Short Wave - FEMA Has An Equity Problem

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

When a disaster like a hurricane or wildfire destroys a house, the clock starts ticking. It gets harder for sick people to take their medications, medical devices may stop working without electricity, excessive temperatures, mold, or other factors may threaten someone's health. Every day without stable shelter puts people in danger. The federal government is supposed to help prevent that cascade of problems, but an NPR investigation finds that the people who need help the most are often less likely to get it. NPR climate reporter Rebecca Hersher explains. Check out Rebecca's full investigation here. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Oh, shoot, did we bring the cookies? Yeah. Oh, okay, cool. In May, producer Ryan Kelman and I drove out to DeQuincey, Louisiana. This is southwest Louisiana. It's really flat and marshy. The roads are in rough shape.

This area got hit by two hurricanes last year. So this must... The person we're going to meet is named Donnie Spree. bite. She lives in a gray mobile home a couple miles off the main road. It's surrounded by tall pine trees, so it's pretty quiet, except for her chihuahuas, Goliath and Pollythe. Goliath is really small. Donnie's husband, Steve, chose him because Goliath was the littlest one in the litter. Steve worked as a pipe fitter in the petrochemical plants nearby, and his nickname was termite. They'd call him back because he could crawl through them pipes.

They were short as I am, but smaller. By the time they brought Goliath home, Steve was retired, and he used a wheelchair to get around. And Goliath was always on his lap. That puppy had been in a wheelchair up until two months ago. Oh, wow. We're two months in one day. It's so fresh, huh?

I knew it was coming. I've been taking care of him for so long. This is why we were visiting Donnie Spite, to understand what her final months with her husband were like and how those months might have been easier if the federal government treated disaster survivors more fairly. Because six months before Steve died, the Spite's house was badly damaged in a hurricane.

The couple applied for money from FEMA, the federal emergency management agency. But they didn't get the help they needed. She says it's not FEMA's fault that Steve died. He'd been sick a long time. His diabetes symptoms were getting worse, as were his lung conditions. But it did make things a lot harder. And Donnie's experience trying to get help from FEMA echoes those of countless low-income disaster survivors across the country.

I'm Rebecca Hersher, a climate reporter. And I'm Ritu Chateji. Today on the show, we look at the unfairness that's baked into the government's response to disaster. When a disaster like a hurricane or wildfire destroys your house, the clock starts sticking. Every day without stable shelter puts people in danger. It's harder for sick people to take their medications, medical devices stop working, heat and mold threaten everyone's health. The federal government is supposed to help prevent that cascade of problems.

But an NPR investigation finds that the people who need help the most are often less likely to get it. And the government knows it has to be. a problem. You're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR. So, Becky, before you tell me about your visit with Donnie, help me understand the background here. What is FEMA's role after disasters like hurricanes? Well, it's pretty straightforward. You know, FEMA is supposed to help people with their immediate needs, and safe, stable shelter is the big one. So people who own homes can apply for

money to repair damage or find a new place to live if the house was completely. completely destroyed. And there's also money to help cover the cost of rent or a hotel room. And then sometimes FEMA brings in temporary trailers that you might have heard about. And that's emergency housing. And what do we know about who ends up getting that money? Right. So that's the question I've been asking for years now, actually. So all the way back in 2017, I noticed that poor people seem to be struggling to get adequate help from FEMA. And it was anecdotal. I mostly noticed it in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Back then, there were some studies coming out that suggested that FEMA assistance was disproportionately benefiting whiter, wealthier people. And I imagine you asked FEMA about that,

and what did they say? Yeah, I did. And basically, they said that their programs were designed to be fair. Everyone can apply for help under the same criteria, so it's a level playing field. Then fast forward a couple years, and I heard from a source of mine that FEMA had been doing some internal analyses about this exact topic. So, you know, I'm a reporter. I asked to see them. And initially, FEMA denied that. NPR appealed. Months went by. But eventually, they gave these records to me. And the records showed low-income disaster survivors are less likely to receive some types of housing assistance from FEMA. When they do receive money, they often receive less. Is this because FEMA payments are based on how big or expensive your home was? So if you're rich and have a

bigger, more expensive home, you get more money. Yeah, I think that's like a natural guess that a lot of people would make, and it's likely part of the story. But it appears to be more complicated than that. So researchers I talked to said that home size does not account for the disparity, and that kind of gets it what you were saying. The data suggests a few additional reasons that might be a play. So poor people are more likely to be denied money because the damage to their home is deemed insufficient by FEMA. And usually that's because the applicant can't prove that the disaster caused the damage. So the analysis actually suggests that the disparity could have something to do with the inspection process.

Like maybe inspectors are looking at the homes of poorer people and saying, this roof already needed maintenance. So a lot of this damage can't be blamed on the hurricane, for example. The other thing that might be at play is that people who can't prove that they personally own their home or that they're named on a lease, they are also cut off from assistance. So that might be accounting for some of this disparity. So what about Donnie's spite situation? Where does her experience fit in? Right. So her experience is probably tied to a third reason. So basically, FEMA isn't super focused on outcomes. Like they assess how much damage you have. They give you an amount of money that they think is fair. And that's basically the end. You know, the agency isn't checking to make sure

that you were actually able to get stable housing with that money. Now, that is less of a problem if you have savings or family members who can lend you money. But imagine if you're living on a fixed income or you have a disability or young kids. Getting insufficient help from FEMA can mean no safe place to live, and that can be really dangerous. And it sounds like that's what happened to Donnie and our husband, right? Yeah, exactly. So when Hurricane Laura hit last August, Donnie and Steve sheltered in place in their mobile home, and there were 150 mile an hour winds. What was it like here during the storm, I guess?

Did a lot of trees snap? Oh, there was two big pines over there. Huge pines. One of them was the one that landed in the dead roof. Oh, gosh. Yeah, yeah, this tree put a two-foot hole in the bedroom ceiling. And it knocked out the electricity. it destroyed the air conditioner. And they really relied on the electricity for the electric lift

that helped Donnie get Steve in and out of bed safely to charge his electric wheelchair and charge the nebulizer he needed to help him breathe. And it was dangerously hot in the house. The spites did not have home insurance. They lived on a fixed income. They did not have the money to repair the damage on their own. So they applied for help from FEMA. And presumably they hope that FEMA would give them enough money to fix the hole in roof and get electricity and air conditioning as soon as possible. Right. What happened?

So Donnie says FEMA gave her $1,649. That was $1,200 to fix the roof plus about $400 for a generator. But after a big disaster, prices for repairs and equipment can really skyrocket. Yeah, right. And actually, that's a good point. Donnie said that the cheapest generator she could find was $900. And a contractor told them that the roof repair would cost $12. as much as FEMA gave them. They were living month to month on Social Security and Steve's

benefits from the VA. Steve served in Vietnam. They used the savings they had to cover the cost of that generator, but the roof repair was out of their reach financially. So they lived with the hole in the bedroom ceiling all winter. And you can see the sky through this thing. This is Louisiana. It rains all the time. The water came right in. Plus, remember, there was that terrible deep freeze this winter. Oh, very stressful circumstances for anyone. But I mean, for Donnie, she was caring for Steve through all this time. Yeah, and doing her best, but you know, she's 77 years old. She has arthritis. The damage in the house made everything harder, especially since the hole in the roof was right next to Steve's hospital bed in the bedroom. So caring for him was that much more difficult when the

weather was bad. And this spring, Steve's health really deteriorated. I want those a mom. I want those some hard times there with Steve, but we would have been married 39 years the second of this month. Wow, that's a long time. Steve died in March, and Donnie says their final months together, they would have been calmer and easier if the house wasn't in such disrepair and if they'd gotten enough money to fix the damage. And I imagine there are thousands of people like Donnie. Yeah, actually, it's more like hundreds of.

thousands of low-income people who potentially don't get the help they need. And FEMA now acknowledges that the disparities in who receives disaster assistance, that those are a problem, which is a change. For decades, FEMA has argued that its disaster programs are fair. I interviewed Keith Turrey. He is FEMA's assistant administrator for recovery. We do understand our obligation to support disaster survivors in an equitable way. That is a responsibility that we have here at FEMA. And candidly, we have worked to do there, and we're committed to following through on it. He says the agency is studying these disparities. They are asking local officials for feedback about how people of different demographics are or aren't served by FEMA's current programs.

And the new head of FEMA, D.N. Criswell, she testified before a subcommittee in Congress last week and said that equity is one of the top three priorities for the agency. But the agency didn't respond to questions from NPR about specific changes it's considering or what the timeline is for any of this. I mean, Becky, you've covered FEMA for a long time. What's your sense of whether things will change? You know, it's hard to say. I think there are some basic things that we can look for.

You know, will FEMA change its application process or eligibility requirements? Will it start publishing demographic information about who receives assistance? These are concrete things that the agency says it's considering, but it's too soon to know if they'll actually happen. But in the meantime, you're going to bring us more on this topic next week. Yes, yes, I am. So on this very show next week, we're going to talk about racial disparities in who gets help after disasters. And we're going to focus on the city of Port Arthur, Texas. So they've been hit by four hurricanes since 2005.

And a lot of black residents of the city have been displaced. NPR climate reporter Rebecca Hersha, thank you for your incredible reporting and for bringing it to us. Always great to talk to you. Thanks. This episode was produced by Britt Hansen and fact-checked by Indy Kera. Our editor is Giselle Grayson, the one and only. I'm Rebecca Hersher. And I'm Ritu Chatterjee.

Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR. Capitalism touches every part of our lives. Capitalism is a giant force that I don't understand. I feel that it's a very safe system. I'm constantly in fear of losing my job. It is our biggest success and our biggest failure. On this special series from ThruLine, Capitalism. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR.