FEMA
FEMA has updated its “shelter locator” texting feature. The feature allows users to retrieve a list of nearby shelter locations by texting “shelter” and their ZIP code to 43362. The feature is made possible through collaboration with the American Red Cross. Learn more here.
FEMA is urging stakeholders, community groups, and the public to comment on its proposal to collect demographic information from applicants participating in certain FEMA programs. The deadline to submit a comment is March 28. Learn more and submit your comment on the Federal Register website.
Reporting
An op-ed in PubliCola urges Washington State lawmakers to tackle the current climate emergency and ensure everyone has access to safe, affordable housing. The author discusses two pending bills in the Washington legislature that would address climate change and create more equitable housing.
Hurricanes
Buzzfeed News reports that a family who was displaced when Hurricane Ida flooded the Oakwood Plaza apartment complex in Elizabeth, New Jersey, was recently evicted from temporary housing at an Embassy Suites hotel. It is unknown how many people displaced from the Oakwood Plaza complex – Elizabeth’s largest low-income housing complex – have been evicted from hotels while having no permanent home. “There is far less available subsidized housing than what’s needed,” NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel told Buzzfeed News. A climate disaster “exacerbates the preexisting housing crisis in that community and leaves fewer options available.” The post-Ida crisis in Elizabeth demonstrates FEMA’s continuing failure to meet the housing needs of low-income survivors and highlights the urgent need to reform our country’s disaster housing recovery system and address the dire shortage of affordable housing.
Blue tarps remain on hundreds of homes in Ascension Parish in Louisiana five months after Hurricane Ida devastated the region. Some homeowners worry that the next hurricane season will begin before their roofs are repaired.
The Courier reports that five months after Hurricane Ida tore through Louisiana, many Terrebonne and Lafourche residents are still struggling to pick up the pieces. More than 300 seniors and people with disabilities were displaced when the hurricane rendered the Bayou Towers, a Houma public housing complex, uninhabitable. Although Bayou Towers residents have received housing vouchers, officials say no Section 8 housing is available. As of January 24, there were 1,582 state travel trailers in Terrebonne. Meanwhile, FEMA says nearly 1,520 Terrebonne residents are eligible for its temporary housing trailers. Just 155 trailers are occupied, 600 are identified for private sites and 147 for commercial sites, and 760 households are still in need of a housing location.
A $27 million statewide program to provide Hurricane Ida relief to undocumented immigrants in New York has distributed just a fraction of its funds. More than five months after deadly floods devastated predominantly immigrant areas, New York has distributed just $725,674 through the program, which unexpectedly required hundreds of potential applicants to apply for aid through FEMA instead.
At a meeting of Louisiana’s House Select Committee on Homeland Security, emergency preparedness directors from the southwestern area of the state described how a series of severe climate events over the past year have revealed significant gaps in Louisiana’s emergency and response planning. Emergency officials explained that addressing the housing needs of survivors after a disaster should be a priority.
The Guardian exposes how Brad Pitt’s post-Hurricane Katrina housing initiative went terribly wrong. Brad Pitt announced an initiative in 2006 to rebuild New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward with affordable, floodproof homes. Yet less than a decade after the homes were completed, many have decayed, resulting in unlivable conditions.
Tornadoes
Governor Andy Beshear announced on January 27 that Kentucky had purchased 200 travel trailers to house displaced tornado survivors. The trailers, meant to serve as medium-term housing, were purchased from RV dealers through the Commonwealth Sheltering Program.
Families are picking up the pieces after a deadly tornado damaged more than 60 homes in Hale County, Alabama. The tornado destroyed 20 homes and made 35 homes unlivable. Half of the hardest-hit properties were mobile homes.
Wildfires
The Colorado Sun reports that Marshall Fire survivors without renter’s insurance are facing unique obstacles to recovery. While future services may be made available to help renters whose homes were contaminated by smoke and ash, at present survivors must replace ruined belongings on their own.
Survivors of Southern Oregon’s 2020 Labor Day wildfires will receive an additional six months of FEMA housing support. FEMA extensions are typically provided in three-month increments, but the severity of the damage in the Rogue Valley, combined with the area’s low-housing inventory, prompted officials to grant survivors an extra six months of support. Of the 190 families that were housed by FEMA in Jackson County, 154 are still residing in FEMA temporary housing.
According to an Oregon State University community health study, survivors of the 2020 Labor Day wildfires in Santiam Canyon reported that breathing problems, health issues, and difficulties finding housing still impacted them a year after the fires. More than 700 families lost their homes in the fires, but as of one year later, only 13% of displaced households managed by the Santiam Service Integration Team had entered permanent housing. The remaining 87% of displaced households were still in temporary housing. Survivors report that the inability to find housing has resulted in depression, anxiety, chronic stress, and trauma.
New affordable housing for survivors displaced by the Almeda Fire opened on January 31 in downtown Medford, Oregon. The developer, Fortify Holdings, partnered with Rogue Community Health, Oregon Housing and Community Services, and ACCESS to purchase an 84-unit motel that will provide short- and intermediate-housing for many survivors. However, the development is not meant to serve as a replacement for long-term affordable housing.