The Federal Emergency Management Agency is making significant changes to how it will respond to disasters on the ground this season, including ending federal door-to-door canvassing of survivors in disaster areas, WIRED has learned.
A memo reviewed by WIRED, dated May 2 and addressed to regional FEMA leaders from Cameron Hamilton, a senior official performing the duties of the administrator, instructs program offices to “take steps to implement” five “key reforms” for the upcoming hurricane and wildfire season.
Under the first reform, titled “Prioritize Survivor Assistance at Fixed Facilities,” the memo states that “FEMA will discontinue unaccompanied FEMA door-to-door canvassing to focus survivor outreach and assistance registration capabilities in more targeted venues, improving access to those in need, and increasing collaboration with [state, local, tribal, and territorial] partners and nonprofit service providers.”
FEMA has for years deployed staff to travel door-to-door in disaster areas, interacting directly with survivors in their homes to give an overview of FEMA aid application processes and help them register for federal aid. This group of workers is part of a larger cadre often called FEMA’s “boots on the ground” in disaster areas.
Ending door-to-door canvassing, one FEMA worker says, will “severely hamper our ability to reach vulnerable people.” The assistance provided by workers going door-to-door, they say, “has usually focused on the most impacted and the most vulnerable communities where there may be people who are elderly or with disabilities or lack of transportation and are unable to reach Disaster Recovery Centers.” This person spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Todd DeVoe, the emergency management coordinator for the city of Inglewood, California, and the second vice president at the International Association of Emergency Managers, says that in his years of working in disaster management he has seen how many survivors don’t get information about recovery or resources without door-to-door outreach—despite emergency managers using strategies like direct mailers and radio and newspaper ads.
“Going door-to-door, especially in critically hit areas, to share information is very important,” he says. “There’s a need for it. Can it be done more efficiently? Probably, but getting rid of it completely is really going to hamper some things.”
FEMA’s door-to-door canvassing became a political flash point last year during Hurricane Milton, when an agency whistleblower alerted the conservative news site The Daily Wire that one official had told workers in Florida to avoid approaching homes with Trump yard signs. Former FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability during a hearing last year that the incident was isolated to one employee, who had since been fired. The employee, in turn, claimed that she acted on orders from a superior and that the issue was a pattern of “hostile encounters” with survivors who had Trump yard signs.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee alleged that they had received information indicating “widespread discrimination against individuals displaying Trump campaign signs on their property” throughout FEMA. In March, the agency fired three more employees following an internal investigation into the issue.
