Subject: Re: Hurricane Milton, Paradise Lost
IMHO, these FEMA programs are well intentioned and effective to some degree. But their process is significantly inadequate to meet the needs of the present situation. FEMA needs to provide housing, not an application process for people with no resources to navigate.

There's always a tension between trying to get resources as quickly to victims and making sure that those resources are spent where they're supposed to be spent. If you don't have any processes in place to document and ensure that the folks getting the resources are people who are entitled to the resources, then your program is susceptible to waste, fraud, and abuse. Not only does that result in an immediate loss of resources to the folks who need it, but it also makes your program incredibly vulnerable in later budgeting years.

We (meaning voters) tend to put competing and inconsistent demands on government programs. We want them to be customer-friendly and super-effective at completing their mission; and we want them to make sure that taxpayer dollars don't go to someone who shouldn't get them. They can't possibly do both, so the ones that err on the side of protecting taxpayer funds are criticized for being overly bureaucratic and difficult to navigate, and the ones that err on the side of emphasizing ease of access get criticized for having waste fraud and abuse.