Representatives Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Young Kim (R-CA) introduced the “Housing Survivors of Major Disasters Act of 2025” in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 15. The bill, which has been endorsed by NLIHC, addresses significant title-documentation challenges that have resulted in thousands of eligible disaster survivors being wrongfully denied FEMA assistance.
FEMA has often turned away eligible disaster survivors who are unable to present property titles, written leases, and other similar documents to show residency and occupancy of disaster-damaged property. In areas where mobile homes and alternative property ownership methods are prevalent, such as in Puerto Rico, the Gulf Coast, Northern California, and the Pacific Northwest, disaster survivors can be prevented from accessing aid because of this requirement. After Hurricane Maria in 2017, 77,000 households in Puerto Rico were wrongfully denied assistance by FEMA due to title-documentation issues.
The bill would create a new framework to make it easier for disaster survivors to prove residency in disaster-impacted areas or ownership of a disaster-damaged home through a “declarative statement” form attesting to their ownership of the property or through the submission of home repair receipts and other documents. These changes would ensure that disaster survivors with low incomes would be able to access the assistance they need without being forced to endure a lengthy and complicated title clearing process or otherwise go without much-needed assistance.
FEMA implemented reforms in 2022 amid pressure from NLIHC’s Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition (DHRC) and other advocates that expanded the number of documents that can be used to demonstrate ownership of disaster-damaged homes, as well as approving limited use of “declarative statements” for residents of manufactured housing. However, this bill would cement these reforms into law and expand upon them, ensuring broader and more consistent access to effective policy solutions.
Read the text of the “Housing Survivors of Major Disasters Act” here.