L.A. Approves Monthly Checks for Boyle Heights Businesses Hit by Lineage Fire

Small businesses could get $2,500 to $5,000 a month for six months, and Lineage workers who live in L.A. could get $2,000 a month.

The ruined food from the Lineage warehouse fire took more than two months to clear out of Boyle Heights. The neighbors got the smell and the rats. As the cleanup dragged on, the cold storage operator missed several deadlines the city had set, CBS Los Angeles reported. Lineage has said the cleanup cost it more than $100 million, according to CBS Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to send the first relief money to the people who lived next to all that. The council moved $5 million, the first piece of a $10.5 million recovery package from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, according to a Boyle Heights Beat story LAist published Friday.

For businesses in the 90033, 90032 and 90063 ZIP codes, the money comes as a monthly check. A qualifying business with fewer than six employees could get $2,500 a month for six months. One with six or more could get $5,000 a month, or $30,000 by the end.

Lineage's own workers are in line too. City residents who work for the company and are experiencing economic hardship because of the fire could get $2,000 a month for six months. All told, $2.5 million is set aside for businesses and Lineage workers, and it's supposed to reach more than 100 of them.

Households get a separate $1.8 million. Jurado's office said the city's plan for that money should cover things like utility bills, CBS Los Angeles reported. That's a real cost on these blocks: residents told Boyle Heights Beat they ran air purifiers and air conditioners all summer and got huge power bills for it.

Another $664,460 goes to L.A. Sanitation through June 30, 2027. It pays for supplies and overtime so crews can pressure wash, pick up bulky items and respond to illegal dumping near the warehouse. The $5 million comes out of the city's unappropriated balance, its reserve for unplanned costs.

Jurado told the council the emergency "is still ongoing." She said the city has promised Boyle Heights "a new bar for the level of care that the Eastside deserves," Boyle Heights Beat reported.

A bigger payment is still only a proposal. A second phase would put $5.5 million in Measure A funding toward the neighborhood, Jurado's office said. Under the plan her office released, each affected household in those three ZIP codes would get a $9,000 stipend, CBS Los Angeles reported.

The city's Community Investment Department will run the applications. Boyle Heights Beat reported that it wasn't yet known when applications would open, when the grants would go out or how many people would be picked.

Months after the fire, some residents told Boyle Heights Beat they had lost work because of it. They said the help that came right afterward, from Lineage, the city and the county, wasn't enough. Wednesday's vote is City Hall's first real try at making up the difference, and it's still waiting on a start date.

Source: LAist, retrieved October 30, 2026. Other sources: CBS News.