Defending the Rich: Trump Blocks Palisades Low-Income Housing Push

Paul Riverbank, 1/30/2026Trump blocks Palisades low-income housing, reigniting debate over disaster recovery and housing equity.

“They want to build a low-income housing project right in the middle of everything in Palisades, and I'm not going to allow it,” Trump declared, punctuating his remarks with a wave toward maps spread out on a conference table. According to the president, the measure would deal a blow to local property values at precisely the moment the area is struggling to recover from last year’s devastating wildfires.

The Palisades is not just another zip code on the LA map—it’s a patchwork of burned hillsides and sprawling homes, some newly built, others still wrapped in yellow tape. The fires left scars both physical and economic, with dozens of residents now living in limbo, waiting on permits or wrangling with their insurance providers. For local and state officials, the challenge is to not only mend what was lost but also deal with a glaring reality: many who worked in the area—teachers, service workers, first responders—can’t afford to live anywhere near their jobs.

In July, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office countered Trump’s position, noting that recovery funds are earmarked not just for Pacific Palisades but for impacted communities up and down the coast—Altadena, Malibu, places where the flames drove families from their homes and sharply deepened the state’s housing crisis. Newsom’s staff publicly committed over $100 million to rebuild affordable apartments, promising rents would stay below market for at least five decades.

Yet, as the sun set over the Palisades, Trump dug in. “People that own their homes, we’re gonna keep them wealthy. We’re gonna keep those prices up. We’re not gonna destroy the value of their homes so that somebody who didn’t work very hard can buy a home,” he told the room, drawing murmured assent from some around the Cabinet table. “I’ve made a fortune on low-income housing, but that’s not what this neighborhood needs now.”

It’s a familiar refrain from the former president—defending home values on one hand, urging greater affordability on the other. Only days prior, his social media account touted plans to slash interest rates and rein in corporate landlords, insisting: “People live in homes, not corporations.” When pressed by his own staff about threading this needle, Trump offered his vision: “We’re gonna make it easier to buy, we’re gonna get interest rates down, but I want to protect the people that, for the first time in their lives, feel good about themselves. They feel wealthy.”

To housing advocates, the deadlock is about more than numbers on price tags or fleeting campaign slogans. Rebuilding, they argue, must mean rebuilding for everyone—not just those who can write a six-figure down payment check. Local advocates point to the state’s pledge for 55 years of affordability, warning that if Pacific Palisades becomes a red line, so will every wealthy enclave facing disaster in future years. The overarching question, one advocate told me, is simple: who gets to come home?

Oddly, Trump left the Cabinet room without fielding questions, leaving the assembled press corps to speculate over both the housing decision and his silence on other pressing issues—like the ongoing uproar in Minneapolis, which, for the moment, apparently didn’t merit a presidential aside. “Not once was Minneapolis brought up,” a reporter remarked quietly after the meeting.

But sometimes, in the swirl of a political summer, an argument about rebuilding a few hundred homes in a fire-damaged corner of Los Angeles comes to stand for something much larger. What’s at stake is not just the price of a house or the word ‘affordable’ in a funding memo, but the kind of future California, and the country, are willing to build for those left behind—by disaster, by cost, by inertia. As the debates stretch on, families still wait, their return home hanging in the balance between the promise to rebuild and the politics of value, the American dream snared between hope and the hard reality of who gets to live where.

The arguments swirling in the lush streets of Pacific Palisades are hardly new, yet the latest round feels especially charged. President Trump, during a recent session with his Cabinet, took a hard stance—he flatly refused to support federal funding for low-income housing projects in the neighborhood, a decision he framed as a defense of long-time homeowners and their investments.“They want to build a low-income housing project right in the middle of everything in Palisades, and I'm not going to allow it,” Trump declared, punctuating his remarks with a wave toward maps spread out on a conference table. According to the president, the measure would deal a blow to local property values at precisely the moment the area is struggling to recover from last year’s devastating wildfires.The Palisades is not just another zip code on the LA map—it’s a patchwork of burned hillsides and sprawling homes, some newly built, others still wrapped in yellow tape. The fires left scars both physical and economic, with dozens of residents now living in limbo, waiting on permits or wrangling with their insurance providers. For local and state officials, the challenge is to not only mend what was lost but also deal with a glaring reality: many who worked in the area—teachers, service workers, first responders—can’t afford to live anywhere near their jobs.In July, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office countered Trump’s position, noting that recovery funds are earmarked not just for Pacific Palisades but for impacted communities up and down the coast—Altadena, Malibu, places where the flames drove families from their homes and sharply deepened the state’s housing crisis. Newsom’s staff publicly committed over $100 million to rebuild affordable apartments, promising rents would stay below market for at least five decades.Yet, as the sun set over the Palisades, Trump dug in. “People that own their homes, we’re gonna keep them wealthy. We’re gonna keep those prices up. We’re not gonna destroy the value of their homes so that somebody who didn’t work very hard can buy a home,” he told the room, drawing murmured assent from some around the Cabinet table. “I’ve made a fortune on low-income housing, but that’s not what this neighborhood needs now.”It’s a familiar refrain from the former president—defending home values on one hand, urging greater affordability on the other. Only days prior, his social media account touted plans to slash interest rates and rein in corporate landlords, insisting: “People live in homes, not corporations.” When pressed by his own staff about threading this needle, Trump offered his vision: “We’re gonna make it easier to buy, we’re gonna get interest rates down, but I want to protect the people that, for the first time in their lives, feel good about themselves. They feel wealthy.”To housing advocates, the deadlock is about more than numbers on price tags or fleeting campaign slogans. Rebuilding, they argue, must mean rebuilding for everyone—not just those who can write a six-figure down payment check. Local advocates point to the state’s pledge for 55 years of affordability, warning that if Pacific Palisades becomes a red line, so will every wealthy enclave facing disaster in future years. The overarching question, one advocate told me, is simple: who gets to come home?Oddly, Trump left the Cabinet room without fielding questions, leaving the assembled press corps to speculate over both the housing decision and his silence on other pressing issues—like the ongoing uproar in Minneapolis, which, for the moment, apparently didn’t merit a presidential aside. “Not once was Minneapolis brought up,” a reporter remarked quietly after the meeting.But sometimes, in the swirl of a political summer, an argument about rebuilding a few hundred homes in a fire-damaged corner of Los Angeles comes to stand for something much larger. What’s at stake is not just the price of a house or the word ‘affordable’ in a funding memo, but the kind of future California, and the country, are willing to build for those left behind—by disaster, by cost, by inertia. As the debates stretch on, families still wait, their return home hanging in the balance between the promise to rebuild and the politics of value, the American dream snared between hope and the hard reality of who gets to live where.