Disasterology: January 2024
This newsletter is a compilation of recent disaster ~things~ that I think are cool, important, or otherwise of interest to people who are intrigued with disaster (broadly defined).
There’s a little something for everyone!
Happy Mid-January, Babes!
I had to throw together this emergency newsletter today because I am sitting here in shock and cautious optimism!
Today FEMA released a list of changes that they are making to their individual assistance program. Hmm, okay… I’m listening!
Individual Assistance: The Quick Explainer
When a disaster gets a Presidential Disaster Declaration (more on that process here), two broad categories of aid can be made available through FEMA. The first is Public Assistance which helps with costs associated with things like rebuilding roads and public buildings. This is what the vast majority of federal funding goes to (think many billions annually) because those are expensive things to pay for and benefit the whole community (if you will). The second type is Individual Assistance. This is funding that goes directly to survivors. Importantly, not every disaster receives individual assistance. Even if it is approved for your disaster, you might not personally be eligible. And, even if you are eligible you probably won’t get very much. Also, the process of actually getting this funding is a LITERAL NIGHTMARE.
And so, many of us have long argued that FEMA needs to make changes to the individual assistance program to make it as effective, efficient, and equitable as possible. Historically FEMA has kicked the can of responsibility to Congress and acted as though they simply have no say in recovery policy. I wrote about this in my book and most recently published a big New York Times Guest Essay about this in October. You can read that piece (gifted link) to get a better sense of how horrible the recovery system is for survivors if you need a refresher. I also wrote some additional context to that piece in my October Newsletter.
So, today’s announcement of some changes to how FEMA approaches individual assistance is very welcomed! FEMA is claiming these are the biggest changes to Individual Assistance in 20 years which is kind of a wild claim but let’s hear ‘em out.
TL;DR: These changes look like a good start on paper but we need to wait until we see how these are implemented in practice. Also, there is still much more to do in terms of individual and household recovery reform.
The Details
You can read shorter summaries from The AP and from the New York Times but I want to go through each change below in more detail. This all comes directly from the press release.
FEMA is renaming the Critical Needs Assistance program to the Serious Needs Assistance program (okay) and makes it available anytime Individual Assistance is approved. This is a payment of $750 that people can use to do things like pay for evacuation, buy food, clothes, etc. The change here is that they seem to be increasing the number of people who are eligible for this funding. It’s still only $750 which if you’ve ever had to evacuate for an extended period of time, well…
Establishes a new benefit called Displacement Assistance. The language used here is a little unclear. It seems like this is meant to help provide transitional financial assistance between leaving a community shelter (for example) and finding temporary housing like a rental. The example they give is the costs associated with staying with family. The scope of who is eligible here isn’t clear and I’m worried this is going to be another hyper-specific housing-related program that survivors don’t know exists or how to access in a timely way.
Survivors no longer have to apply for an SBA loan (through the Small Business Administration) and be denied in order to be eligible for some FEMA Individual Assistance programs. This is good. That was an absolutely insane, unnecessary, confusing, and time-consuming thing to make everyone do.
It used to be the case that insurance payouts were counted against the total amount of money that a survivor could receive from FEMA (this year it’s $42,500). This is causing all kinds of problems because the insurance industry is being sketchy as hell and not actually paying out the total cost of repairs. (You also have folks who are uninsured or underinsured too, of course.) For example, a homeowner might get $30,000 from insurance but have $60,000 in repairs. And like, thanks for the 30k but where are you getting the rest from??? Previously, if they’d gone back to FEMA the most they could get (if they met a bunch of other requirements) would be another $10,000. With this change, it seems like they’d be able to get the $30,000 and be able to complete all of the repairs. The insurance industry is an absolute dumpster fire and I won’t get into all of the issues here but I think this change from FEMA is a good bandaid. This is without question the change that strikes me as having the biggest potential financial impact for survivors. I am interested though to see the equity implications of this one specifically. Incidentally, the reason I have always been told as to why they counted insurance was that otherwise, it would be a “duplication of aid”. I would love for someone to call me up with the gossip of why FEMA all of a sudden thinks they’re able to do this. Thanks.
They’re allowing FEMA funding to help cover some costs related to the loss of tools/ equipment that individuals need for work. They mention gig workers here and I wonder if this might be able to cover damaged cars? Unclear! It’s also not clear where this money is coming from? Is it part of Serious Needs Assistance or something else?
FEMA is changing (or as they say “simplifying”) their definition of “habitability. Depending on how this gets interpreted in practice this might signify a huge philosophical shift within FEMA. It has been a long-standing tradition that FEMA only wants to fix what was directly damaged in a disaster (and traditionally only rebuild back to what was there pre-disaster). This has always been a point of frustration because if you’re having to rebuild everything anyway why not make it better than what was there before? Also, if you just rebuild back to what was there before you’re just re-creating the vulnerability that led to the disaster in the first place. This was also frustrating for people who lived in homes that already needed repairs pre-disaster (and were also therefore probably more like to experience impacts during the disaster and have minimal resources for recovery). Well, it looks like FEMA is changing how they are thinking about impacts because now they’re just looking at the overall habitability of the house post-disaster regardless of the pre-existing conditions. This should theoretically increase the amount of money homeowners in those situations receive (up to the cap, of course). This is the thing I’ll be watching most closely.
Following a similar line of thinking they’re allowing homeowners to use their FEMA funding to make accessibility-related improvements to their homes. My interpretation of this is that if you need a ramp added to your house you could use your recovery money to do that even if you didn’t have a ramp pre-disaster. This isn’t presented as a new program or anything so it seems that you still have to be eligible to receive recovery funding. I’m just wondering if this will lead to someone having to choose between fixing a hot water heater and putting a ramp on the house, for example. These kinds of things are expensive! And we’re talking about limited funding here.
They seem to have simplified the process for survivors who are applying late for FEMA assistance. That’s good. I still think they need to just extend the deadlines to avoid this problem in the first place but maybe we just agree to disagree on this one.
FEMA says they are reducing documentation for temporary housing assistance extensions (think rentals) and will provide “greater visibility” on when assistance will end. This is very vague?? I don’t know what this means.
FEMA is eliminating the need to provide a signed, written appeal letter when appealing an eligibility decision. I -- okay. This really does not at all address the bigger problem of people needing to appeal decisions 3, 4, 5, 6 times because of mistyped phone numbers, confusing questions, etc. Perhaps some of the above changes will indirectly help with this but I don’t see how this is addressing the main problem.
They’ve updated the website that survivors use to apply for assistance which brings me to my favorite silly statistic in this announcement… that the changes will “reduce the registration time by more than 15%”. MA’AM?! Lol. What is the average registration time? Is 15% meaningful here?? Maybe!? Hard to say. One thing you can count on FEMA to do is provide an interesting-sounding statistic void of the necessary context to be able to accurately interpret it. They’ve also made updates to the Transitional Sheltering website to help make available options more clear. Great.
Whew. So, listen. I don’t see any changes here that I think are bad. Perhaps there are some unintended consequences down the line that they’ll need to adjust for but I generally think these are good changes. I do think, as I noted throughout, that the majority of these changes are quite minimal. These truly are the bare minimum changes many of us have been calling for for years! I am glad that FEMA is finally stepping up and doing the bare minimum that’s within its power to change but also… DO MORE!!
Why not??
I don’t know the exact origin of this but there’s a sentiment in academia that our job as faculty is to take the resources and influence of our institutions and use it to help our communities. I just think that applies to government too. If I worked at FEMA my goal would be to get as much money in the hands of survivors as I could, not create barriers for them?! The culture within FEMA is well known for being toxic and terrible and it’s so frustrating. They really could be the superheroes and instead, they’ve opted to design an impenetrable bureaucracy. Like, why? Don’t you want to be the hero?
We’re getting more details Monday on each of these changes so that will help clarify many of the questions raised above. Of course, these changes do not negate the need for Congress to act along with state and local governments. And, it all comes down to implementation (have I mentioned that? lol). Not to get on another one of my soapboxes but FEMA really needs to be collecting much better data regarding individual assistance and also making that date public. That’s how we’re actually going to know if any of these changes are effective (and equitable, as FEMA claims).
At the end of the day, they’re estimating this bringing over $600 million more dollars a year directly to disaster survivors. That is absolutely a win. We also have to be honest about this only being a drop in the bucket for what is needed to reform emergency management.
But anyway, what do I know? I just complain loudly on the internet.
A meme to end your night! Have a good weekend!
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