While extensive articles document how the Palisades fires impacted the landowners and elites in Los Angeles, mobile home residents were among those affected most gravely as well. The Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates and Tahitian Terrace, two mobile home parks, were destroyed in the fires. They had previously housed hundreds of residents.

What are the specific problems with mobile home parks after the fire?

As one of the most affordable housing options in the area, mobile home ownership allowed residents to pay as little as $600 per month before the fire. 

While park owners are allowed to rebuild, California law gives them the ability to raise rent in order to cover the costs of improvements, leaving many mobile home owners uncertain as to whether they can return.

Cole Biggs, owner of Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates, was unsure as to whether he would proceed with rebuilding, saying “if we have to go invest $100 million to rebuild the park and we’re not able to recoup that in some fashion, then it’s not likely we will rebuild the park. … We’re not evicting anybody. But if the park’s not rebuilt, then obviously the residents wouldn’t have the right to reoccupy the park.”

Where do people go from here?

Lynda Park, a resident of Biggs’ neighborhood who lived with her mother, husband, and three children said that “The only things we have left are the clothes we have on.” Like many other victims of the fire, Park’s place of work also burned down in the fire.

Many individuals, including Park’s mother, did not have insurance because costs for insurance were elevated in the disaster-prone city of Los Angeles. Others lost records of insurance in the fires, complicating their abilities to receive help in the aftermath of disaster.