From [HERE] The Federal Emergency Management Agency rejected 60.5% of the 1.1 million applications Puerto Ricans filed for housing assistance after Hurricane Maria devastated the territory in 2017.

As I explained in an article published in Housing Policy Debate, an academic journal, FEMA used 41 different reasons when it declined a total of 77,000 applicants. The top reason: homeowners lacked legal titles to their properties. Without their names on the deeds, they had no way to prove that they were the true owners of the storm-damaged or destroyed homes.

Other reasons FEMA gave included that it deemed damage to be insufficient or that two households had filed with the same address – which often happens with housing constructed without building permits, architects or engineers.

Five years after Hurricane Maria, I believe the inability of those homeowners to get federal aid surely increased the impact of Fiona, a massive storm that struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 18, 2022. When community leaders assessed the damage, they encountered hundreds of homes still covered with old blue tarps because they never got a new roof after Maria.

As an urban planner who has researched disaster recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, I see those tarps as evidence that FEMA declined applications that it should have accepted. I’m monitoring the agency to see if that happens again this time.

Greatest need but least likely to get help

FEMA offers financial and housing aid after disasters to qualified households who are uninsured or whose insurance won’t cover the full cost of rebuilding. Unfortunately, in Puerto Rico and other places that are especially prone to hurricanes and other disasters, the most vulnerable residents may lack the documentation they need to secure that help.

After Hurricane Harvey soaked Texas in 2017, causing about US$125 billion in damage, FEMA rejected 30% of Texans’ housing aid applications because those households lacked deeds with their names printed on them.

Similarly, after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, FEMA denied 20,000 applicants who had long occupied homes they’d inherited from relatives without ever getting their homeownership paperwork sorted out. [MORE]