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FEMA ordered to stop collection efforts
# "Overpaid" victims must get explanation, federal judge rules
By Natalie Chandler
[email protected]
Some Hurricane Katrina victims will not have to repay relief money they received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
For now, at least.
A federal judge has ordered FEMA to stop collecting money agency officials maintain they overpaid after the Aug. 29, 2005, storm. The New Orleans judge stipulated that FEMA end the recoupment process until it gives aid recipients better explanations of what they owe, and the opportunity for a hearing.
"(FEMA) will send a letter out that says, 'We've determined you're ineligible for the money you received.' And that doesn't tell you anything," said Crystal Utley, an attorney with Mississippi Center for Justice. "And they're not telling people they may be eligible for a hardship waiver. And when people ask for a waiver, they ignore their request."
A FEMA spokesman said the agency is reviewing the order but cannot comment, citing a class-action lawsuit several Louisiana storm victims filed in April. They contend FEMA cut off their rental assistance without giving them a good explanation or an adequate chance to appeal the decision. FEMA's recoupment attempts also are challenged in the suit.
Although FEMA gives aid recipients a chance to appeal, "the process, if it can be navigated at all, takes months," U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan wrote in her order. "In the meantime, the defendants appear to treat the plaintiffs' and their prospects of homelessness and despair and stress of such added worries as if it were gnats to be brushed away, while the defendants busy themselves with creating more bureaucratic regulations."
In April 2006, FEMA sought $4.2 million in repayments from 2,044 Mississippians the agency says were overpaid. In February, the number of cases dropped to 703, totaling $1.6 million.
Agency officials did not provide updated numbers Monday.
Storm victims received between $2,000 and $26,200 each after Katrina. FEMA officials said some have been overpaid because they received benefits that were reimbursed later by insurance companies. Federal law prohibits the duplication of benefits.
FEMA also could have made "processing errors" in some cases. Other victims used the aid to repair homes that were not their primary residences, officials said.
In many cases where FEMA is seeking recoupment, the agency believes they gave more than one person in the same household the same assistance. In most of those cases, families were forced apart after the storm, with some evacuating to different parts of the country.
FEMA has a policy of helping in such circumstances, but Utley said the agency is not applying it consistently.
Some victims whose claims were questioned have been able to prove they are eligible for the funds, FEMA officials have said.
Ocean Springs resident Leslie Keller said she cannot afford to repay the $2,500 she was given for rental assistance. She said FEMA originally told her she didn't qualify for the money because she was living in a FEMA trailer. But because she was still paying a mortgage on her destroyed home, she said, FEMA relented.
"Then six months later, they said I had to give it back," said Keller, a 45-year-old mother of three who attends school during the day and works at night.
"I can understand going after the ones that fraudulently (received money)," she said. "But as far as the people who accepted aid and then FEMA says it's the wrong type of aid, it's not right."
FEMA has provided $1.23 billion in aid to Mississippi since Katrina struck.
Finally the absurdity stops. If I give you a check for $1000 and tell you that its yours, I can't just ask for it back a few months later, not without some sort of legal process - yet FEMA somehow thinks it can. It gives people grants, then accuses them of fraud and expects them to pay the money back without having produced any evidence whatsoever that fraud was committed.
FEMA is complete shit, did you know they spent over 1 billion dollars on ice for victims of katrina, that was never used! What did they do with the ice a year later? They melted it and drained it into the ocean. What a fucking waste of money.
Get rid of FEMA and from now all disaster "victims" can fend for themelves.
Get rid of FEMA and from now all disaster "victims" can fend for themelves.
I think you're living in the wrong country. Try a place like Iraq or Afghanistan if you want to live in a place where the government does not respond in a natural disaster.
I never said that the government shouldn't respond. I just don't think they should be involved in compensating people for what they never had, what was already covered by insurance or 10 people who are all trying to get compensated for the same loss.
