Accompanying My Clients to the Disaster Recovery Center in Los Angeles

Alejandro leaving the Disaster Recover Center in LA on February 12th.

Last week I accompanied three of my clients to the LA Fires Disaster Recovery Center on Pico Blvd in Los Angeles. I was there to provide free assistance to them in case they needed information about the nature of their properties or existing mortgages while applying for SBA disaster loans, FEMA assistance, the Water & Power Department, etc.

Here are some things we noticed during our trip that may be of help:

The Los Angeles Disaster Recovery Center is located in the former West Side shopping mall (on Pico Blvd) close to the 405 Freeway. Photos inside the Center were not allowed, but it is well organized and pretty much provides a one-stop shop for people who need help with recovering from the recent fires. You have the SBA, FEMA, the DMV, the Social Security Administration, Building & Safety, Water & Power, and you name it. Pretty much every government office is represented.

And the idea is that when you show up, there is nothing that you cannot do, there is no agency that you are not able to talk to, and there is no paperwork that you cannot retrieve. For example in case the fire burned your driver's license, or you lost your Social Security card. You have one place where, if you go early in the morning, pretty much by the end of the day, you can have all the paperwork done in one day.

There is ample parking because the shopping mall is exclusively used now for the emergency services. It is sort of makeshift, but the staff is really friendly, and everyone knows their job well.

By now most of the people that needed assistance have already been to the center, so they don't have a lot of traffic. But on the weekends is when they have the very least traffic.

The SBA office is well represented with about seven or eight staff. They have three types of loan programs that you can apply for; they have a program for your home, a program for your business, and a program also for your business for working capital. You can also apply for these online, but at this center you can speak to someone in person to help you see if you qualify for any of the disaster recovery loan programs.

Another organization that is there is FEMA. FEMA is sort of an emergency help; from what I saw they are helping people with emergency expenses on an immediate basis, like rent. They seem to be sort of covering the gaps of what is not covered by insurance and to get people through the immediate period of being able to survive with food and housing while they figure out what to do next.

These programs are not necessarily free money—they do their due diligence to see in what ways you have been impacted by the disaster. They want proof that you have been impacted by the disaster, they want photographs, they want a detailed description of what is wrong, they want an approximate value of the loss that you suffered. And then basically they want to verify your identity, they want to verify your address, and then you can apply for all of those programs right there on the spot with minimal hassle, minimum waiting, you know, so I was very impressed by how well organized everything is.

If you’ve been impacted by the fires, even if you're not certain about what you qualify for, it's worth the trip, because you will find out useful information about the resources available, and there may be financial and other assistance available that you may not otherwise have come to know about.

If you’ve been impacted by the fires and have questions or would like more information, please call me any time for free assistance. I will do whatever I can to help you.