Grassroots organizers weigh in on FEMA’s effectiveness

Weaverville-based filmmaker Erin Derham has been working for more than four months to help survivors of Tropical Storm Helene access temporary housing. She has found assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to be absent for many and insufficient for others trying to navigate the complexities of recovery after losing their homes.

“We’re on the ground half of every day, and we have been for 4 1/2 months. I have seen one FEMA person, and that was when I went to their headquarters,” Derham says.

Derham and her husband, Matt Van Swol, partnered with content creator Shawn Hendrix and Sampson Hickox, a contractor based in Canton, to create Operation Shelter, an initiative to help storm survivors with housing issues. Donations for Operation Shelter’s work largely come from private crowdsourcing on social media, Derham says.

In Swannanoa, Beth Trigg, who co-founded recovery organization Swannanoa Communities Together, hasn’t felt much of a FEMA presence either. She calls dealing with the agency a “nightmare.”

Trigg recently asked fellow grassroots organizers in a 27-member group chat if anyone had encountered caseworkers from FEMA or any other level of government. The answer was no.

In Xpress‘ ongoing reporting on recovery efforts, frustrations with the federal agency are common among residents. Yet, Derham and Trigg both acknowledge that FEMA has contributed a great deal to the region.

By its own count, FEMA has distributed more than $316 million in cash grants to Western North Carolina survivors, according to a news release, including more than $7.6 million in rental assistance, according to a Feb. 4 release. In Buncombe County alone, FEMA has provided more than $107 million in individual and housing assistance, according to a presentation to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 4.

That support is why Trigg doesn’t think FEMA should be outright eliminated, as suggested by President Donald Trump on a recent visit to the area. But it also shouldn’t be immune from criticism, she argues.

Trigg and Derham say the agency is difficult to get in touch with when needed and the decisions for who receives and does not receive assistance is confusing.

Trigg points to her own experience with FEMA as a prime example. Despite her monthslong work assisting others in the recovery process, she’s yet to receive the minimum $750 assistance grant from the agency. She notes that she was denied twice despite having representatives from Pisgah Legal Services review her application, she says.

“I haven’t been able to figure out how to navigate the system. And I know people with advanced degrees who have had major challenges navigating the system,” Trigg says.

Overall, FEMA has received more than 87,000 applications for assistance, with 56,500 residents having received aid, according to the Feb. 4 presentation.

In a response to questions emailed to FEMA, a spokesperson tells Xpress the agency aims to connect any volunteer organizers with FEMA liaisons to help navigate the agency’s system.

Renter’s dilemma  

Renters, say Trigg and Derham, are among those facing the most complicated challenges in getting back into their homes across WNC.

Some renters whose homes were destroyed are having difficulty proving that their house is either unlivable or more unlivable than it was before the storm, Trigg says.

Nearly two-thirds of the people Derham has helped have been renters, she says. For one particular family whose rental home was destroyed, it took Operation Shelter weeks and “a lot of work” to acquire an $80,000 recreational vehicle and a six-month stay in an RV park, she notes.

“We can’t do any more renters now because it just took up too much of our resources to help people. So that’s 62.7% of people that I have no idea how to help because most of these people have also lost their jobs,” Derham says.

Others, notes Trigg, continue to live in hotels because their application for FEMA assistance remains pending.

In these instances, Trigg notes, trips to FEMA’s Disaster Recovery Center (DRC), formerly located at the Asheville Mall, and calls to FEMA have not helped. She and her volunteers, she says, are at a loss on how to get resultls.

“If we don’t know how to get in touch with somebody to help with that, how can a family know?”

The FEMA spokesperson says most things can be solved by calling the agency’s 800 number or visiting one of the 12 DRCs still open in WNC. Just two remain open in Buncombe County.

Dial up 

Trigg has run into other issues with FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program, which puts displaced people up in hotels while their homes are repaired. In particular, those who are disabled or elderly and not adept with technology have struggled to navigate a system that relies on accessing information in an online portal, a problem FEMA acknowledges.

“Survivors need to stay in touch with FEMA throughout the recovery process. It’s important to note FEMA may call from out-of-area or unknown numbers. Survivors should also let us know if their contact information changes,” the FEMA representative told Xpress in an email exchange.

Trigg says for many of these individuals, dialing up the agency is time-consuming and difficult. In one case, after spending three hours on the phone, her colleague discovered a client was eligible for rental assistance but had been staying in a hotel on a nonprofit’s dime because the client didn’t know how to access that information online.

Safety concerns

Trigg says such stories demonstrate how FEMA caseworkers could make a big difference. “There’s not that many people on vouchers that they should have been able to knock on every door and do that for everybody.”

During a briefing of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 4, FEMA representative Ina Chan said the agency uses flyers, text messages, calls and emails to attempt to contact residents who have been difficult to reach, but FEMA does not directly approach residents, citing safety concerns.

“We’ve [done] it in the past in other states … where we did go and knock on doors, but some not-so-good outcomes happened,” Chan told commissioners. “FEMA staff were not just hurt, but some of them were actually shot at.”

In Xpress‘ email exchange with FEMA, its spokesperson said FEMA has visited “over 300 hotels and motels in recent weeks in an attempt to sit down and speak with occupants identified as ineligible for the TSA.”

Trigg is critical of FEMA’s bias against people who were unhoused before the storm — the agency has clearly stated it is not responsible for assisting this demographic — calling it a policy failing.

“If somebody was living in a tent and all their stuff was destroyed, all of that stuff also has monetary value and costs money to replace,” she points out.

For Derham, the early communication from FEMA administrators has felt disrespectful, blaming storm victims when addressing complaints about the system.

“If you won’t answer your phone, how are these people supposed to do anything?” she asks.

New leadership

The conversation around FEMA’s success in the region has been complicated at multiple stages of recovery by comments from President Trump — both during his campaign and since returning to office.

In the early days of recovery, he suggested, among other things, that FEMA had an anti-Republican bias and that FEMA money was being stolen for migrants. Both claims have been debunked. More recently, the president suggested that FEMA should be abolished, shifting the burden of disaster response to the states. On a trip to Swannanoa Feb. 8, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem repeated the possibility of eliminating the agency and said the administration would ensure disaster aid would not be politicized, according to Blue Ridge Public Radio.

On Jan. 24, Trump signed an executive order establishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, a 20-member committee co-chaired by Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to conduct a “full-scale review” of the agency.

“Americans deserve an immediate, effective and impartial response to and recovery from disasters,” the order says, giving the committee a year to submit a report suggesting changes.

In the short term, FEMA has a new leader. Cameron Hamilton, a former member of the Navy SEALs, was named “senior official performing duties of the administrator” Jan. 22, according to the New York Times.

Before joining FEMA, Hamilton was director of business strategy for a defense contractor in Virginia, a job he took after an unsuccessful run for Congress last June, according to the Times. He has previously worked in the U.S. departments of State and Homeland Security, according to his biography.

Derham, who spoke to Hamilton on Feb. 2, says she has renewed hope that the agency will be reformed to be more efficient.

“My gut is telling me he’s in it for the right reasons and that he’s trying. So I’m going to listen to what he says,” Derham notes. “I have a lot of hope that Asheville is going to get help.”

On the ground in WNC, FEMA continues to operate Disaster Recovery Centers at Fairview Public Library and Weaverville Town Hall. The agency extended the deadline to apply for assistance until Saturday, March 8. The deadline for the TSA program is now Monday, May 26; the extension came after the agency received pressure from local and state officials.

Additional reporting by Brooke Randle

Editor’s note: For more on FEMA’s efforts to assist displaced community members, see “FEMA Reports Difficulty in Contacting Dozens of Temporary Hotel Residents.”