During the late 1960s the disaster loan program of the Small Business Administration (SBA) was created as well as the Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) program. The amount of the assistance is calibrated to include housing and utility costs in the affected area. Direct Assistance

Direct assistance provides temporary housing units to disaster survivors that are purchased or leased by the federal government. These repairs may also include mitigation measures to make the house less susceptible to future damage. Replacement

In this form of assistance, the IHP makes a contribution toward the replacement of an owner-occupied residence that was lost in a disaster event. Assistance under ONA can include clothing, furniture, funeral expenses, emergency medical help, and other needs. Case Management Services

A companion to the provision of IHP services is the authority for states to request Case Management Services to assist families and individuals in organizing assistance and ensuring that they are accessing the various forms of help that may be available. The NPSCs take in the great majority of all applications. Section 408 of the Stafford Act states that:
The President shall determine appropriate types of housing assistance to be provided under this section to individuals and households described in subsection (a)(1) based on considerations of cost effectiveness, convenience to individuals and households, and such other factors as the President may consider appropriate. Housing Assistance Provided by Category

As noted earlier, the primary types of assistance provided under IHP are repairs, rental assistance and Other Needs Assistance (ONA). With the exception of Hurricane Katrina (which is an outlier), for most disasters, the majority of assistance is provided through grants for home repairs to make a home habitable. That is followed by rental assistance costs and ONA payments. The use of manufactured housing is not common and is a last resort when the other housing options are not available. This presented limited alternatives for temporary housing for disaster survivors. In the case of Hurricane Sandy, and in fact for most disasters, the favored option for homeowners is to repair their homes and remain in them. Potential Issues for Congress

		Equity in Disaster Housing Assistance

While FEMA assistance through the IHP program is available for presidentially declared disasters (and SBA disaster loan assistance may be available even for events that are not declared disasters by the President), a select number of disaster events receive an expanded form of federal assistance to meet housing needs. This can create differing tiers of disaster housing assistance for declared disasters depending on what actions Congress takes. CDBG-DR Availability

In some instances that are perceived as catastrophic events, Congress provides additional resources to states and local governments through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. The language provided CDBG resources
for necessary expenses related to disaster relief, long-term recovery, restoration of infrastructure and housing, and economic revitalization in the most impacted and distressed areas resulting from a major disaster declared pursuant to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. FEMA's Policy Guidance notes that a facility may be eligible if
Facility use is not limited to any of the following: 
A certain number of individuals; 
A defined group of individuals who have a financial interest in the facility, such as a condominium association; 
Certain classes of individuals; or 
An unreasonably restrictive geographical area, such as a neighborhood within a community; 
Since the guidance explicitly sees a condominium association as ineligible if it limits use of its facility to its members, there has been an extended dialogue between FEMA and the representatives of condo and co-op associations. But other assistance, such as home repairs, are 100% federally funded. It would also increase the state's interest in accountability and assuring the quality and timeliness of the repairs as well as the importance of coordinating the applicable programs. But the remaining challenges can be addressed through increased communication by FEMA and its state partners.
Following a major disaster declaration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) may provide three principal forms of assistance. These include Public Assistance, which addresses repairs to a community and states' or tribe's infrastructure; Mitigation Assistance which provides funding for projects a state or tribe submits to reduce the threat of future damage; and Individual Assistance (IA) which provides help to individuals and families.
IA can include several programs, depending on whether the governor of the affected state or the tribal leader has requested that specific help. These can include Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) for workers made unemployed by a disaster and not covered by the state's standard unemployment program. IA can also include Crisis Counseling that provides assistance to state and local mental health organizations to assist disaster victims traumatized by an event. IA may also include Case Management services that help a state to organize potential forms of assistance for disaster survivors.
All of those programs can perform important tasks in the post-disaster environment to aid disaster survivors in reorienting their lives and returning to normal. But the principal IA program to offer such assistance is the Individuals and Households Program (IHP), authorized by Section 408 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. The IHP provides temporary housing assistance as well as the Other Needs Assistance (ONA) grants that can provide necessary assistance for the replacement of lost items such as furniture and clothing. Funds to assist any household are currently capped at $33,000. This amount is adjusted annually according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Federal disaster housing assistance has a long history that is not always best understood by concentration on the exceptional circumstances presented by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. In fact, the Hurricane Sandy experience of the last several years may serve as a better guide to explain the form FEMA housing assistance takes in most disaster recovery operations.
While the Katrina experience suggested a general reliance on motel rooms, travel trailers, mobile homes, and even docked cruise ships, the great majority of disaster housing help comes in the form of repairs to a home to make it habitable and financial assistance to cover the cost of temporary rental units, such as available apartments in the disaster area. The use of mobile homes and travel trailers, what FEMA terms "direct assistance," is rare and generally considered a last resort to be employed only when other housing options are not available in the immediate disaster area. But improvements have been made in this form of assistance and are reviewed here.
This report explains the traditional approach for temporary housing through the IHP program following a disaster, how it is implemented, and considers if the current policy choices are equitable for disaster victims. As a part of this examination, the report looks at other forms of housing repair assistance such as the Small Business Administration (SBA) Disaster Loan Program for homeowners as well as assistance that is provided, in some instances, through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG-DR) program.
In recent years FEMA has catalogued its use of various forms of housing and the associated costs of each. This report will review those expenditures and provide information on the relative costs, and applications of, several categories of assistance.