Rialto Council OKs $100K Disaster Relief for Vista View Apartment Fire Victims, Landlord and Cannon Management Face Scrutiny

Days after the Vista View Apartment fire displaced roughly 70 residents, the Rialto City Council added an item of “subsequent need” to the agenda and voted unanimously to create a $100,000 disaster relief fund to mobilize relief for victims. Community advocates praised the move but warn the emergency has shown that Rialto is unprepared and must make changes to city ordinances to protect tenants, alleging that the landlord failed to uphold its legal obligations.

Vista View Apartments, a 100-unit apartment building managed by Cannon Management, erupted in flames at approximately 5:15 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 21st. Through the efforts of local fire fighters and police officers, there was no loss of life or serious injury despite 16 units rendered uninhabitable.

In the aftermath, aiding and rehoming victims of the inferno has proved difficult. However, two community advocacy groups, the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) and the Hispanic Coalition of Small Businesses (HCSB), have combined their efforts to provide temporary relief. 

But money is a pressing concern. 

“We are housing folks and the funds are running out,” said Ana Gonzalez, executive director of CCAEJ, pleading to the Council. “And so, right now, I am here to ask you all to please declare a state of emergency.”

Gonzalez said she spoke with housing attorneys and opined that Rialto does not have sufficient tenant protections in place, making it difficult to adequately represent victims of the Vista View fire.  

“The property owner had a meeting with the residents yesterday and basically said, ‘Here’s your deposit, here’s your prorated rent, and we are done because the building is gone,’” Gonzalez said. “But, in fact, there are a lot of state laws that say otherwise.”

She later said that the responsibility to rehome the Vista View tenets “falls on the landlord.” However, this is unconfirmed.

“If CCAEJ did not step in, the Red Cross, trust me, was not going to cover their housing—they told us,” Gonzalez said. “And so we had an emergency board meeting to get the funding to house these folks, otherwise they would be sleeping in their cars or in the streets. We need action from the City Council now.”

Displaced residents of the Vista View complex continued to share their plight with the Council, urging them to declare a state of emergency.

“We are in the streets,” said Claudia Leija, a ten-year resident of the charred apartments, with the aid of a Spanish interpreter. “The owners have given us back our deposit and said ‘this is the end’ . . . don’t turn your back to us.”

As the Council deliberated, City Attorney Eric Vail was asked to weigh-in on the issue. 

“Not to make light of their situation, but the declaration of a state of emergency in and of itself is not going to help these people,” Vail said. “What they need is funding.”

Because the fire occurred after the agenda was posted online, the Council added an item of “subsequent need” and unanimously passed a motion to establish a disaster relief fund. 

The Rialto Vista View Fire Relief Fund will be funded through the City’s general fund and community donations given through a GoFundMe page setup to aid victims, City Manager Tanya Williams explained in an email. 

She added that while the Council will likely approve a policy or process to distribute the funds during their next session, they’re unlikely to declare a state of emergency. 

“A declaration of emergency is typically reserved for widespread, catastrophic events where additional resources are needed beyond the City’s capacity to address an ongoing emergency,” Williams wrote. “The staff recommendation is that this event does not meet that criteria . . . the City can allocate funding and resources without a declaration.”

Peter Densmore, a representative of Cannon Management who clarified that property management personnel are not landlords at Tuesday night’s meeting, has not yet responded to IECN’s request for comment. 

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