Disaster Assistance: FEMA Actions Needed to Better Support People with Disabilities in Disasters

Filed 2h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jorge Royan · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

GAO found FEMA removed training for state and local partners on including people with disabilities in disaster response back in 2025, citing compliance with executive orders, and it has not been offered since. Regional disability specialists exist but coordinate inconsistently across regions with no standardized role, and FEMA's financial assistance applications include unclear questions and eligibility letters written at a 12th-grade reading level.

GAO's analysis found 4 percentage points fewer disability applicants were approved than non-disabled applicants from 2022 through 2025. FEMA has not solicited feedback from people with disabilities on the accessibility of its own application process.

GAO recommended FEMA reinstate the training, standardize the regional coordination role, and seek feedback on application accessibility; FEMA concurred with all three recommendations.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Cutting the one training that teaches disaster responders how to help people with disabilities, and calling it compliance, is the kind of decision that reads fine in a memo and terribly in a flood zone. A four-point gap in approvals is not a rounding error, it is thousands of people getting a form letter instead of a check. FEMA said yes to all three fixes, which is nice, and also exactly what an agency says right before doing nothing for another year.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Grim League · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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