The Brief

Producer and engineer Rich Mouser built his recording studio, The Mouse House, more than two decades ago — it was part of his home in the Altadena hills. The space featured 35-foot ceilings, soundproofed isolation rooms and a library of vintage recording gear that the 63-year-old musician had been collecting since he was a teenager. A year ago, the Mouse House burned to the ground in the Eaton fire.

"I went through and started making a list and adding it up. It's got to be close to half a million [dollars] in lost equipment," Mouser tells NPR. "In hindsight, if I had known the house was going to burn down like that, I would have gone to great more lengths to get stuff out."

The Los Angeles wildfires destroyed more than 16,000 homes and businesses. Mouser, who has worked with bands including Weezer, Dream Theater and Spock's Beard, is one of countless musicians doubly impacted by the natural disaster. He not only lost the house for which he'd finished paying off the mortgage and everything inside it; suddenly, a large chunk of his livelihood also vanished.

"Three days after the fire, I went to London to run sound for some live shows. A lot of people were like, 'Are you really going to go? You have to cancel,'" Mouser remembers. "I thought, 'This might be the only work I have for who knows how long, so I'm going to go do it.'"

Adron McCann, a singer-songwriter, visual artist and audio producer who performs as Adron, was facing a similar uncertainty. She'd been renting half of a duplex in Altadena with her partner, who is also a working musician, for two years when the Eaton fire tore through their home. Overnight, the couple lost virtually all their personal belongings — including McCann's three treasured aquariums — as well as their at-home studio setup. A lifetime's worth of gear, instruments, paintings, vinyl albums and a collection of vintage synthesizers disappeared.

"I'm still working on just the personal grief of it, the whole story," McCann says. "And so trying to put the pieces back together professionally — it's just really, really blended with our personal lives."

Starting to piece things back together

Immediately, friends and family for both Mouser and McCann sprung into action, setting up GoFundMe pages that raised tens of thousands of dollars. Mouser says he initially purchased core items needed to get back to work: a graphic equalizer, Neve microphone preamps, a portion of the same model of mixing board he lost in the fire. Fellow musicians loaned him studio spaces, equipment and helped him scour the internet for gear. Much of what he lost is irreplaceable, he says, or has significantly gone up in value since he bought it decades ago.

McCann says her community has majorly stepped up, too. Through the generosity of friends and strangers — including comedian Fred Armisen, who donated a couple of his guitars — McCann and her partner have been able to continue playing gigs. Artists share resources about grants and other rebuilding efforts, leaning on one another to find housing, work opportunities and instrument replacements. None of this, McCann says, would be possible without being plugged into their local music scene.

"I'm really aware of the trade-offs that we make as musicians," McCann says. "We trade off stability and security, but we gain friendship and community and the care and concern of people very far away who we don't even necessarily know in person, but they are moved by the art we make, and so they come to us when we're hurting."

Adrienne McCann in her original home studio before the fires.

(

Adrienne McCann

)

Both McCann and Mouser say they've received support from a wide patchwork of colleagues, mutual aid networks and official relief organizations, all working together to address the ongoing needs of wildfire survivors as time passes. That includes government agencies like FEMA and Los Angeles County, nonprofits like Guitar Center Music Foundation and MusiCares, and more grassroots collectives like Altadena Musicians, an instrument-giving network started by composer Brandon Jay.

Myka Miller, the executive director of Guitar Center Music Foundation, says that for the first six months of 2025, the organization fulfilled grants for over 700 people to replace lost or damaged equipment, in addition to supplying instruments to 15 affected schools and community organizations. Miller says it's the largest natural disaster relief effort the nonprofit has tackled in recent history. "What was surprising to me was that a lot of people were asking for studio gear overwhelmingly," Miller tells NPR. "Studio monitors and microphones were one of the top things — DJ equipment, that kind of stuff."

One of Guitar Center's partners has been MusiCares, the nonprofit founded by the Recording Academy to support the financial, mental and physical wellbeing of people in the music industry. The organization says that since the wildfires broke out last year, it's provided more than $15 million in assistance to over 3,200 music professionals. In December, the nonprofit hosted a health and wellness clinic in Altadena for industry professionals impacted by the fires. The event offered physical therapy, vision and hearing screenings and opportunities for survivors to connect with one another over the ongoing challenges of finding a new normal. Executive director Theresa Wolters says these kinds of spaces — and a focus on mental health specifically — will be a big part of the work going forward, along with ongoing financial help.

"It is not too late to access support. We are still here," Wolters tells NPR. "We know that so many people are just now starting to come up for air through this disaster. They're just now starting to figure out what they need and what kind of assistance they might benefit from."

Looking ahead

As the anniversary of the fires passes, Wolters emphasizes that recovery is a long and nonlinear process. While some artists have made significant progress, others are still operating on survival mode.

Today, Rich Mouser and his wife are renting a house with a converted garage that doubles as Mouser's temporary studio. He's been able to continue his work mixing albums, touring with bands and is getting used to the newer equipment.

He's also working with an architect and sound engineer on rebuilding plans for his permanent home and studio in Altadena. They'll be prioritizing concrete over wood in case of future fires, he says, and are planning on a few improvements, like building a separate entry for The Mouse House so musicians don't have to walk through his kitchen to enter the studio. Mouser hopes building can begin within several months so the project is completed by summer or fall of 2027.

Insurance and relief aid are currently covering his rent, but he's worried that won't last all the way until the new house and studio are ready. Finding and applying for grants, he half-jokes, is a full-time job of its own. "We need this place because it's got this back house where I can work," Mouser says. "If we didn't have this situation, we could move into a smaller apartment, but I'm able to work out here and generate income."

McCann and her partner, on the other hand, are still taking things day by day. They are no longer living in their dream neighborhood of Altadena, but they're settled into a new rental home for now. Due to federal funding cuts to public radio, she recently lost a significant portion of her income as a producer for WABE, leading to more fear and uncertainty. Songwriting, she says, has taken a backseat for now.

"We're still not done recovering in the immediate sense. We're still not done trying to figure out home and gear and recording and our basic building blocks of our life we're still working on," McCann says. "I'm just going to keep trying to get a more stable foundation under my feet. But as an artist, that's a surprisingly comfortable place for me."
Copyright 2026 NPR

A federal judge has ordered Los Angeles to pay more than $1.8 million in attorneys’ fees and costs to the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights and other organizations that sued the city over what it deemed an inadequate response to the homelessness crisis.

The city is appealing the decision.

The details

L.A. Alliance is a group of business owners and residents who sued the city and county of Los Angeles in 2020 in an effort to push both governments to provide more shelter to unhoused people in the region.

The city of L.A. settled with the plaintiffs in 2022, and U.S. District Judge David O. Carter is overseeing the city’s progress in keeping up with the terms of that agreement. The judge found the city breached its agreement in multiple ways in a ruling last summer.

Specifically, the judge found that the city did not provide a plan for how it intends to create 12,915 shelter beds, as promised, by 2027. The court also found the city “flouted” its responsibilities by failing to provide accurate, comprehensive data when requested and did not provide evidence to support the numbers it was reporting, according to court documents.

In addition to $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees and $5,000 in costs to L.A. Alliance, Carter awarded about $200,000 in fees and $160 in costs to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and Los Angeles Community Action Network.

The organizations are considered “intervenors” in the suit, representing people experiencing homelessness on Skid Row. Their attorneys include those from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

Why it matters

In his order, released Tuesday, Carter compared the recent award to the millions of taxpayer dollars city officials agreed to pay an outside law firm representing L.A. in the settlement.

Carter wrote in the order that the attorneys' fees and costs to L.A. Alliance and others “is reasonable, especially in light of the approximately $5.9 million that the City’s outside counsel is charging.”

LAist’s housing and homelessness coverage was cited several times in the order.

“It has fallen to plaintiff, intervenors, and journalists to point out the deficiencies in the city’s reporting,” Carter wrote, referring to data the city is required to report to the court as part of the settlement.

“Plaintiff and intervenors must be compensated for this,” he said.

The city’s response 

Attorneys representing the city filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday.

L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment by phone or email.

Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Unhoused People's Justice Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, told LAist the intervenors participated in the case without compensation “because it's incredibly important given what is at stake in these proceedings that unhoused folks have a voice.”

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for L.A. Alliance, told LAist he’s thrilled the court is imposing accountability on the city, including sanctions for violating the settlement agreement. But Umhofer said he’s saddened that L.A. Alliance is going to have to keep fighting to hold the city to its promises.

“The obvious city strategy here is hire a big, good law firm to fight on absolutely every front in hopes that the plaintiffs, the intervenors or the court will ultimately give up trying to hold the city accountable,” he said.

What's next

The parties are scheduled to appear in federal court in downtown L.A. on Monday, when a hearing will resume to determine whether the judge will hold the city of Los Angeles in contempt of court.

Carter has said in documents that he’s concerned “the city has demonstrated a continuous pattern of delay” in meeting its obligations with court orders under the settlement and that the “delay continues to this day.”

Every January, the open-air downtown food fair reopens after its winter break and announces new additions to its carefully selected group of regular vendors.

This year’s new vendor class demonstrates the resilience of L.A.'s independent food scene, ranging from a Grammy-nominated producer's Persian-influenced pizza to Southern fried fish celebrating Black American culinary traditions, to an LAist 2025 Tournament of Cheeseburger heavyweight contender.

The reopening also marks the start of Smorgasburg LA's 10th anniversary year, and will feature 41 returning vendors, who've helped build the regular event into a fun, family-friendly opportunity to try new, often cutting-edge food you may not be familiar with.

Doors open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at DTLA’s The Row, with free entry and free parking for the first two hours.

A new year

General manager Zach Brooks said this is his favorite time of year. "We add the new vendors at the beginning of the new year, everyone's excited."

Vendors apply through Smorgasburg's website, and the team meets with every applicant to taste their food before acceptance. Brooks said it's not a vetting process like "Shark Tank" but rather a matter of seeing if it's a good fit. Competition remains fierce, with many more applicants than available spots.

"I think it's just a testament to L.A. and the resilience of people who love this business and have a passion for it, and are going to continue to persevere and start their businesses and want to be out there selling food," Brooks said.

Here are a few highlights:

Viral orange chicken sandwich 

Long Beach-based Terrible Burger becomes Smorgasburg's new permanent burger vendor after standout appearances at LAist's Tournament of Cheeseburgers and the market's rotating Smorgasburger Stand. The smashburger pop-up, run by husband-and-wife team Nicole and Ryan Ramirez, specializes in burgers that draw from pop culture and global influences. They've made waves with a Korean barbecue burger topped with bulgogi barbecue sauce and a viral orange chicken sandwich, previously available only at their Tuesday night residency at Long Beach's Midnight Oil, making its L.A. debut Sunday.

Terrible Burger's viral orange chicken sandwich makes its LA debut at Smorgasburg after being available only in Long Beach.

(

Courtesy Terrible Burger

)

"We have been big Smorgasburg fans for a really long time before we even started Terrible Burger. We would go to Smorgasburg on dates, just eat and hang out. And it was just always a little dream of, "oh, what if we ever sold food here?" Nicole Ramirez said.

Crispy fried snapper and thick-cut fries 

Orange County-based Hot Grease, run by Asha Starks, is among four vendors graduating from residencies to permanent status. The Southern fried fish pop-up celebrates Black American history through food that honors Starks' family heritage.

"Folks often forget that there are Black folks in Orange County. My family came to Orange County during the second wave of the Great Migration, and they settled in Santa Ana... my food is very cultural. And the story, I feel like, is just as important to highlight," Starks said.

Hot Grease's crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and "Ill Dill" tartar sauce.

(

Courtesy Hot Grease

)

Hot Grease serves crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and small-batch sauces like "Ill Dill" tartar. Honoring the fish fry's history as a site of mutual aid, Starks directs 3% of sales to the Potlikker Line, Hot Grease's reproductive justice mutual aid fund. For January, she's added fish and grits, black-eyed peas and collard greens.

Pizza with a Persian twist

Mamani Pizza brings studio-born energy to Smorgasburg LA with pies featuring Persian-inspired creativity.

(

Courtesy Mamani Pizza

)

Mamani Pizza, from the Grammy-nominated producer Farsi, part of the music production team Wallis Lane, started making Neapolitan-style pizzas at his West L.A. recording studio a year ago. What began as late-night pies for friends and artists became an underground hit. Most pizzas are traditional, but Farsi adds Persian touches like The Mamani, topped with ground wagyu koobideh, roasted Anaheim chilis, Persian herbs and pomegranate molasses.

Other new vendors

Banana Mama - Asian-inspired pudding
Barranco's Yogurt - Oaxacan fruit yogurt
Franzl's Franks - Austrian sausages
Melnificent Wingz - Gourmet chicken wings
Piruchi - Peruvian street food
RuRu's Golden Tea - Karak chai
Stick Talk - vegan corn dogs
SouuLA - Taiwanese breakfast concept
Unreal Poke - Hawaiian poke
Zindrew Dumpling Shop - Spicy wontons