Uplifters Foundation operates a coordinated nonprofit rebuilding program designed to help Pacific Palisades families return home after the January 2025 wildfire. This is not a traditional real estate development. It is a nonprofit rebuilding model that combines professional execution, disciplined financing, and a charitable purpose: restoring attainable, fire-resilient Heritage Homes℠ for families displaced by the fire.
The program is designed to rebuild approximately 60 single-family Heritage Homes℠ within a defined set of streets in Pacific Palisades, supported by approximately $200 million of tax-exempt bond financing.
This financing lowers the Foundation's cost of capital, allowing more resources to go directly toward rebuilding attainable homes for families displaced by the fire.
The program repays capital through the transfer of completed Heritage Homes℠. It is not dependent on long-term rental income, market speculation, or profit extraction.
The model converts vacant or fire-damaged lots into completed homes, returns families to the community, and recycles proceeds in a way that supports the Foundation's charitable purpose.
The objective is straightforward: help families return to the community at scale, with a clear and responsible path to ownership.
Any net proceeds at the end of the program are reinvested in public facilities, services, and infrastructure for the surrounding community.
The program is limited to a designated set of streets in Pacific Palisades where parcel density, site conditions, rebuild feasibility, and acquisition pricing support a coordinated rebuilding effort.
Uplifters Foundation evaluates potential acquisitions carefully. Each site is reviewed on the factors that affect rebuild feasibility, cost, timing, and long-term community benefit:
This is a selection-driven process, not a volume-driven one. The goal is not simply to acquire lots, but to identify sites where coordinated rebuilding can meaningfully accelerate recovery and help families return home.
Each Heritage Home℠ is planned to balance cost efficiency, neighborhood character, fire resilience, insurability, and a clear path to ownership.
Uplifters Foundation expects to build from four to six architectural plans, each adaptable to lot dimensions and site conditions. Every plan comes with a range of exterior and interior finish options.
The Foundation selects the plan and finishes for each lot to suit that lot and street; buyers do not, because homes come to market only in the weeks before completion and must be broadly available. Costs come down through repetition; character comes from the finishes and the fit to each site.
Heritage Homes℠ are expected to include approximately 2,600 square feet of living space, with 3–4 bedrooms, 3–4 bathrooms, and a two-story configuration.
The goal is to deliver newly constructed, fire-resilient single-family homes that are modern, attainable, insurable, and comparable in size to many of the homes that were lost.
Uplifters Foundation expects to build all Heritage Homes℠ under a single bonded guaranteed maximum price design-build contract with an experienced national general contractor, selected through a competitive process. A fixed maximum price and a performance bond put the cost and completion risk with the builder, not the program.
Quality is checked twice. Third-party inspectors, reporting to the Foundation and managed by our in-house construction team, check the contractor's work at every stage before the City inspectors even look. Our project managers review every change order, and an independent fund control provider verifies each payment before the bond trustee releases it.
Resilience is not optional. It is built into every Heritage Home℠.
Every Heritage Home℠ comes with rooftop solar and battery backup. When the grid goes down, as it does during wind events and public safety shutoffs, the lights, refrigerator, and internet stay on.
Solar lowers the monthly cost of owning the home, and battery storage is part of what makes a home on these streets resilient rather than just rebuilt.
Insurance is one of the biggest barriers to rebuilding in Pacific Palisades. Heritage Homes℠ are designed to clear it: built to the IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home Enhanced standard, with replacement values sized to fit California FAIR Plan limits and supplemental coverage arranged where lenders require it.
The result is a home a buyer can insure and finance with a conventional mortgage, at a lower cost than a custom rebuild of the same size.
Many people we speak with already know they want to return. Each Heritage Home℠ is leased for one year before it is sold. The lease phase is required by the tax-exempt bond financing, but it also gives you the chance to try before you buy. This will be an incredible community again. See for yourself, and then decide.
We generally expect to be leasing to people who also pay for the option to purchase the home and intend to return to the Palisades as long-term residents. The option is separate from the lease and paid for separately, in quarterly payments at months 0, 3, 6, and 9.
It locks in the sale price, at fair market value on the day the lease is signed, and with it all of the upside from that day forward. The option is open for 13 months and is offered to every tenant on the same terms.
Move into a finished home as soon as it is complete, without waiting for a sale. Spend a year on the street while the neighborhood comes back around you.
Every tenant has a first claim on the home they live in. If the neighborhood keeps coming back, and we believe it will, that upside belongs to you.
Heritage Homes℠ are sold at fair market value to families who are staying. Here is how it works.
If a tenant does not exercise the option, the home is listed on the open market at fair market value. Three weeks before a listing goes live, we notify households who lived in Pacific Palisades before the fire, whether they owned or rented, so they can submit an offer on day one.
Every buyer must agree in the purchase contract not to transfer the home for five years. In exchange for that commitment, the Foundation pays all closing costs, other than any charges from your mortgage lender. The terms are the same for every buyer. These homes are for families who are staying, not investors.
Each Heritage Home℠ is expected to carry a recorded covenant, held for the benefit of the Pacific Palisades community, that keeps the home at its built size for 30 years. It runs with the land and binds every future owner. It is the Foundation's promise to the street that a Heritage Home℠ will not become a tear-down for something far larger.
The Foundation selects the plan, the exterior, and the finishes for every lot, based on the lot and the street it sits on. A Heritage Home℠ comes to market only in the few weeks before it is complete. The IRS does not allow us to build a home for a specific customer, and these homes must be broadly available, so we are not able to take early commitments, and asking for one may prevent us from selling to you. If you are interested, submit that interest through the contact form or by email, and we will let you know when homes are coming available.
Homes are priced at fair market value, set independently, and sold on the same terms to everyone. No one gets a side deal, and no one gets to flip a Heritage Home℠. That is what keeps the program fair, keeps it compliant, and keeps the homes in the hands of neighbors.
To be sure you are on our outreach list when homes are coming available, please contact us. You will only be emailed when homes are coming available. We promise, no spam.
The program is financed through approximately $200 million of tax-exempt bonds. Tax-exempt financing lowers the Foundation's cost of capital, allowing more of each dollar to go toward rebuilding homes for families displaced by the fire.
Tax-exempt bond proceeds are expected to be deployed into land acquisition, construction, carrying costs, and program execution.
The goal is to use capital efficiently and responsibly to accelerate rebuilding within the designated program area.
Program funds will be controlled through a third-party trustee or disbursement agent. This structure provides oversight, accountability, and discipline around how funds are released and used.
No discretionary spending occurs outside the program structure.
Capital is returned to bond holders through the transfer of completed Heritage Homes℠.
The program is not dependent on long-term rental income, speculative appreciation, or profit extraction. It converts vacant or fire-damaged lots into completed homes, returns families to the community, and repays capital through home transfers.
Uplifters Foundation's goal is to deliver a coordinated rebuilding program that produces meaningful community recovery.
This program is simple in purpose and disciplined in execution. It replaces fragmented rebuilding, individual risk, and uncertain timelines with coordinated planning, professional oversight, responsible financing, and predictable delivery.