FEMA must adapt to new reality of US climate refugees

Since Hurricane Laura in 2020 forced her and her six children from their rented home in Westlake, Louisiana nearly two years ago, Roishetta Ozane has been relying on temporary housing. At first, she commuted 140 miles from Houston, where she stayed in a motel. She says then began living out of her storm-ravaged rental, where the bathrooms are destroyed, where there is structural damage, unworking appliances, black mold — and still no back door.

Finally, more than nine months after Hurricane Laura hit, she and her children were placed in a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mobile housing unit, commonly known as a “FEMA trailer.” They were promised rent-free accommodations until December 2021 while their home was being repaired. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic wore on and the resulting supply chain issues delayed repairs to storm-damaged homes, FEMA extended their stay, first through February of 2022, and a second time through October.

Then came the letters. 

Ozane found a notice taped to the front door of her mobile housing unit on March 14. In it, FEMA informed her that despite the extension, she would need to decide whether she and her children wanted to stay until October and pay over $600 in rent each month — or vacate. The deadline for her decision was Feb. 28.

Over 1,700 families in Southwest Louisiana have been made climate migrants since Hurricane Laura in 2020. Since then, the region has been hit by successive disasters, such as Hurricane Delta and Winter Storm Uri, that have kept families like Ozane’s in constant climate migrant status. 

FEMA’s extension of mobile housing unit accommodations was a reaction to the onslaught of successive disasters, which is why the demands for rent come as a shock. While families may appeal FEMA’s demand on a case-by-case basis, they will be required to pay back rent for every month from the date of their notice if they do not prevail on their appeal. With FEMA’s National Processing Service Center (NPSC) understaffed, that may mean three, six, or even nine months of back rent.

Scared of being saddled with an unaffordable bill, some families have already left their temporary lodging, and have found themselves homeless or camping in the shells of their former homes. According to FEMA, those who decide to stay must produce a written and signed statement explaining their financial hardship and provide copies of “verifiable” documents showing their income — or lack thereof — and documentation of the expenses they are paying on their uninhabitable homes. But many of these families have lost everything. They have nothing to show.

The story of climate migrants is not limited to impoverished or war-torn places, like Syria. In fact, the World Economic Forum shows the United States as having the fifth highest number of climate migrants.

FEMA must adapt to this new reality, understand the scope of the damage caused by increasingly powerful weather events, and provide American climate migrants with a realistic amount of time to recover.

We as a country need to plan for how to protect and support our own citizens as hurricanes like Ida, Laura and Delta become ever stronger and more frequent in a warming climate. There is no doubt that stronger and more frequent storms will destroy homes and communities, causing more of our fellow Americans to find themselves living as climate migrants in their own country.

In the meantime, the more than 1,700 families who have become climate migrants in Louisiana recovering from Hurricane Laura still need help. FEMA must cancel the demands for rent and allow stranded families to remain in their temporary housing — a move Sens. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), as well as well Reps. Troy Carter (D-La.), Cassidy, Garret Graves (R-La.) and Clay Higgins (R-La.)  have also called for. It’s the very least that we in this great country can do for our fellow citizens.

Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (Ret.) served as commander of Joint Task Force Katrina in 2005, a joint operation between the United States Department of Defense and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He leads the Green Army, a nonprofit dedicated to finding solutions to pollution.