{"id":2235913,"date":"2026-01-15T13:09:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2235913"},"modified":"2026-01-15T13:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:09:04","slug":"from-the-la-fires-to-unemployment-film-and-tv-workers-are-struggling-this-nonprofit-wants-to-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/from-the-la-fires-to-unemployment-film-and-tv-workers-are-struggling-this-nonprofit-wants-to-help\/","title":{"rendered":"From the LA fires to unemployment, film and TV workers are struggling. This nonprofit wants to help"},"content":{"rendered":"

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$8.63 million in emergency grants sent to 562 families.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how much financial assistance the Entertainment Community Fund<\/u><\/a> has provided to performing arts and entertainment industry workers since fires broke out in Southern California in January last year. And the organization still is distributing grants<\/u><\/a>, with the knowledge that needs are likely to increase soon.<\/p>\n

\u200a\u201dWe know that the trajectory of the recovery process with homeowners and their insurances is that they will often pay some portion or all of a rent expense while people are displaced from their homes,\u201d says Keith McNutt, the ECF\u2019s Western Regional director. \u201cThat usually only lasts nine months to a year, and we’re of course coming up on that year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why entertainment workers?<\/h2>\n

Providing support to the entertainment community is nothing new for the nonprofit Entertainment Community Fund (formerly known as The Actors Fund), a national organization that\u2019s been around since 1882 and is a sort of safety net for arts and entertainment workers in any kind of need or crisis. They also have built some of their own affordable housing.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

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A significant portion of their work, McNutt says, is making people aware that help is available and also that it\u2019s OK to access it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for any professional person in their craft to ask for help from anyone,\u201d McNutt says. \u201cBut literally, we were created 140 years ago for exactly that reason. Because people work hard in this industry, but the industry doesn’t provide regular income, regular benefits, […] predictability, a standard career ladder.\u201d<\/p>\n

On top of the normal unpredictability factors of a career in the performing arts, there\u2019s also the fact that the past five years have been \u201csuch a brutal onslaught of crises,\u201d as McNutt describes it, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes<\/u><\/a> in 2023 to the January 2025 fires, \u201cthat people have not had time to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

What help is available?<\/h2>\n

The Entertainment Community Fund\u2019s staff of social workers, career counselors and health insurance counselors provides a wide range of services (many of them free), like classes on things like building \u201cparallel\u201d or \u201csideline\u201d careers to supplement income and support groups (including some specifically designed for people impacted by the 2025 fires).<\/p>\n

Some services, like emergency financial assistance, require a more formal application to show that a recipient does in fact work professionally in performing arts or entertainment.<\/p>\n

From \u2018parallel\u2019 careers to career changes<\/h2>\n

For a long time, McNutt says, he heard from arts professionals who saw their non-arts-related day jobs (ECF calls them \u201cparallel\u201d or \u201csideline\u201d jobs) as sort of betrayal of their art, but \u201c\u200aour message has always been, \u2018No, no, no […] that’s what helps you stay in your creative craft.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past couple of years, though, with hardships compounding and \u200a\u201dprofound shifts in the amount of employment, particularly in television and film,\u201d McNutt has seen something different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen significant increases in the number of people who are coming to our career center to consider transitioning to other careers,” he says. “And that is definitely a change.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even for those cases and questions like, \u201cHow do you apply for a job that’s not<\/i> in the industry when you’ve never worked outside the industry?\u201d McNutt says that’s “something we can help people with.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n