The U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted on April 28 on several disaster recovery reform bills. One of the bills, the “Community Disaster Resilience Zone Act,” is supported by the NLIHC-led Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition (DHRC), a group of over 850 local, state, and national organizations working to ensure that all disaster survivors receive the assistance they need to fully recover. The bill would identify census tracks most vulnerable to disasters in each state and allow projects protecting those tracts access to FEMA funding. The bill would also officially promote the use of FEMA’s hazard risk-identification tool in identifying vulnerable census tracts and ensure that individuals displaced due to mitigation projects would have access to safe and affordable housing. A companion bill in the U.S. Senate passed unanimously out of the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last month.
Three other disaster recovery-related bills were also passed by the committee. The “Post-Disaster Assistance Online Accountability Act” would require government agencies operating grant funds following a disaster to consolidate data on grant recipients and projects into a single website. The “Post-Disaster Mental Health Response Act” would allow FEMA to use its Crisis Counseling Program – which connects disaster survivors with mental health practitioners – during presidentially declared emergencies as well as disasters. The bill’s companion in the Senate was passed by the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in March. Finally, the “Small State and Rural Rescue Act,” which would allow FEMA to assist small and rural states in requesting disaster declarations, was also passed.
Read the text of the “Community Disaster Resilience Zone Act” at: https://bit.ly/3s0kiNw