Activist group Helene Survivors Committee issue statement ahead of President Trump’s visit

On Friday, January 24th, Donald Trump will visit Western North Carolina for the first trip of his administration. The Helene Survivors Committee (HSC) had already been organizing a protest in Asheville at Pack Square on Friday at 2:00 PM to demand an extension of the Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program and full federal relief for Western North Carolinians impacted by Helene.

From Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy to the wildfires in California, we have seen both Republican and Democratic administrations abandon the survivors of natural disasters. “Friday we’re going to protest that FEMA might have said they did TSA extensions until May, but we have not met one person who received that extension yet,” said Maryjo Tucker, an organizer with the Helene Survivors Committee. “I heard the recently elected Trump will be in town. It’s sad how he sees us as political pawns and a photo op, instead of as human beings.”

We also refuse to be set against undocumented immigrants and to be used like a prop for Trump’s scapegoating campaign, as he tries to falsely pass off FEMA’s negligence as a matter of the agency’s resources being diverted to other federal programs.

We are demanding full federal relief, for all Helene survivors, including:

1. Extending TSA vouchers, allowing displaced residents to stay in hotels until each resident has the ability to obtain secure housing.
2. Using funds to repair and build permanent housing for all residents who have lost their homes.
3. Providing sufficient shelter, food, and heat for any resident who has already been made homeless.

These are modest demands. Because of public pressure and HSC outreach and protests, FEMA has already made extensions to the program, trying to avoid the bad publicity of putting survivors in the winter cold. But they’ve misled the media into believing that all individuals facing homelessness are being taken care of and have received extensions. That’s not true.

According to FEMA’s own data, the agency has terminated at least 1,600 households from TSA because FEMA was unable to contact them digitally. FEMA knew which hotels these households were staying in, and could have knocked on their doors. It is unconscionable that FEMA would evict these families during a freezing winter, rather than to use the agency’s vast resources to reach them. The HSC will continue organizing around the TSA program and all other issues impacting Helene survivors.