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One year since the costliest wildfires in terms of property damage in world history, how are people

paying to live elsewhere? I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. A survey from the fall of people

displaced by the Southern California wildfires one year ago found most still living in temporary

housing, 75% from the Palisades, and 67% from Altadena.

Since few houses have been rebuilt one year later, how are people paying for shelter?

Insurance policies are supposed to have loss of use coverage, also called fair rental value or additional living expenses, ALE.

Many fire survivors don't have that, or for some, it's running out.

Let's consult Joy Chen, executive director of the Eden Fire Survivors Network, a grassroots

group that coalesced in Altadena, Pasadena.

Joy, welcome.

Hi there.

Hi, David.

I want to zoom in on a subset of fire insurance, which is coverage to pay for you to live somewhere else because you may have owned a house in a place like Altadena or the Palisades, but you can't live there anymore because there's nothing left or it's so damaged from smoke and soot that you don't

dare to live in there yet. How is that system supposed to work and how is it working?

It's called ALE or different insurance companies call it different things. It's interesting because

most people assume that we have three years of coverage. However, the way it works in practice is it's three years of

coverage up to your policy limits, up to the dollar amount that's specified in your insurance

policy. Prior to the fire, the average rent that tenants paid was $1,700 a month. That means that a lot of tenants were shacking up with

...