A new Federal Emergency Management Agency policy will end a program with staff going door to door in disaster areas to help survivors obtain the aid they're entitled to.
Wired on Monday said it obtained a memo dated May 2 addressing the regional leadership of FEMA instructing program offices to "take steps to implement" what the authors called five "key reforms" amid tornado, hurricane and wildfire season.
The first reform listed, according to the report, is “Prioritize survivor assistance at fixed facilities."
"FEMA will discontinue unaccompanied FEMA door-to-door canvassing to focus survivor outreach and assistance registration capabilities in more targeted venues, improving access to those in need, and increasing collaboration with [state, local, tribal, and territorial] partners and non-profit service providers," Wired said, citing the memo.
ALSO READ: Busted: Bundy collaborator fueled FEMA conspiracy in Hurricane Helene aftermath
One FEMA employee told the outlet that eliminating the practice will "severely hamper our ability to reach vulnerable people."
The practice of workers going door-to-door “has usually focused on the most impacted and the most vulnerable communities where there may be people who are elderly or with disabilities or lack of transportation and are unable to reach Disaster Recovery Centers," the employee said.
In response to the report, lawyer Benjamin B. Kabak posted an infographic from Axios with data from the Carnegie Disaster Dollar Database to Bluesky. It shows that the states that get the most individual assistance from FEMA are Florida and Louisiana, with Texas as a close third.
He added that the graphic "was pre-Helene, and North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee all needed a big infusion of FEMA money. This is truly talking yourself into a delusional lie that ends up harming your own voters most."
John Bobel, a self-described semi-retired emergency management public information officer, said, "Survivors will have to make their way to a local office to apply for aid, or somehow get online."
Last year, reports claimed that door-to-door FEMA employees were not knocking on doors with Trump signs in the yard when responding to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. The report also noted that the Office of Professional Responsibility "investigation found no evidence that this was a systemic problem, nor that it was directed by agency or field leadership."
