LOS ANGELES (CNN) – One family in Los Angeles is trying to stay resilient in the face of overwhelming loss.
Three different family members all had their homes burn down.
“I feel helpless, and I feel like I need the help and I don’t know where to go,” Robert Lara said.
Lara believed it was a blessing to have his entire family all in Altadena, California.
In the Eaton fire, it became a curse.
“My uncle was on the street. His house is gone. My mom’s house is gone. I’m gone,” Lara added.
Lara recorded as fire engulfed his street, and while his home and his uncle’s house on the same street burned.
His mother had already seen her home a few blocks away be destroyed.
“I had my last little dinner here. There was no power and I still said, ‘I’m just holding the fort. I’ll be the last one to leave. My house is not burning,’ and it’s gone. It’s gone,” Lara described. “This was all I really wanted to get to, and all I found was nothing.”
“Yesterday, I had it all. I had a roof, I had a lawn for my dogs, and now, I’m in a little confined square not knowing where I’m going to go next.”
Domitila Hinojosa is Lara’s mother. She’s a diabetic who cares for her disabled son.
“This morning when I wake up, I say I need to go back to my house,” Hinojosa said. “What happened? Where my home? I want to go back, but I can’t. I can’t go back.”
Now, they will have to deal with the maze of home insurance.
A lot of people outside of California think that it was primarily celebrities who lost homes.
“This is your everyday, hardworking construction, gardening, housekeeping, your everyday essential workers with nothing,” Lara said. “We still have to cover our mortgage. I called my lender and I still have to continue paying.”
The family of faith is now left grasping for meaning.
“I hear the voice that God told me, ‘I give it to you,’ everything,” Hinojosa said. “And in one second, ‘You have to follow me. Follow me.’ I believe in God. I think one day, I’m going to have a house and I’m going to have everything.”
They only hope God is listening now.
“Is somebody going to help us? Are we helpless? What do we do? Who do we call? I don’t know,” Lara said.
The three family members did apply for assistance through FEMA. They all got the same response: the housing assistance had not been approved by FEMA.
FEMA said that’s not an unusual response, which could be as a result of people not filling out the forms correctly.
Officials in Los Angeles are advising those who have been denied to reapply.
At least 10,000 structures have been destroyed in the fires, with many neighborhoods completely flattened.
Copyright 2025 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.