On Jan. 23, 2024, FEMA published a long-awaited interim final rule overhauling the agency’s individual assistance program to deliver more equitable outcomes. The rule makes significant changes to how disaster survivors access federal disaster assistance under the Individuals and Households Program (IHP), including more flexible funding for home repairs that address deferred maintenance exacerbated by declared disasters; more funding for accessibility-related items; and removing procedural hurdles for survivors to cover serious unmet needs. The rule is effective on March 22, 2024. Public comments are due on July 22, 2024 and can be submitted at regulations.gov, Docket FEMA-2023-0003.
On Jan. 30, 2024, the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC) Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition (DHRC) hosted a webinar explaining significant changes in the interim final rule and key considerations for submitting comments. For an overview of key changes in FEMA’s interim final rule, see EELP’s slide deck on FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program Equity interim final rule. These slides include substantial feedback from the panelists, listed below:
- Alessandra Jerolleman, Director of Research, Center on Environment, Land and Law (CELL), Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
- Germán Parodi and Shaylin Sluzalis, Co-Executive Directors, Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies (PIDS)
- Hannah Perls, Senior Staff Attorney, Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program
- Maddie Sloan, Director, Disaster Recovery and Fair Housing Project, Texas Appleseed
- Noah Patton, Manager of Disaster Recovery, NLIHC