Following years of advocacy by the NLIHC-led Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition (DHRC), HUD announced on October 24 the creation of the Rapid Unsheltered Survivor Housing (RUSH) program to help the lowest-income and most marginalized disaster survivors regain or maintain stable, affordable housing. RUSH will provide displaced disaster survivors with the longer-term direct rental assistance and supportive services they need to get back on their feet. The program will offer rapid re-housing assistance, including up to 24 months of rental assistance, as well as supportive services for people currently experiencing homelessness and those at risk of homelessness, through its network of housing providers and experts. Program funds can also be used to cover move-in expenses, outreach costs, and other urgent needs for individuals who are unsheltered. RUSH funding will be available for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, including those with incomes at or below 30% of area median income and those living in overcrowded homes, facing imminent eviction, or experiencing another risk factor for homelessness. Read a fact sheet about the new program at: https://bit.ly/3Ftbo2C
“Too often, FEMA relies on housing programs that are inaccessible to disaster survivors with the greatest needs, putting them at higher risk of eviction, displacement, and in the worst cases, homelessness,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of NLIHC, in a statement. “I applaud HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge for her leadership in launching RUSH to immediately fill the gap caused by FEMA’s inadequate response to the housing needs of low-income disaster survivors. This new program will prevent untold suffering and ensure that homelessness isn’t prolonged or newly created by disasters.”
RUSH is similar to the Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP), which advocates identify as a model program for disaster housing recovery. DHAP was created in part by taking into account hard-won lessons from Hurricane Katrina, and the program has been deployed with great success after major disasters. Yet despite support from both Democratic and Republican administrations, FEMA has refused to activate DHAP in recent years. The Biden-Harris administration previously announced plans to create a similar program in time for the 2022 hurricane season, but progress was halted after FEMA backtracked and refused to activate the program.
For households with low incomes displaced by a disaster, FEMA housing assistance is often inaccessible and inadequate due to an overly complex application process, arbitrary deadlines, and failure to keep pace with rising post-disaster rents. As a result, these households typically face long-term displacement and the threat of homelessness after a disaster. Individuals who were experiencing homelessness prior to a disaster are ineligible for most forms of FEMA assistance, including the Transitional Shelter Assistance (TSA) Program and rental assistance.
Join next week’s (Tuesday, November 1) National Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition webinar at 2 pm ET for further updates on the federal response to Hurricanes Ian and Fiona and the latest on advocacy efforts to improve America’s disaster recovery system.
Read HUD’s RUSH fact sheet at: https://bit.ly/3Ftbo2C
Read NLIHC’s statement on RUSH at: https://bit.ly/3N89s1