In the shadow of the most devastating natural disaster in Los Angeles County history, regional leaders, UCLA faculty and policymakers gathered at the 2025 Luskin Summit this week with a shared goal: turning catastrophe into an opportunity for transformative, community-driven recovery.
The fires that tore through Altadena and Pacific Palisades in January left behind more than ash and ruin. With 15,000 structures destroyed, lives upended and entire neighborhoods scarred, the rebuilding effort is both prodigious and personal. The summit’s opening panel laid out both the scale of the challenge and the resolve to meet it with coordination, creativity and compassion.
“Recovery is not just about rebuilding structures,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. “It’s about restoring relationships, reestablishing lives and building back better, with resilience at the heart of every plan.”
Bass, who noted that over 500 properties in the Palisades have already been cleared, emphasized the urgency of action alongside the need for long-term vision. “We have 19 permits approved, 100 in the pipeline and DWP restored power in less than two months,” she said. “That’s unprecedented, but we’re not done.”
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, whose tenure began just days before the fires broke out, described the university’s response as an affirmation of its civic mission. “We are not just in Los Angeles, we are of Los Angeles,” he said. Frenk highlighted UCLA’s role in supporting displaced residents through recovery centers, volunteer efforts and research contributions, including hazardous waste studies and housing analysis.
Among the most striking takeaways was the psychological and economic reach of the disaster. According to Zev Yaroslavsky, director of UCLA’s Los Angeles Initiative and former LA County Supervisor, 41 percent of county residents know someone who lost their home or business and 14 percent lost income during the fire response period. “This is not just a tragedy of two neighborhoods,” Yaroslavsky said, adding, “It’s a shared trauma across Los Angeles.”
That sense of shared impact underscored the summit’s focus on equity. Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district includes Pacific Palisades, emphasized the need to protect renters, working-class families and multi-generational homeowners who may have lacked formal deeds or insurance coverage. “Recovery must be inclusive,” she said. “This is not an academic exercise, it’s about action for real people who’ve been left behind before.”
One key tension the panelists explored was the friction between urgency and bureaucracy. Multiple speakers stressed that legacy permitting processes and outdated infrastructure frameworks were ill-suited to meet the demands of a disaster this large. “We can’t keep using the systems that failed us,” said Anish Saraiya, senior advisor to Supervisor Kathryn Barger and director of the Altadena recovery. “We need a universal approach, one trench, one plan, all utilities coordinated before home construction begins. Otherwise, it’s chaos.”
The logistics are formidable. Altadena alone must navigate cooperation among more than three separate water agencies, many of which lack the capacity or funding to rebuild to modern fire-safety standards. Meanwhile, undergrounding power lines, now a stated goal of both the city and utility providers, requires new funding models and legislative fixes.
Senator Ben Allen, chair of the state Senate Budget Subcommittee on Environmental Protection, acknowledged the financial strain on local governments and pledged state support, though he urged federal engagement as well. “The state has committed $2.5 billion already, but we’re going to need help from Washington,” Allen said. “This is a generational recovery and it can’t fall solely on LA’s shoulders.”
As the discussion turned toward the future, panelists repeatedly came back to one question: how to keep momentum alive once the news cycle fades. Bass proposed a monthly mobilization effort starting April 26 to keep community engagement high. “We can’t let this fade into the rear-view mirror,” she said, adding, “We have to clean up graffiti, plant trees and rebuild together.”
Yaroslavsky said that 89 percent of residents support allowing people to rebuild their homes in place, a figure he described as “close to unanimous as you can get in public polling.” However, rebuilding doesn’t mean repeating as the summit emphasized climate adaptation, equity and local input as guiding principles moving forward.
“Los Angeles is defined by its resilience,” Frenk said. “We’ve been through trauma, but we have the opportunity to model recovery for the rest of the world.”
If there was one theme that cut across all remarks, it was that recovery is not a race, but a relay. And in Los Angeles, the baton is being passed with a growing sense of urgency and unity.
