre to me
to see anyone not black in Altadena because it was
all I knew. But his little history, Like I said,
I never thought about why prior to the nineteen sixties.
I'm reading from LAist, which is one of our independent
(08:55):
news sources out here. I highly recommend supporting that them
at La Taco. I've talked about them before. Prior to
the nineteen sixties, Altadena was predominantly a white neighborhood because
of redlining. Right, I've talked to you all about what
red lining is. I don't need to go through that, right,
but racial covenants in Pasadena prevented black families from moving in, right,
(09:15):
so we could not be in there. But around this
time you got to remember, like there's such thing as
a black middle class now, right, this is post segregation. Right,
We're working, we're megan going to college. Now we're making
a little money, Like I don't got to live in
the projects no more. Right. But then the passing of
(09:37):
the Fair Housing Act, which was part of the Civil
Rights Act, made discriminatory housing acts or practices illegal, right,
which meant that it ended the legal practice of redlining. Now,
redlining didn't just affect black people. It affect it affected
Jewish community too. Like there were rules over your like
your mortgage. They was like you are not allowed to
(09:57):
sell this house to a Black family, a Mexican family,
and Jewish family. You could sell it to whoever you
want except for them three Like so even if you
wanted to that, like the real estate would not allow you,
the mortgage company will not allow you. You cannot sell.
Zoning laws that were essentially like, hey, we don't need
(10:18):
unsightly things inside of our communities like a nuclear power plant,
like a landfill, or a black or Jewish family like this.
This was these were the laws. Right. Civil Rights Act
ended that, which prompted white flight because if there's anything
(10:38):
white people in the sixties did not want, it was
to live with us, right, So once the neighborhood started turning,
they just left. Right. So we was like, uh, I mean,
that's it's a nice house you got there. I can
actually afford it now and there's no law that says
(11:01):
you can't sell it to me, right, So this is
a good moment for anybody, Right, So the pro so
the white flight happened. Right. Black families moved in and
created the first middle class neighborhood that included to include
black residents in the area known as the Meadows Neighborhood.
And then the black population went from one percent in
(11:25):
nineteen sixty to four percent in nineteen seventy. And then
Altadena now is eighteen percent black. Right And for an
area that is pretty nice if you bought a house
in the sixties, Oh, they became mansions later. Right. So
(11:46):
a lot of my friends mad Lib, who's not my
friend but a legend, right, the homie DJ Severe that
DJs for the Dodgers, like, this is their parents' house,
their grandparents' house. Like I said, this is where the
barbershop was. This was where if I wanted to, like
get a smoke turkey leg. Like, right now, I live
on the East Side. I live in a Latino community.
(12:08):
It's really hard for me to go get a smoke
turkey leg in any of these stores because they only
use them during the holidays. I use them all the
time if I just want to make greens on Sundays. Right, yesterday,
I'm in shopping and I was like, and since she
works in an office and I work at home, I
do a lot of cooking, right, But every once in a while,
(12:29):
I get a little frustrated because I'm like, where the
lorry's at, Like I need some like I need some
season in that we use, you feel me? But you
got to go to the other side of town for that.
And then we actually had some cool like overlap because
I was looking for some bull yon, right, because you
know that's what we when you're about to make some gumbo,
you know what I'm little they look like little nuggets, right.
(12:50):
Apparently you can get it as just a powder. I
ain't know that so anyway, and apparently Mexicans use it too.
So out to Dina, I feel like for most of
us was like, yo, this was like LA's best kept secret.
Unless you was from here, you feel me, this gorgeous
upper middle class and middle class neighborhood that was black
(13:12):
as hell as far as I was concerned. Right anyway,
as you guys know, the beginning of this year, it
caught fire. Now why it caught fire could be negligence.
It could be a combination of negligence and climate change
(13:32):
and a thing that was just bound to happen. Like
we said in the Last To Live and Die in La,
the block is literally hot. All these overlaps about the
La fires, it's that, dude. We get the Santa Ana wins,
which is something that normally happens, but it coincided with
(13:53):
fire season. As time and fire season usually they none
of them ever happened in January. This this is why
this was so bizarre. January usually rains, right, but times
are changing, right, and when this happened, it's like it
just becomes it's completely out of your control. Right. We
(14:16):
stopped doing control burns because we ain't listen to the natives. Right,
We're butting up our neighborhoods into these areas that don't
have indigenous plants, right, so they can't stand the fires, right,
we're not clear and brush. For some reason, we still
(14:37):
build a wood. The wind started blowing. The ground is dry,
and then apparently there was a power line that faltered,
and that was it. It is what it is now.
I got a homie that works. He climbs pos the
Homi journey big like he works for power companies and
he fixes power lines, and he's like, ultimately, the only
(15:00):
way to fix this is to make them underground. But
he's like, there's parts of the city that is underground
as far as like the power lines. The problem is like,
if there's a problem with it, He's like, he says,
if there's if there's a problem in the line, in
the line somewhere underground. He causes his wife and he says,
I'll see you in the morning because I'm probably gonna
(15:21):
have to get old because you have to hunt for it.
He's like, if it's above ground, we could just look
and go, oh, it's right there, and then go straight
to it. But if it's under we got to go
under the ground, go through all those things. He was
just like, it's just it's it's harder work for us.
But yeah, anyway, that's not the city. The city has
(15:42):
above line powers, and as you know, the Pacific Palisades
and Altadena because of these two uncontrollable fires just absolutely
leveled our city in a way that has not been
(16:02):
seen in a long time. And then there was drama
around like the water and you know who owns the
water and all that. We covered all that already, right,
But the question is, after all these fundraisers, after all
these donations, after all these we will rebuild out to
Dina's not for sale? How's it going? What's up? Well?
(16:25):
I mean, has it? Okay? We raised millions of dollars?
Did they get that money? Are they rebuilding? Is out
to Dina? Truly? In fact not for sale? See when
disasters happened, like you don't hear about after the news
cycle ends, after the cameras leave, like what's going on now?
(16:45):
Part of the problem here was after the fire stop,
the ice raids started, we ain't had no time to
do nothing else. It's been a ill year here in
La like it's been and hord fam So let me
(17:08):
tap in real quick with y'all and be like, okay,
what's been going on in the six two six? Next day?
(17:54):
All right? We bite now I got good news and
bad news, and I'm pretty sure you could probably guess both. Now.
It was actually kind of hard to find this information.
I think this is one of those Ah, it's so crazy,
(18:15):
Like it became so clear as I was researching this
that there is so much writing on how this information
is fun like this. You need this to be a
feel good story or you need this to be a disaster,
depending on your agenda or political views. So it was
(18:38):
very hard to find. There's no such thing as neutral information.
I hope you've learned that by being a part of
the policy. It ain't no such thing as neutral information.
But there's also no such thing as unbiased information. But
it was so hard to find truthful information that was
willing to paint the whole pitch. Sure. That was the
(19:01):
hardest part because two things are going on here. There
is a reality in America that there's two realities that
have consistently followed disaster. One is the initial responses. We
really come together and we raise a ton of money.
The second problem is nobody knows where the hell that
(19:23):
money goes, and investors come and take everything. It's just
what it continues to happen. So I'm pretty sure you
could guess all it is. Now, I'm gonna start with
the good news. Okay, the good news is things like this.
There's a According to Last, which again is one of
(19:43):
our local journalistic outlets. A coalition of architects created around
two hundred free individual plans to help people rebuild after
losing their homes in the Eating fire right. And it's
a larger effort to assist out to Dina's Black community
and preserving the cultural legacy in our neighborhood. There was
(20:04):
this fear that, as you will find out, is not unfounded,
that this being like the last, the first and last,
like Los Angeles proper middle class, long lasting home owning community,
that something like this would further destroy that we've been
(20:28):
priced out. Black people have either been priced out or
just outnumbered, like all over LA. When I say outnumbered,
I say this with no shade. But it's the Latino community.
There's just so many of them, right, so it's not
so much. And of course there were struggles going through
the nineties. We've talked about this so many times. There's
been so much beef between our communities. We learned better,
(20:49):
like we've learned to work together. There's even at our
civic level, there's like understandings around what like districts you're
willing to run for and represent, Like there's there's been
an agreement around a lot of our civic leaders to
be like, Okay, we're gonna make sure we're gonna preserve
leadership to be black here as long as you preserve
leadership to be Latino there. And they've made choices to
(21:10):
not run in districts that have been like, so there's
a lot of like black and brown unity, which was
why that like, uh, that recorded audio that came out
a few years ago with our city council Latino leaders
being hell of racist was such an outrage with the
people because we fought really hard to build unity among
(21:32):
our communities. Right. So this thing is called the Rebuild
Readiness Package, right, which gives honoms a head start in
reconstruction in the process and connects them with architects from
the Southern California chapter of Get this, the National Organization
of Minority Architects, which is also called ARE, which is
known as SoCal NOMA, which I had no idea existed.
(21:54):
How dope is that it's apparently a national organization, Like
it says a minority architet text of architects of color,
and they said, listen, we're gonna We're gonna create these
individualized plans like it. You think it's expensive to buy
a house, try building it from scratch. Do you know
(22:15):
how much? Do you know how much architects make? I
didn't look it up because I think you can instinctually
know it's they make fuck off money. Right. But if
you black, if you're a person of color and you
see something happening like this, this would be a great
time for you to push the culture forward. And this
(22:38):
is good news we have now. They can't buy it
for you. They can't. They can't buy it the materials
for you. They can't do all that, but we can
at least get you ahead start what it costs money.
It costs a lot to build a house. But at
least we could pull this off the budget line. Here
again reading from this article. Before the LA fires out,
Tadna's population was fifty eight percent people of color. Around
(23:01):
eighteen percent residents were black. According to the last census data,
the community was a part of an unincorporated Like I said,
Los Angeles County has black home ownership rate nearly twice
as high as the national average. Around seventy five percent
of black Altadena residents own their homes, according to the
UCLA Center of Neighborhood Knowledge. That is remarkable. This is
(23:25):
why that was such a historic loss. Seventy five percent
like own their homes. Bruh, that's crazy. The cities where
black people are right now, they in South Carolina and Atlanta.
That's a different story. This la bro, seventy five percent owns.
(23:49):
That's a big deal. Right, let me see him and
give you some more. So the packages have, like ok say,
they contained information about the person's property, including the size, zoning, class, invasion,
and historical record. They also contain a timeline for how
much each of these phases of the rebuild is expected
and to take an action plan to stay on track.
(24:10):
Like dude, they project managed it for you, bro. That's amazing.
There's some good news. Some other good news would be
how much money was raised. Russell Westbrook, Tiffany Hattish, these
stars came in, giving away food, giving away clothing. One
(24:30):
of the dopest things get this was an historic home
relocation project, which was you remember them old school? Well
you don't remember that. None of us do them sears
pre made box homes. You co order a house, put
it together and ship it somewhere. This happened out here,
and there was a home in Los Felis, right, which
is gentrified, baby gentrified, one of the most gentrified areas,
(24:56):
hipster areas of LA. Right. There was a relocation project
to give eating fire victims faster alternative than rebuilding from scratch. Right.
So there was this nineteen ten craftsman style home that
was on Poppy Fields Drive that was taken to Altadena
(25:16):
at six fifteen am a few months ago. Right, So
the home was taken apart, reassembled and placed on somebody's plot.
That's amazing. Right. Fifty million dollars was raised through them concerts.
You remember all them concerts, all them things that was
going on, all this stuff. We raised a lot of
money and people really came through. This is where the
(25:39):
National Guard showed up and did a lot of good things.
This is where like your federal tax dollars at work
kind of worked the clear debris. You know, there's community
coming together. Nonprofits have stepped in. There was one called
Dora Hope that was able to give a high one
(26:00):
thousand dollars to this little music school to be able
to get a new piano. Like people have truly come together.
It was really an amazing thing. Roughly one hundred and
twenty organization split about fifty million dollars from the first
round of fire aid that was released on February seven, right,
(26:22):
and so you get this big pot and then they
were all given to very small or not very small,
all given to different organizations. Now, the issue with that
is a lot of times when money is raised, there
is a black box, I mean, niggas starts shutting up
(26:43):
about how the money is distributed and where there's a
vacuum of information. There's a lot of tomfoolery. Now I
am on the board of a nonprofit. This is my
second nonprofit. I've been on the board of one of
both of them in an international peace building humanity organizations.
There is such thing as operations costs. There is a
(27:06):
reality that like people do work here, they do need
their salaries. Right, There is only so much a not
for profit organization can generate in for profit ways. Then
the rest of it has to be generated through donations
(27:28):
and stuff like that. Now, niggas don't be reading the
fine print, and that fine print becomes the degree for
which that print is fine. Foining is the degree for
which you know this organization is shady or not. I'm
saying this from like experience. For example, when I worked
(27:50):
at Preemptive Love, which is a now non existent org
because the bits of it that was like really about
that life got folded into the one that I work
at now search for common ground, the leftover bits, not
leftover bits, but the former founder of Preemptive Love, he's
(28:11):
got a new one called Humanite, which there was never
a question about this fool's commitment to the struggle. So like,
no shade towards Jeremy and the kids commitment to the struggle.
Man they out there, especially right now, all bets are
off cuse like whatever old beef y'all had, that shit
is done. Now you know what I'm saying, Gods is
being starved, Like forget about the beef. Let's save some lives.
(28:35):
And there wasn't even beef anyway. All I'm saying is
at Preemptive Love, when you donated, it was very clear
on the website that like, look, because we work in
conflict zones that are sometimes ran by not so shady individuals,
they're ran by anti government organizations, or they just ran
(28:59):
by just straight up thugs that the West might call terrorists.
If I'm gonna get food, if I'm gonna get aid,
if I'm gonna get sheltered into this part of that country,
you gotta pay some people off. There's gonna be some
suitcases full of cash that it just is what it is.
(29:21):
Your money might have gone to a terrorist. Rolex, I
don't know what to tell you now. Me in you
being from America sounds very weird. But if you've ever
worked in gang interventions, if you ever worked in inner
city neighborhoods, if you've ever tried to I mean, I
(29:42):
could talk to the Homi JB about this. I'm gonna
give a little bit of story about this without giving
any names. But if you work in these environments, especially
these inner city environments, you have to tap in. Even
if you're doing good stuff, you have to make sure
it's okay. Ain't gonna do nothing. You know you are good,
you know you solid with us, you know what I'm saying. Like,
(30:05):
even if you're coming in, you doing a pancake breakfast,
you doing a little a little kickball match for the kids,
you the city. You're the city and you're about to
set up a little stage with some face painting and
giveaway backpacks. You need to talk to Pooky and them.
You gotta go talk to og Silent. You have to
(30:27):
go tap in and pinning all your reputation with them.
They might just be like twenty racks and were still
robbing you. They might be like twenty racks and then
getting ten racks to another set and then the set
come rob you or like nah, you solid, but yeah,
(30:48):
like I mean you like it's a business. The amount
of money we about to lose by you doing this
nice stuff means we can't do our criminal activities right now.
So like yeah, you know, you just you know, you
pay us off and you good and then maybe next
time when they see that, like you know, you really
about the community, you really one of us, You really cool?
(31:11):
Then you be solid, then you like are you good man? Nah,
whenever you need it, just make sure you tap in
before because I can't guarantee you know, some of these
young niggas, some of these like hop out boys, I
can't guarantee that, but like I'll put the word out
and then everybody you'll know. Once I put the word out. Nah,
he's solid. They good. They could go through here right.
Sometimes your donations, I'm gonna tell you, is going to
(31:37):
that nigg you feel me. You have to be real
about it. You have to be real on your website
that like this percentage of your donations is going to
operation fees. Now, if you really a real one, you
gonna explain to me what your operation fees. You should
have a charter that says your donations for each particular
(32:01):
thing and what they're gonna go to, and that there's
a wall between these type of non restricted funds and
then the funds that can cover payroll. That's supposed to
be clear. It's crazy that I noticed stuff, but that's
supposed to be clear. The problem is when there is
a crisis like to eat and fire, stuff be moving
(32:23):
so fast, people be moved so hard that it's real
easy for shady individuals to come through and claim eighty
percent as operation fees nigga eighty But they could still
say they raised you know, this much and they gave
away this much, and this leads to a lot of
(32:43):
like misinformation. This was one of the hardest things for
me to find out, which was where this money went
now because and to this day and to this moment,
I'm not going to be very specific about it because
I don't trust the sources I've read, like it's so
hard to find truthful sources about where to hell the
(33:05):
money fifty million dollars went some now within that, some organizations,
like I said, are very transparent about it. Yo. Here,
here's a website, here's where it is. There's so many
websites right now that LA put together at the about
the mutual funds, about recovery. LA has been very clear
about building websites as to where how to apply for funds,
(33:28):
where to get it at, and when we can pay
it out. But the people that put together that music festival,
I don't even know who the I don't know where
the money is and I can't I can't find it.
That's crazy, right, But it doesn't mean how doesn't mean
individual people haven't got donations, because there's also a website
(33:54):
that of first hand accounts of people are like, yeah,
I got my money from this and this. You know
what I'm saying. The local news stations, this is what
I meant earlier. The local news stations. You go to Fox,
you go to ABC, you go to all of our
local news channels. They want to feel good stories, so
I could see those like oh no, which leads us
(34:15):
to the bad news next. All right, right, the easiest one.
(35:03):
Let's just say, out of the strangest perfect storm of
perfect situations, given the situation, you in your house burns down,
but you had insurance. Your insurance was up to date.
They agreed to a certain amount whatever shortfall came in
(35:26):
through donations, you got one of these like pre made
two hundred like floor plans and architectural thing from Noma.
Who gonna build the house? Nigga ice raids. So even
if you have the money, even if you got it
(35:47):
set up, ain't nobody there to build the house? Is
fam because you got dang it? Do you understand what?
You understand the situation these people was in. So the
bad news is, even if you had everything, the workforce
has been chopped in half because foods is scared to
go to work because they gonna get snatched up by
a hop out boy. What is anyway sit that to
(36:11):
the side in our imaginary situation. That's saying that the
insurance actually paid out. That's not what happened. Now, this
is psycho according to NPR, and this organization called Circling
the News, which it took me a while to figure
out if they was like an actual legit thing, but
(36:31):
I double checked a lot of the stuff they were saying.
We got some things in there. So first problem is
the insurance. Let's just say you had insurance, or at
least you thought you did when you went to go
make your claim. What you might have found out is
that the company you worked with wasn't gonna renew your
(36:55):
policy anyway because they've closed the entire zip code. People
woke up to realize that they house insurance. What in
house insurance. There's stories of people who went through seven
different brokers that was like we uh we uh, we can't,
we can't cover it. Some people was like, look, I'm
(37:16):
not unin, I'm just uninsured, Like I don't know, I
don't know what I'm having. I'm gonna have to figure
out the money to build this house. And that's if
you plan on rebuilding right. Other insurance brokers after they said,
you know, we can cover you, but we can cover
(37:36):
about three hundred and fifty dollars per square foot, which
is like done, done, Donet's not enough it's not at
all enough to equal the worth of the house that
they had. Now here's my situation. I'm actually in this
situation now. Uh when a company like State Farm, which
(37:59):
was all over in Who's decided they just wasn't gonna
cover California no more. Your mortgage company just picks up
a company for you, and all they do is cover
hazard pay. It's the equivalent of your car insurance just
being the basic coverage, where it's like, this really ain't
covering shit. Right, Most people in Altadena found themselves in
(38:26):
that situation. Right. So, California, obviously, of most of America,
has the highest fire risk, but its insurance is cheaper
than in many other states. Watch this. In fact, the
(38:47):
insurance industry agrees that it says companies have been retreating
from California precisely because they aren't allowed to charge enough
to cover the risk. The real issue is the inability
to get adequate rates, says the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
(39:10):
There was this nineteen eighty eight law right that was
on our ballot that said it prevents the arbitrary insurance rakehikes,
meaning insurances as you know now or as you should
know is a scam, right, You paying monthly into something
and then when you need them, they ain't got the money.
(39:30):
People was getting their insurance checks this also happened, and
then saying don't cash the check till Tuesday, and then
you cash the check on Tuesday and the check bounce.
Why because they ain't got the money. Because insurance is
a scam. We're supposed to all be paying into this
thing monthly, right so that if something go wrong, according
to my policy, you pay me out. But the insurance
(39:52):
company is saying, well, y'all not giving us enough money
for if something happens, we're gonna be able to cover y'all,
so give us more Moneyuntry was like, or the state
was like, you have enough, and what the hell? Kind
of maybe you shouldn't approve that many. Maybe the whole
system is bullshit. If what you're saying is you ain't
(40:16):
got enough money to ensure your insurance, I don't seem
like my fault. That seemed like your fault. It's like
it helped me help you. So people was getting the
insurance checks nine hundred thousand dollars and then couldn't cast
because the insurance company broke an insurance company is saying, well,
(40:38):
all of y'all are casting y'all's things, to which other
companies were like, we're just not gonna be here. We
can't cover it now. Congressman John Garrimindi, who served as
(41:26):
the former insurance commissioner, told Altadena residents under California Proposition
one oh three, the insurance commissioner has the clear authority
he can compel insurers to pay claims fully and promptly
and block any rate increase until survivors are made whole.
(41:46):
There should be no dog gone rate hikes for companies
that break their promises, because, as you know, if you
use your insurance, your rate goes up. It's it's insane.
So companies are leaving, So the insurance left, and if
(42:13):
they do pay out, they're not even paying a fraction
of what it is now. That's if you're willing to
try to rebuild, you only get in a fraction of it.
And even if you get in a fraction of it,
they still raising your rates. Nonetheless, our heart desire was
to protect out to Dina. But what are you gonna
(42:35):
do if you truly have no other option? Now, some
of the insurance companies were paying out ways for you
to rent your rent somewhere until your house got rebuilt.
But you gotta remember, you got to you gotta meet
the shortfall. Now, do you have a spare five hundred
thousand dollars to meet the shortfall? I don't, So that
(42:57):
would mean your only option is probably sell because you
got to start over. But the signs popped up everywhere
ol To Dina not for sale. Let me tell y'all something.
Alsadena's absolutely for sale. More bad news, y'all. First, of
all of the houses that are rebuilt, watch this five percent,
(43:23):
five percent of more than nine hundred rebuild permits submitted
to Olta Dina have been approved, indicating that rebuilding efforts
are still at its early stages. In contrast, check this out,
around twenty five percent of the nearly four hundred rebuilds
permits in Pacific Palisades are already approved, showing a different, significant,
(43:49):
different progress between the two regions. Because racism is going
racism five percent, bro. So let's just say you in
a perfect situation where you got the money, you got
the plans, you figured out the insurance. Now you want
to permit becaus is waiting on permits only five percent.
(44:13):
You've not even approven. So even if you could figure
it out, the city not approven the rebuilds. Now why
they not approven the rebuilds? I don't know. I'm just
saying the Palisades ain't got that problem. Eye roll Anyway,
Altadena is absolutely for sale. So roughly this is according
to the La Times, about one hundred and forty five
(44:36):
burned lots have sold so far, around one hundred are
currently being listed, and dozens more in escrow. The identities
of every single buyer isn't clear, since many are obscured
by trusts or limited liability companies, but real estate records
and local sources suggest that developers are buying alliance share
(45:01):
of the lots. Yeah, this is what happens. This will
happened in Katrina, This will happen in Beaumont, in Houston,
outside of Houston, in the floods, they just swoop in
and buy it. Who are these limited liability groups right now?
(45:23):
This is far out pacing Again the Palisades, where less
than sixty lots have sold since the fire, and roughly
one hundred and eighty are sitting on the market, sometimes
for months. Why because they can rebuild oh, man, but
what are you gonna do? Like you sell to the
(45:43):
highest bidder. Somebody come in here with a cash offered, right,
what are you gonna do? There was a story where
one lady says she at her house listed and one
agent called me and said he has someone looking to
buy one hundred lots. Right, this is how we lose
(46:06):
our neighborhoods man now. According to realator dot com, roughly
one hundred and sixty five properties were sold in Altadena
in the first five months of twenty twenty five, with
more than half of them being bought by investors. For comparison,
only about fifteen percent of the buyers in Altadena were
investors starting in twenty twenty four, and according to the
(46:30):
latest data available on realator dot com now, the medium
price of a sale for a house in Altadena so
far this year six hundred and seventy five thousand, roughly
half of the previous year, which medium sale was one
point two five million. It's kind of a no brainer.
(46:54):
Of course you're going to buy these houses. Now what
they said was happening. It wasn't so much people buying
up one hundred lots to turning them into complexes. It's
more like people being able to buy four and five
lots toss up these houses. And it's not people, it's
investment firms. Who are those firms? I don't know. Maybe
Blackstone right, Blackstone is who bought up most of our housing.
(47:17):
But for us to be in this housing crisis and
then investors just buying up the I know they're not
doing that in Palisades. So yeah, you can go to
Recovery dot La County dot gov to see a little
(47:40):
more information on it. But at the end of the day,
man like to live and die in La man, what
they supposed to do? This is how That's how Citi
(48:01):
has become corporate towns Man, disaster hit investors come in
and swoop it all up. We pay for insurance to
try to protect our houses, but the insurance don't be
paying out. You even have somebody that donate the architectural plans,
(48:22):
but the city not approving the rebuild permits. What we're
supposed to do on me? I don't know, man, That's
what's going on. And out to Dinna though hood politics.
(48:48):
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
You better listen to these credits. I need you to
finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in East Lost Boyle Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
(49:08):
you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You
can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off. Get yourself some coffee. This was mixed,
edited and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the
Beat Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski dot com. I'm
a speller for you because I know M A T
(49:31):
T O S O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out the heat. Politics is
a member of cool Zone Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman,
part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and
(49:51):
scoring is also by the one and overly Mattowsowski. Still
killing the beat softly, So listen, don't let nobody lie
to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all
next week.
Calls media. This ain't tardiness for you, because this pod
starts whenever you started. But for poor Matt who has
to edit this. I try to get this thing into
him as early as possible. But I was slowed down
because when I was about to start recording, I just
heard what sounded like with a high speech chase and
(00:26):
some like dodging of cars and screeching and stuff. And
then when it didn't stop, I realized, like, oh, there's
a street takeover. Some dudes is outside doing donuts right
down the street. So the thing is, since I still
live in city limits, that's gonna happen. You know, little
burnout circles. You could do your YouTube searches on that.
(00:51):
And I wasn't so like excited or mad as much
as I was just annoyed, like, hurry up, bro, you
becoming nimby quickly, which is probably what's gonna be the
tap end this week anyway, to live and die in La.
(01:12):
Speaking of which, what's going on with the six two
six hook politics? Y'all? I am from the six two six,
(01:35):
and that's so neatly about twenty minutes east of east
Lost in between the inland and the coasts. I talk
about being from this area of town almost all the time. Now,
those who know me by junior high would say, were
you talking about you're from the Inland Empire. Well, we
(01:55):
moved to the Inland Empire while my parents were still together,
and then by the time high school started, my parents
split and at that point I was in a joint
custody situation. And since I really didn't have a desire
to stay out in the Inland Empire, I definitely leaned
towards more and spending as much time as I could
at my pasta's house back in lat Point, there where
(02:19):
I found most of my origins. Now some of y'all
are like I thought you was from the east side
of South Central I was. We moved a lot, you
understand what I'm trying to tell you. But since I
ain't really put in no work out there in South Central,
always say I was born in South Central. My family
is from South Central I. However, as you hear in
(02:41):
every song, I say, is from the six to six.
Now the six to six is the area code now.
When I was there as a child, it was the
eight one eight, but eight one eight is now associated
with the valley where miles of gray is from on
the daily side Ice up there in North Hollywood and Chatsworth.
(03:03):
My brother lives out there now, Granada Hills. That's the
great one eight, you know what I'm saying. But A
one A used to be where I was at. Then
we got our new area code all and this is
all important for a number of reasons, one of which
(03:26):
the experience of being someone black in this area. Now
this is a little LA history. Okay, we had redlining,
we had zoning laws, and then we had white flight.
Now a lot of this happened before I was around, Right,
I'm backing into what I'm about to talk about. Just
(03:49):
stay with me. Now, this is a to live and
die in LA episode, So I'm gonna be very specific
to CALLI. Then we're gonna get national later. Like I've
mentioned so many times before, my family came here from Wali.
My father's side came here from Texas, from Dallas, you know,
after Jim Crow. They came because of the watch Towers projects,
and then they settled in this band of streets that's
(04:11):
essentially from the northernest part gauge. None of this matters
if you're not from here all the way down to
an area called Watts and some of us, some of
us were in Compton and then east all the way
to Inglewood, where someone like A D Smoke is from. Right,
So this area is south central, right. But as times change,
(04:35):
as migration happens, as people spread out, and because again,
like I said, we had redlining, and then white flight
black people started dispersing. One of the areas they dispersed
was up northeast of Los Angeles. Right now, I'm going
to get into the more specific history around that white
(04:56):
flight a little later, which created the city of Altadena,
which is what we're about to talk about. Because didn't
catch on fire, y'all heard anything about what's been going on,
since that's what this show is about. But I'm going
back into why I'm only talking about Alta Dina and
not the Palisades. Hint is blackness. So my memory was
(05:17):
if you were a part of an African American community
that had moved into this area that's called the San
Gabriel Valley, which has been I mean, it was Mexico,
so it's very Latino. But when it became an incorporated
city again it was there had to be a displacement
of the of the Mexican population with white people in
(05:41):
cities like San Dimas, Covina, stuff like that. But that
was a little further north of me. I, like I said,
was in La Point there Belinda, but where the black
people were were up a little higher in a city
called Dwarti or d'warte, which is so funny to me
because they're all Spanish terms. Right now, as you go
(06:01):
west back towards La proper city limits, this part of town,
the ward is is is a little north if you will,
butting up against the foothills. What's strange about La which
is very unique, a unique part feature of this city
is there's actually a mountain range that goes through the city.
It's what separates La from the Valley and the Hollywood Hills.
(06:25):
Is a part of a mountain range Angelus Cress all
the way out to Mount Baldy and mountain like it's
there's a mountain rangelits a city. It's very so but
butting up on the foothills again, as you go west,
you start hitting Monrovia, then the city called Arcadia Sierra Madre.
Then you hit Pasadena, and right north of Pasadena was Altadena.
(06:46):
Now if you again were a black family that moved
out this direction. You have to now find where's the
Baptist church, where you're gonna get your hair cut, where
you're gonna get your hair grease, right, because some of
this stuff is not so much racial as it is practical.
Like one of the hardest things. I remember when we
(07:06):
first moved after I got married and my wife was
in you know, refer to her by her prefix was
in her PhD program. We were living in Irvine, which
is South Orange County now as in the OC, as
in all the TV shows, Real Housewives, all that Orange County.
I was like, I don't know where we can get
(07:26):
just some tortillas, where I'm gonna get some hair grease
like this just the practical sense of even the stores
don't sell the products I need. So as far as
I was concerned, I had no idea. I never connected
the dots between Pasadena and the Tournament of Roses Parade
being white as all get out. I never thought about
(07:48):
it because Pasadena Altadena was so black to me John
Meyer High School, like like it was just it was.
It was such a black space for me. The thought
never crossed my mind either, why it was so black right,
because in Pasadena there's a lot of bloods up there,
but those are really nice homes. It's a gorgeous like
(08:12):
there's like redwood trees and big his like have to
be five hundred year old pine trees that like line
the streets. It is beautiful. Sona mop Session is on
Conan O'Brien needs a friend. I do listen to that
show because I think it's hilarious. Uh, she lost her
(08:34):
house during the Altadena Farres because she lived in Altadena.
I remember feeling like it was so bizarre to me
to see anyone not black in Altadena because it was
all I knew. But his little history, Like I said,
I never thought about why prior to the nineteen sixties.
I'm reading from LAist, which is one of our independent
(08:55):
news sources out here. I highly recommend supporting that them
at La Taco. I've talked about them before. Prior to
the nineteen sixties, Altadena was predominantly a white neighborhood because
of redlining. Right, I've talked to you all about what
red lining is. I don't need to go through that, right,
but racial covenants in Pasadena prevented black families from moving in, right,
(09:15):
so we could not be in there. But around this
time you got to remember, like there's such thing as
a black middle class now, right, this is post segregation. Right,
We're working, we're megan going to college. Now we're making
a little money, Like I don't got to live in
the projects no more. Right. But then the passing of
(09:37):
the Fair Housing Act, which was part of the Civil
Rights Act, made discriminatory housing acts or practices illegal, right,
which meant that it ended the legal practice of redlining. Now,
redlining didn't just affect black people. It affect it affected
Jewish community too. Like there were rules over your like
your mortgage. They was like you are not allowed to
(09:57):
sell this house to a Black family, a Mexican family,
and Jewish family. You could sell it to whoever you
want except for them three Like so even if you
wanted to that, like the real estate would not allow you,
the mortgage company will not allow you. You cannot sell.
Zoning laws that were essentially like, hey, we don't need
(10:18):
unsightly things inside of our communities like a nuclear power plant,
like a landfill, or a black or Jewish family like this.
This was these were the laws. Right. Civil Rights Act
ended that, which prompted white flight because if there's anything
(10:38):
white people in the sixties did not want, it was
to live with us, right, So once the neighborhood started turning,
they just left. Right. So we was like, uh, I mean,
that's it's a nice house you got there. I can
actually afford it now and there's no law that says
(11:01):
you can't sell it to me, right, So this is
a good moment for anybody, Right, So the pro so
the white flight happened. Right. Black families moved in and
created the first middle class neighborhood that included to include
black residents in the area known as the Meadows Neighborhood.
And then the black population went from one percent in
(11:25):
nineteen sixty to four percent in nineteen seventy. And then
Altadena now is eighteen percent black. Right And for an
area that is pretty nice if you bought a house
in the sixties, Oh, they became mansions later. Right. So
(11:46):
a lot of my friends mad Lib, who's not my
friend but a legend, right, the homie DJ Severe that
DJs for the Dodgers, like, this is their parents' house,
their grandparents' house. Like I said, this is where the
barbershop was. This was where if I wanted to, like
get a smoke turkey leg. Like, right now, I live
on the East Side. I live in a Latino community.
(12:08):
It's really hard for me to go get a smoke
turkey leg in any of these stores because they only
use them during the holidays. I use them all the
time if I just want to make greens on Sundays. Right, yesterday,
I'm in shopping and I was like, and since she
works in an office and I work at home, I
do a lot of cooking, right, But every once in a while,
(12:29):
I get a little frustrated because I'm like, where the
lorry's at, Like I need some like I need some
season in that we use, you feel me? But you
got to go to the other side of town for that.
And then we actually had some cool like overlap because
I was looking for some bull yon, right, because you
know that's what we when you're about to make some gumbo,
you know what I'm little they look like little nuggets, right.
(12:50):
Apparently you can get it as just a powder. I
ain't know that so anyway, and apparently Mexicans use it too.
So out to Dina, I feel like for most of
us was like, yo, this was like LA's best kept secret.
Unless you was from here, you feel me, this gorgeous
upper middle class and middle class neighborhood that was black
(13:12):
as hell as far as I was concerned. Right anyway,
as you guys know, the beginning of this year, it
caught fire. Now why it caught fire could be negligence.
It could be a combination of negligence and climate change
(13:32):
and a thing that was just bound to happen. Like
we said in the Last To Live and Die in La,
the block is literally hot. All these overlaps about the
La fires, it's that, dude. We get the Santa Ana wins,
which is something that normally happens, but it coincided with
(13:53):
fire season. As time and fire season usually they none
of them ever happened in January. This this is why
this was so bizarre. January usually rains, right, but times
are changing, right, and when this happened, it's like it
just becomes it's completely out of your control. Right. We
(14:16):
stopped doing control burns because we ain't listen to the natives. Right,
We're butting up our neighborhoods into these areas that don't
have indigenous plants, right, so they can't stand the fires, right,
we're not clear and brush. For some reason, we still
(14:37):
build a wood. The wind started blowing. The ground is dry,
and then apparently there was a power line that faltered,
and that was it. It is what it is now.
I got a homie that works. He climbs pos the
Homi journey big like he works for power companies and
he fixes power lines, and he's like, ultimately, the only
(15:00):
way to fix this is to make them underground. But
he's like, there's parts of the city that is underground
as far as like the power lines. The problem is like,
if there's a problem with it, He's like, he says,
if there's if there's a problem in the line, in
the line somewhere underground. He causes his wife and he says,
I'll see you in the morning because I'm probably gonna
(15:21):
have to get old because you have to hunt for it.
He's like, if it's above ground, we could just look
and go, oh, it's right there, and then go straight
to it. But if it's under we got to go
under the ground, go through all those things. He was
just like, it's just it's it's harder work for us.
But yeah, anyway, that's not the city. The city has
(15:42):
above line powers, and as you know, the Pacific Palisades
and Altadena because of these two uncontrollable fires just absolutely
leveled our city in a way that has not been
(16:02):
seen in a long time. And then there was drama
around like the water and you know who owns the
water and all that. We covered all that already, right,
But the question is, after all these fundraisers, after all
these donations, after all these we will rebuild out to
Dina's not for sale? How's it going? What's up? Well?
(16:25):
I mean, has it? Okay? We raised millions of dollars?
Did they get that money? Are they rebuilding? Is out
to Dina? Truly? In fact not for sale? See when
disasters happened, like you don't hear about after the news
cycle ends, after the cameras leave, like what's going on now?
(16:45):
Part of the problem here was after the fire stop,
the ice raids started, we ain't had no time to
do nothing else. It's been a ill year here in
La like it's been and hord fam So let me
(17:08):
tap in real quick with y'all and be like, okay,
what's been going on in the six two six? Next day?
(17:54):
All right? We bite now I got good news and
bad news, and I'm pretty sure you could probably guess both. Now.
It was actually kind of hard to find this information.
I think this is one of those Ah, it's so crazy,
(18:15):
Like it became so clear as I was researching this
that there is so much writing on how this information
is fun like this. You need this to be a
feel good story or you need this to be a disaster,
depending on your agenda or political views. So it was
(18:38):
very hard to find. There's no such thing as neutral information.
I hope you've learned that by being a part of
the policy. It ain't no such thing as neutral information.
But there's also no such thing as unbiased information. But
it was so hard to find truthful information that was
willing to paint the whole pitch. Sure. That was the
(19:01):
hardest part because two things are going on here. There
is a reality in America that there's two realities that
have consistently followed disaster. One is the initial responses. We
really come together and we raise a ton of money.
The second problem is nobody knows where the hell that
(19:23):
money goes, and investors come and take everything. It's just
what it continues to happen. So I'm pretty sure you
could guess all it is. Now, I'm gonna start with
the good news. Okay, the good news is things like this.
There's a According to Last, which again is one of
(19:43):
our local journalistic outlets. A coalition of architects created around
two hundred free individual plans to help people rebuild after
losing their homes in the Eating fire right. And it's
a larger effort to assist out to Dina's Black community
and preserving the cultural legacy in our neighborhood. There was
(20:04):
this fear that, as you will find out, is not unfounded,
that this being like the last, the first and last,
like Los Angeles proper middle class, long lasting home owning community,
that something like this would further destroy that we've been
(20:28):
priced out. Black people have either been priced out or
just outnumbered, like all over LA. When I say outnumbered,
I say this with no shade. But it's the Latino community.
There's just so many of them, right, so it's not
so much. And of course there were struggles going through
the nineties. We've talked about this so many times. There's
been so much beef between our communities. We learned better,
(20:49):
like we've learned to work together. There's even at our
civic level, there's like understandings around what like districts you're
willing to run for and represent, Like there's there's been
an agreement around a lot of our civic leaders to
be like, Okay, we're gonna make sure we're gonna preserve
leadership to be black here as long as you preserve
leadership to be Latino there. And they've made choices to
(21:10):
not run in districts that have been like, so there's
a lot of like black and brown unity, which was
why that like, uh, that recorded audio that came out
a few years ago with our city council Latino leaders
being hell of racist was such an outrage with the
people because we fought really hard to build unity among
(21:32):
our communities. Right. So this thing is called the Rebuild
Readiness Package, right, which gives honoms a head start in
reconstruction in the process and connects them with architects from
the Southern California chapter of Get this, the National Organization
of Minority Architects, which is also called ARE, which is
known as SoCal NOMA, which I had no idea existed.
(21:54):
How dope is that it's apparently a national organization, Like
it says a minority architet text of architects of color,
and they said, listen, we're gonna We're gonna create these
individualized plans like it. You think it's expensive to buy
a house, try building it from scratch. Do you know
(22:15):
how much? Do you know how much architects make? I
didn't look it up because I think you can instinctually
know it's they make fuck off money. Right. But if
you black, if you're a person of color and you
see something happening like this, this would be a great
time for you to push the culture forward. And this
(22:38):
is good news we have now. They can't buy it
for you. They can't. They can't buy it the materials
for you. They can't do all that, but we can
at least get you ahead start what it costs money.
It costs a lot to build a house. But at
least we could pull this off the budget line. Here
again reading from this article. Before the LA fires out,
Tadna's population was fifty eight percent people of color. Around
(23:01):
eighteen percent residents were black. According to the last census data,
the community was a part of an unincorporated Like I said,
Los Angeles County has black home ownership rate nearly twice
as high as the national average. Around seventy five percent
of black Altadena residents own their homes, according to the
UCLA Center of Neighborhood Knowledge. That is remarkable. This is
(23:25):
why that was such a historic loss. Seventy five percent
like own their homes. Bruh, that's crazy. The cities where
black people are right now, they in South Carolina and Atlanta.
That's a different story. This la bro, seventy five percent owns.
(23:49):
That's a big deal. Right, let me see him and
give you some more. So the packages have, like ok say,
they contained information about the person's property, including the size, zoning, class, invasion,
and historical record. They also contain a timeline for how
much each of these phases of the rebuild is expected
and to take an action plan to stay on track.
(24:10):
Like dude, they project managed it for you, bro. That's amazing.
There's some good news. Some other good news would be
how much money was raised. Russell Westbrook, Tiffany Hattish, these
stars came in, giving away food, giving away clothing. One
(24:30):
of the dopest things get this was an historic home
relocation project, which was you remember them old school? Well
you don't remember that. None of us do them sears
pre made box homes. You co order a house, put
it together and ship it somewhere. This happened out here,
and there was a home in Los Felis, right, which
is gentrified, baby gentrified, one of the most gentrified areas,
(24:56):
hipster areas of LA. Right. There was a relocation project
to give eating fire victims faster alternative than rebuilding from scratch. Right.
So there was this nineteen ten craftsman style home that
was on Poppy Fields Drive that was taken to Altadena
(25:16):
at six fifteen am a few months ago. Right, So
the home was taken apart, reassembled and placed on somebody's plot.
That's amazing. Right. Fifty million dollars was raised through them concerts.
You remember all them concerts, all them things that was
going on, all this stuff. We raised a lot of
money and people really came through. This is where the
(25:39):
National Guard showed up and did a lot of good things.
This is where like your federal tax dollars at work
kind of worked the clear debris. You know, there's community
coming together. Nonprofits have stepped in. There was one called
Dora Hope that was able to give a high one
(26:00):
thousand dollars to this little music school to be able
to get a new piano. Like people have truly come together.
It was really an amazing thing. Roughly one hundred and
twenty organization split about fifty million dollars from the first
round of fire aid that was released on February seven, right,
(26:22):
and so you get this big pot and then they
were all given to very small or not very small,
all given to different organizations. Now, the issue with that
is a lot of times when money is raised, there
is a black box, I mean, niggas starts shutting up
(26:43):
about how the money is distributed and where there's a
vacuum of information. There's a lot of tomfoolery. Now I
am on the board of a nonprofit. This is my
second nonprofit. I've been on the board of one of
both of them in an international peace building humanity organizations.
There is such thing as operations costs. There is a
(27:06):
reality that like people do work here, they do need
their salaries. Right, There is only so much a not
for profit organization can generate in for profit ways. Then
the rest of it has to be generated through donations
(27:28):
and stuff like that. Now, niggas don't be reading the
fine print, and that fine print becomes the degree for
which that print is fine. Foining is the degree for
which you know this organization is shady or not. I'm
saying this from like experience. For example, when I worked
(27:50):
at Preemptive Love, which is a now non existent org
because the bits of it that was like really about
that life got folded into the one that I work
at now search for common ground, the leftover bits, not
leftover bits, but the former founder of Preemptive Love, he's
(28:11):
got a new one called Humanite, which there was never
a question about this fool's commitment to the struggle. So like,
no shade towards Jeremy and the kids commitment to the struggle.
Man they out there, especially right now, all bets are
off cuse like whatever old beef y'all had, that shit
is done. Now you know what I'm saying, Gods is
being starved, Like forget about the beef. Let's save some lives.
(28:35):
And there wasn't even beef anyway. All I'm saying is
at Preemptive Love, when you donated, it was very clear
on the website that like, look, because we work in
conflict zones that are sometimes ran by not so shady individuals,
they're ran by anti government organizations, or they just ran
(28:59):
by just straight up thugs that the West might call terrorists.
If I'm gonna get food, if I'm gonna get aid,
if I'm gonna get sheltered into this part of that country,
you gotta pay some people off. There's gonna be some
suitcases full of cash that it just is what it is.
(29:21):
Your money might have gone to a terrorist. Rolex, I
don't know what to tell you now. Me in you
being from America sounds very weird. But if you've ever
worked in gang interventions, if you ever worked in inner
city neighborhoods, if you've ever tried to I mean, I
(29:42):
could talk to the Homi JB about this. I'm gonna
give a little bit of story about this without giving
any names. But if you work in these environments, especially
these inner city environments, you have to tap in. Even
if you're doing good stuff, you have to make sure
it's okay. Ain't gonna do nothing. You know you are good,
you know you solid with us, you know what I'm saying. Like,
(30:05):
even if you're coming in, you doing a pancake breakfast,
you doing a little a little kickball match for the kids,
you the city. You're the city and you're about to
set up a little stage with some face painting and
giveaway backpacks. You need to talk to Pooky and them.
You gotta go talk to og Silent. You have to
(30:27):
go tap in and pinning all your reputation with them.
They might just be like twenty racks and were still
robbing you. They might be like twenty racks and then
getting ten racks to another set and then the set
come rob you or like nah, you solid, but yeah,
(30:48):
like I mean you like it's a business. The amount
of money we about to lose by you doing this
nice stuff means we can't do our criminal activities right now.
So like yeah, you know, you just you know, you
pay us off and you good and then maybe next
time when they see that, like you know, you really
about the community, you really one of us, You really cool?
(31:11):
Then you be solid, then you like are you good man? Nah,
whenever you need it, just make sure you tap in
before because I can't guarantee you know, some of these
young niggas, some of these like hop out boys, I
can't guarantee that, but like I'll put the word out
and then everybody you'll know. Once I put the word out. Nah,
he's solid. They good. They could go through here right.
Sometimes your donations, I'm gonna tell you, is going to
(31:37):
that nigg you feel me. You have to be real
about it. You have to be real on your website
that like this percentage of your donations is going to
operation fees. Now, if you really a real one, you
gonna explain to me what your operation fees. You should
have a charter that says your donations for each particular
(32:01):
thing and what they're gonna go to, and that there's
a wall between these type of non restricted funds and
then the funds that can cover payroll. That's supposed to
be clear. It's crazy that I noticed stuff, but that's
supposed to be clear. The problem is when there is
a crisis like to eat and fire, stuff be moving
(32:23):
so fast, people be moved so hard that it's real
easy for shady individuals to come through and claim eighty
percent as operation fees nigga eighty But they could still
say they raised you know, this much and they gave
away this much, and this leads to a lot of
(32:43):
like misinformation. This was one of the hardest things for
me to find out, which was where this money went
now because and to this day and to this moment,
I'm not going to be very specific about it because
I don't trust the sources I've read, like it's so
hard to find truthful sources about where to hell the
(33:05):
money fifty million dollars went some now within that, some organizations,
like I said, are very transparent about it. Yo. Here,
here's a website, here's where it is. There's so many
websites right now that LA put together at the about
the mutual funds, about recovery. LA has been very clear
about building websites as to where how to apply for funds,
(33:28):
where to get it at, and when we can pay
it out. But the people that put together that music festival,
I don't even know who the I don't know where
the money is and I can't I can't find it.
That's crazy, right, But it doesn't mean how doesn't mean
individual people haven't got donations, because there's also a website
(33:54):
that of first hand accounts of people are like, yeah,
I got my money from this and this. You know
what I'm saying. The local news stations, this is what
I meant earlier. The local news stations. You go to Fox,
you go to ABC, you go to all of our
local news channels. They want to feel good stories, so
I could see those like oh no, which leads us
(34:15):
to the bad news next. All right, right, the easiest one.
(35:03):
Let's just say, out of the strangest perfect storm of
perfect situations, given the situation, you in your house burns down,
but you had insurance. Your insurance was up to date.
They agreed to a certain amount whatever shortfall came in
(35:26):
through donations, you got one of these like pre made
two hundred like floor plans and architectural thing from Noma.
Who gonna build the house? Nigga ice raids. So even
if you have the money, even if you got it
(35:47):
set up, ain't nobody there to build the house? Is
fam because you got dang it? Do you understand what?
You understand the situation these people was in. So the
bad news is, even if you had everything, the workforce
has been chopped in half because foods is scared to
go to work because they gonna get snatched up by
a hop out boy. What is anyway sit that to
(36:11):
the side in our imaginary situation. That's saying that the
insurance actually paid out. That's not what happened. Now, this
is psycho according to NPR, and this organization called Circling
the News, which it took me a while to figure
out if they was like an actual legit thing, but
(36:31):
I double checked a lot of the stuff they were saying.
We got some things in there. So first problem is
the insurance. Let's just say you had insurance, or at
least you thought you did when you went to go
make your claim. What you might have found out is
that the company you worked with wasn't gonna renew your
(36:55):
policy anyway because they've closed the entire zip code. People
woke up to realize that they house insurance. What in
house insurance. There's stories of people who went through seven
different brokers that was like we uh we uh, we can't,
we can't cover it. Some people was like, look, I'm
(37:16):
not unin, I'm just uninsured, Like I don't know, I
don't know what I'm having. I'm gonna have to figure
out the money to build this house. And that's if
you plan on rebuilding right. Other insurance brokers after they said,
you know, we can cover you, but we can cover
(37:36):
about three hundred and fifty dollars per square foot, which
is like done, done, Donet's not enough it's not at
all enough to equal the worth of the house that
they had. Now here's my situation. I'm actually in this
situation now. Uh when a company like State Farm, which
(37:59):
was all over in Who's decided they just wasn't gonna
cover California no more. Your mortgage company just picks up
a company for you, and all they do is cover
hazard pay. It's the equivalent of your car insurance just
being the basic coverage, where it's like, this really ain't
covering shit. Right, Most people in Altadena found themselves in
(38:26):
that situation. Right. So, California, obviously, of most of America,
has the highest fire risk, but its insurance is cheaper
than in many other states. Watch this. In fact, the
(38:47):
insurance industry agrees that it says companies have been retreating
from California precisely because they aren't allowed to charge enough
to cover the risk. The real issue is the inability
to get adequate rates, says the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
(39:10):
There was this nineteen eighty eight law right that was
on our ballot that said it prevents the arbitrary insurance rakehikes,
meaning insurances as you know now or as you should
know is a scam, right, You paying monthly into something
and then when you need them, they ain't got the money.
(39:30):
People was getting their insurance checks this also happened, and
then saying don't cash the check till Tuesday, and then
you cash the check on Tuesday and the check bounce.
Why because they ain't got the money. Because insurance is
a scam. We're supposed to all be paying into this
thing monthly, right so that if something go wrong, according
to my policy, you pay me out. But the insurance
(39:52):
company is saying, well, y'all not giving us enough money
for if something happens, we're gonna be able to cover y'all,
so give us more Moneyuntry was like, or the state
was like, you have enough, and what the hell? Kind
of maybe you shouldn't approve that many. Maybe the whole
system is bullshit. If what you're saying is you ain't
(40:16):
got enough money to ensure your insurance, I don't seem
like my fault. That seemed like your fault. It's like
it helped me help you. So people was getting the
insurance checks nine hundred thousand dollars and then couldn't cast
because the insurance company broke an insurance company is saying, well,
(40:38):
all of y'all are casting y'all's things, to which other
companies were like, we're just not gonna be here. We
can't cover it now. Congressman John Garrimindi, who served as
(41:26):
the former insurance commissioner, told Altadena residents under California Proposition
one oh three, the insurance commissioner has the clear authority
he can compel insurers to pay claims fully and promptly
and block any rate increase until survivors are made whole.
(41:46):
There should be no dog gone rate hikes for companies
that break their promises, because, as you know, if you
use your insurance, your rate goes up. It's it's insane.
So companies are leaving, So the insurance left, and if
(42:13):
they do pay out, they're not even paying a fraction
of what it is now. That's if you're willing to
try to rebuild, you only get in a fraction of it.
And even if you get in a fraction of it,
they still raising your rates. Nonetheless, our heart desire was
to protect out to Dina. But what are you gonna
(42:35):
do if you truly have no other option? Now, some
of the insurance companies were paying out ways for you
to rent your rent somewhere until your house got rebuilt.
But you gotta remember, you got to you gotta meet
the shortfall. Now, do you have a spare five hundred
thousand dollars to meet the shortfall? I don't, So that
(42:57):
would mean your only option is probably sell because you
got to start over. But the signs popped up everywhere
ol To Dina not for sale. Let me tell y'all something.
Alsadena's absolutely for sale. More bad news, y'all. First, of
all of the houses that are rebuilt, watch this five percent,
(43:23):
five percent of more than nine hundred rebuild permits submitted
to Olta Dina have been approved, indicating that rebuilding efforts
are still at its early stages. In contrast, check this out,
around twenty five percent of the nearly four hundred rebuilds
permits in Pacific Palisades are already approved, showing a different, significant,
(43:49):
different progress between the two regions. Because racism is going
racism five percent, bro. So let's just say you in
a perfect situation where you got the money, you got
the plans, you figured out the insurance. Now you want
to permit becaus is waiting on permits only five percent.
(44:13):
You've not even approven. So even if you could figure
it out, the city not approven the rebuilds. Now why
they not approven the rebuilds? I don't know. I'm just
saying the Palisades ain't got that problem. Eye roll Anyway,
Altadena is absolutely for sale. So roughly this is according
to the La Times, about one hundred and forty five
(44:36):
burned lots have sold so far, around one hundred are
currently being listed, and dozens more in escrow. The identities
of every single buyer isn't clear, since many are obscured
by trusts or limited liability companies, but real estate records
and local sources suggest that developers are buying alliance share
(45:01):
of the lots. Yeah, this is what happens. This will
happened in Katrina, This will happen in Beaumont, in Houston,
outside of Houston, in the floods, they just swoop in
and buy it. Who are these limited liability groups right now?
(45:23):
This is far out pacing Again the Palisades, where less
than sixty lots have sold since the fire, and roughly
one hundred and eighty are sitting on the market, sometimes
for months. Why because they can rebuild oh, man, but
what are you gonna do? Like you sell to the
(45:43):
highest bidder. Somebody come in here with a cash offered, right,
what are you gonna do? There was a story where
one lady says she at her house listed and one
agent called me and said he has someone looking to
buy one hundred lots. Right, this is how we lose
(46:06):
our neighborhoods man now. According to realator dot com, roughly
one hundred and sixty five properties were sold in Altadena
in the first five months of twenty twenty five, with
more than half of them being bought by investors. For comparison,
only about fifteen percent of the buyers in Altadena were
investors starting in twenty twenty four, and according to the
(46:30):
latest data available on realator dot com now, the medium
price of a sale for a house in Altadena so
far this year six hundred and seventy five thousand, roughly
half of the previous year, which medium sale was one
point two five million. It's kind of a no brainer.
(46:54):
Of course you're going to buy these houses. Now what
they said was happening. It wasn't so much people buying
up one hundred lots to turning them into complexes. It's
more like people being able to buy four and five
lots toss up these houses. And it's not people, it's
investment firms. Who are those firms? I don't know. Maybe
Blackstone right, Blackstone is who bought up most of our housing.
(47:17):
But for us to be in this housing crisis and
then investors just buying up the I know they're not
doing that in Palisades. So yeah, you can go to
Recovery dot La County dot gov to see a little
(47:40):
more information on it. But at the end of the day,
man like to live and die in La man, what
they supposed to do? This is how That's how Citi
(48:01):
has become corporate towns Man, disaster hit investors come in
and swoop it all up. We pay for insurance to
try to protect our houses, but the insurance don't be
paying out. You even have somebody that donate the architectural plans,
(48:22):
but the city not approving the rebuild permits. What we're
supposed to do on me? I don't know, man, That's
what's going on. And out to Dinna though hood politics.
(48:48):
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
You better listen to these credits. I need you to
finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in East Lost Boyle Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
(49:08):
you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You
can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off. Get yourself some coffee. This was mixed,
edited and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the
Beat Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski dot com. I'm
a speller for you because I know M A T
(49:31):
T O S O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out the heat. Politics is
a member of cool Zone Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman,
part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and
(49:51):
scoring is also by the one and overly Mattowsowski. Still
killing the beat softly, So listen, don't let nobody lie
to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all
next week.
Host
Prop
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