Students and faculty members in UCLA School of Law’s Veterans Legal Clinic recently helped several community partners in producing a study that assesses the risks of housing displacement that confronts people who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire, which devastated the region in January 2025.

The report, “Confronting Disaster: Curbing Corporate Speculation in Post-Fire Altadena,” analyzes the displacement risks facing long-term Altadena residents, especially Black Altadenans, in the wake of the Eaton Fire. It makes policy recommendations for local and state leaders to protect families from displacement and preserve Altadena’s historic neighborhoods and residents.

Veterans Legal Clinic students and faculty members collaborated on the research with community organizations including SAJE (Strategic Actions for a Just Economy), Inclusive Action for the City, morena strategies, Public Interest Law Project, and theworksLA.

“As part of the community of housing and homeless advocates in Los Angeles, we had to respond,” says UCLA Law professor Sunita Patel, the clinic’s faculty director.

As it explains, the report utilizes “parcel-level spatial data, literature review, lessons from other post-disaster recovery efforts, and community input gathered through on-the-ground organizing. [Its] goal is to inform responsive land use policies that prioritize the economic and social wellbeing of those most impacted by the Eaton Fire, and not corporate investors.”

Importantly, UCLA Law students drove much of the clinic’s work on the project. Teaming with community organizations and people who were affected by the fires, they gained hands-on experience in how attorneys can provide legal support in the wake of a disaster.

“In addition to engaging legal research and scholarship related to disaster speculation, we interviewed Altadena business owners, homeowners, and renters to inform the report,” says Caitlin Ciardelli ’26.

She and her classmates partnered to develop research and findings that were incorporated into a policy brief that discusses land ownership and speculative risk in Altadena. They also worked with community organizations to submit comments to the California legislature, encouraging the state to support Altadenans as they rebuild their community. And they staffed FEMA appeals clinics, where they worked directly with families who were affected by the fires.

“Seeing the impact the Palisades and Eaton Fires had on our UCLA and broader L.A. communities was a call to action for our clinic,” Ciardelli says. “I’m grateful to our professors for giving us the opportunity to learn how to advocate effectively as law students in the wake of disasters and to contribute to the rebuilding of communities that are so important to all of us. This experience emphasized the importance of community-based lawyering, and I will take the lessons of compassion, resilience, and social responsibility with me as a future attorney."