Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes $125 million in mortgage relief for California disaster victims
A new mortgage relief program for Californians who've had their homes destroyed by recent natural disasters is in the works.
On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a proposed $125 million program geared at helping wildfire victims.
The program will be for homeowners whose homes have been destroyed or damaged, and who are at risk of foreclosure, in natural disasters dating back to 2023. This means victims of the Park, Franklin, Palisades and Eaton fires could be eligible for relief.
"As survivors heal from the trauma of recent disasters, the threat of foreclosure should be the last thing on their minds. This disaster mortgage relief program would help lift this burden and give families more time to focus on recovery," Newsom said in a statement about the proposal.
Newsom's office also noted that the relief package would use existing mortgage settlement funding, meaning no impact to his already proposed 2025-26 budget for the state.
The California Housing Finance Agency would be administering the package, if it's approved.
In the wake of the historically destructive Los Angeles wildfires, California officials have already postponed the individual tax filing deadline for Los Angeles County residents. Newsom has also extended the state property tax deadline for LA wildfire victims.
At the same time, California homeowners are still facing financial uncertainty in the wake of the LA fires. State Farm, the state's largest insurer, has asked for an emergency insurance rate increase as high as 22% for some homeowners.
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Miami Herald
14 hours ago
- Miami Herald
How the federal immigration raids could disrupt California's economy
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The crackdown, depending on its scope and scale, could come at a price for industries across Los Angeles and California that have become increasingly dependent on immigrants, here legally or not, economists say. The surge in international migration in the last two decades - both by legal and undocumented workers - has been key to the growth of California's economy. A number of industries such as construction, leisure and hospitality, health care and agriculture rely heavily on immigrant workers. Foreign-born Californians account for one-third of all workers at restaurants and warehouses; about 40% in home healthcare and child day care; almost 50% at trucking and lodging businesses; and 60% at services for landscaping and cleaning buildings, according to a Times analysis of 2022 Census Bureau data. 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Many spend their day watching screens, he said: "How much of that is health? How much of that is pain? How much of that is psychic pain? It would be great if we had more reportage on this." In the longer term, there also may be a paradoxical effects on wages, especially in California, Texas and Florida, according to a forthcoming research paper in the American Economic Review titled "Immigration, Innovation and Growth." If all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. were deported, after five years, California would see average annual wages decrease by $970, with Florida seeing a decrease of $560, according to the paper. Texas would see a decrease of $187, according to the paper. The theory is that the more productive people you have in an economy, the more it grows, said Tarek Hassan, a professor of economics at Boston University. With immigrants filling jobs, it frees up others to invent, create new patents and figure out ways to make the economy more efficient, which generates wealth. "Immigration in general is good for economic growth," said Hassan, who is a co-author of the paper. "This idea that immigrants take away Americans' jobs is not correct." Meanwhile, the local economy already has taken a hit from the on-and-off tariffs Trump announced in April, with the Port of Los Angeles processing 25% less cargo than forecast for May, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said in an interview. That has resulted in dwindling job opportunities at the port, which along with the neighboring Port of Long Beach - the largest port complex in the country - provide jobs for thousands of dockworkers, heavy equipment operators and truck drivers. Nearly half of the longshoremen who support operations at the Los Angeles port went without work over the last two weeks. Over the last 25 work shifts, only 733 jobs were available for 1,575 longshoremen looking for work, he said. "They haven't been laid off, but they're not working nearly as much as they did previously," Seroka told The Los Angeles Times. "Since the tariffs went into place, and in May specifically, we've really seen the work go off on the downside," Seroka said. The decline in shipping has ripple effects on L.A.'s economy. A 2023 report found that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach contributed $21.8 billion in direct revenue to local service providers, generating $2.7 billion in state and local taxes and creating 165,462 jobs, directly and indirectly. The slowdown in activity also has spread into surrounding communities. Businesses near the ports rely on a robust community of workers to frequent their establishments. "We're starting to hear from small businesses and restaurants in the harbor area that their customer patronage is trending downward," Seroka said. "Outside of COVID, this is the biggest drop I've seen in my career." Then there's the effect that deploying the National Guard and the turmoil it is having on the tourism industry, even though the disruptions have been limited to certain locales, said Jackie Filla, president of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles. "I'm hearing there have been just significant cancellations all across the city," Filla said, though she noted it's too soon to have hard data. "People are nervous to come to Los Angeles." International travelers also may be concerned about being detained, with Los Angeles clearly a target of the federal government for immigration enforcement actions, she said. And even if the immigration turmoil ends soon, the federal crackdown hurts L.A.'s brand as a tourist destination, which heavily leans on status as a global hub, with its diversity of cuisine, people and experiences, Filla said. "People rightfully have a lot of questions. They are calling hotels and wondering what the environment and atmosphere is like, and if they're going to be safe," she said. (Staff writers Suhauna Hussain and Caroline Petrow-Cohen contributed to this article.) Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Business Journals
16 hours ago
- Business Journals
Daily Digest: End of an era at Fisherman's Wharf, Scale AI eyes record funding from Meta
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Bloomberg
19 hours ago
- Bloomberg
US-China London Talks Enter Day 2; LA Protests Day 4; Meta AI
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