Comments by Julia Orduña When the Biden Administration took office in January 2021, among the first executive orders issued from…
Tag: FEMA
Episode 19: Disaster recovery is leaving out renters
When a disaster hits, flooding and fires might not discriminate, but the systems and funding intended to rebuild our communities…
Low-income households disproportionately denied by FEMA is a sign of a system that is failing the most vulnerable
For some, Hurricane Harvey is now a distant, if not unpleasant, memory. Looking back on 2017, many Texas families will…
Texas Housers calls on state to amend Harvey recovery action plan to be more equitable and inclusive
The state must commit to an equitable, inclusive plan that will make new and repaired housing affordable to Texans with…
To achieve an equitable recovery, we propose a fairer way to determine needs of Hurricane Harvey survivors
When the methods used to determine needs of hurricane survivors favor higher income people and communities, the process of recovery…
FEMA contract keeps Texas from sharing its own data publicly about state-funded disaster recovery programs
Texans are in the dark about the State’s progress in administering short-term housing programs and whether the State is meeting…
The needs of low-income Hurricane Harvey survivors cannot be determined by FEMA data alone
To determine unmet need of survivors of disaster, the state relies heavily on FEMA data, an appropriate source, but one…
Tracking Harvey Recovery: Latest analysis highlights unmet needs, urges more data transparency
Point of Clarification: FEMA has since clarified that inspections are not ordered for all valid registrations received. Some of these…
Harvey survivors tell Texas House Urban Affairs Committee that safe housing is long overdue
Land Commissioner George P. Bush and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner mostly blamed Congress and Washington politics for the slow…
We want disaster recovery to be fair and just. Here’s a good place to start.
Over the past 10 years, Texas Housers and our legal and organizing partners have advocated equitable recovery through four major…
Court rules for colonia residents over FEMA denial of post-disaster home repair help
Our friends at La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) have been waging a multi-year…
An Austin designer’s interesting approach to post-disaster shelter
Austin designer Michael McDaniel has developed an alternative temporary housing solution to the FEMA trailer. He calls it the Reaction…
Federal court orders FEMA to reconsider denial of home repairs to Hurricane Dolly survivors
Good news for the low income Hurricane Dolly survivors who were denied home repairs by FEMA! The United States District…
Photos and costs of FEMA’s temporary housing units released
At yesterday’s hearing on the future of FEMA disaster housing before the House Homeland Security Committee the committee staff produced…
Getting closer to finding out why so many Texas hurricane survivors were denied housing assistance
The pieces are slowly coming together to answer the question, why were so many applications for FEMA housing assistance in…
An encouraging sign of understanding by new FEMA administrator
I liked what I heard from new FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate in his June 9 testimony before the House Homeland…
Katrina Cottage pilot program woes due to failure at all levels
How many times do we have to hear the story before it sinks in? Let’s sum up the government response…
TxLIHIS Karen Paup and NLIHC Sheila Crowley testify on housing disaster recovery
. Texas Low Income Housing Information Service co-director Karen Paup and National Low Income Housing Coalition president Sheila Crowley were…
Is federal disaster assistance an entitlement?
The back-and-forth between the Texas governor and the US Secretary of Homeland Security over who will pay for the removal…
Reforming FEMA alone won’t fix the problem
There are hopes that a structural reform and management reorganization of FEMA under the Obama Administration will solve the problems…
Stories of eleven Texas families document FEMA’s illegal and systemic discrimination against the poor
It has become abundantly clear that FEMA does not treat low-income disaster survivors right. Consider the stories included in a…
What’s with FEMA’s high denial rate of Galveston area requests for help?
Anger is widespread over the fact that people are still living in tents in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Data…
FEMA and HUD: not who you would want to depend on to throw you a life preserver
The House Financial Services Committee called HUD and FEMA to testify about when the lead federal agencies for hurricane relief…