Joe Biden announced on Monday January 13 that aid of $770 would be paid, in one go, to each victim of the Los Angeles fires.
Is this enough, or not? This is a question that has agitated the residents of Los Angeles since the beginning of the week. While thousands of people have lost everything in the fires currently ravaging the city, Joe Biden announced Monday that aid of $770 would be paid to each disaster victim, in one go. So far, according to the American president who will give way to Donald Trump on January 20, nearly 6,000 people have already been accepted into this system, representing for the moment a total of 5.1 million dollars paid.
“I want to be clear, we are not waiting until the fires are over to start helping victims. We are helping them now. People affected by these fires will receive the check for $770 in one go, so they can quickly buy water, baby products, medicine,” Joe Biden said.
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Deanne Criswell, Administrator of the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency, added that the hotel costs of affected families could also be reimbursed, while 700 to 800 people are still in shelters which remain open for those who no longer have a roof over their heads. “A reimbursement that comes in addition to giving them severe needs assistance of $770 to, for example, buy clothes,” she added. She specified that in addition to 6,000 people whose profiles have already been validated for this check, 33,000 others are registered in this program “and this number increases a little every day, and we believe that it will continue to increase as we are able to go into communities. »
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-Other aid planned
If the check for 770 dollars raises some eyebrows, some believing that this amount is too low, the administration recalled that this money was used to purchase basic necessities quickly. Other long-term aid programs are in fact planned since Joe Biden approved California’s disaster declaration on January 8, thus paving the way for federal funding for those affected to provide them with temporary housing. and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover.
Additionally, the president pledged that the federal government would cover 100 percent of the cost of California’s disaster response for a six-month period. During his briefing, Joe Biden also called on Congress to increase funding to help victims of wildfires. “It will take tens of billions of dollars to get Los Angeles back to what it was,” he commented. “We’re going to need Congress to increase funding. »
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The fires in Los Angeles, made worse by drought and wind and which extend over thousands of hectares, have already killed at least 24 people.
