ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, Jan 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he would sign an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally overhauling or eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “FEMA has turned out to be a disaster … I think we recommend that FEMA go away,” he said during a tour of North Carolina to see damage done by Hurricane Helene last year.
Funds for me, not for thee.
It’s kind of funny when you put it that way because the FEMA claims and reimbursement process is so convoluted and labor intensive that those funds often only go to the wealthy.
FEMA funds are often only for [the wealthy] and not for [the poor]. FEMA absolutely needs an overhaul, but probably not the one Trump has in mind.
wtf, I got fema cash once. No paperwork. No convoluted process. I’m certainly not wealthy although I was surprised to qualify. Just money directly to fund repairs
Many of us have direct experience getting FEMA relief and cash. We disagree with your claim.
Here is some research on the inequitable distribution of Stafford Act disbursements. They go to wealthy and white neighborhoods that have the resources to navigate the barriers to receiving funding. People in these neighborhoods have an easier time passing through the federal government’s fraud detection barriers, and are more likely to receive support from their (better-funded) local governments in filing for and receiving federal aid. FEMA payouts and insurance payouts are often intertwined, and this leads to further red tape, delays, and denials.
That said, I’ll admit that I may be biased because my mental model on the topic almost entirely comes from a former boss who relied on talking up these inequities to secure investment funding for a tool we claimed we wanted to design (in our public messaging) to help people navigate these barriers, organize their claims paperwork, and receive funding.
I would agree with the assessment that there can be a lack of fraud investigation, or even simply the inability to determine what areas need help vs. not, so they blanket approve some places. Whether or not that approval is driven by demographics I can’t say, only that in-laws who did not get much damage from one of the past storms had complete opportunity to claim some money for “whatever damage there was”, and didn’t because…that’s the wrong thing to do morally. How many people would do that, probably not 100%. But I don’t blame FEMA in concept, only in its funding and organization, and not being manned well enough to do its job well.
Looks like Trump fixed that problem by just removing it altogether. Free market disaster response will be a fascinating thing to document. Not to live through.
Fully agree.
+1. i got money from fema in 2017 and all i had to do was sign a webform saying i was impacted by the hurricane that just hit