Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimson Dynamo
(Post 11515238)
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FEMA is a racket. Vast majority of people will qualify for SBA loans and not grants, which they pay a tiny payment but interest gets added. With flooding, if they are insured at all with homeowners, they will have to get a denial letter and will cause a $0 claim just to find that out. That will lead to rate hike. "It shouldn't", but it often does. It will also make it much harder for them to shop around, especially if they had any other claims. Many insurances won't take anyone with 2 or more claims within 5 years. Some companies will drop.
Local govt loves it because it is a flood of money that comes in that they get to allocate or misallocate as they please. There is no oversight. Houston begged during Harvey for munz to start a fund to help people rebuild. They got the money, took tons of applications, maybe a few homes fixed for posterity and no one knows where the millions went after.
Imo, it needs scrapping and States need to take up their own costs (that includes Texas), that way it can be adequately regulated by local parties and there is more incentive to keep costs low. And also that it is not spent to pander.
They are talking about doing away with property taxes here, which would be insane. We don't take income tax. Part of that property tax goes to Flood Control and we use that for mitigation efforts. It works really well.
Imo, federal disaster funding should only go to places that see events that are truly unpredictable. Such as what happened in TN/NC. These areas are subject to very high elevations. I have been through and not one person would think that it floods there. Flood requires a separate insurance policy and the program is largely through FEMA because the premiums would be high without subsidies... a whole other can of worms. It needs to be required for high population coastal areas to drive costs down and to lessen the need for "funding". We keep a policy and it is about $800/yr and we live in 500 yr zone. Where people sit on the FEMA map is virtually meaningless for high hourly rates of rain, blocked drainage, etc, but looks good for those officials seeking funding to say "Well, we received 4 100+ yr storms in the past 10-15 years so... *gimme gimme*". We almost flooded during Taxday flood, which was an unofficial ie unnamed storm. It was about an inch away from coming into our doorway.
Edit: FEMA offered the same $750 for food replacement and other costs here due to the extensive power loss after a Cat 1 earlier this year. Imo, the power company should pay back that for lack of maintenance and mismanaging their priorities. They are not hurting for money.
I am curious if the requirements were the same. Many people got denied. Many were told to file a claim with insurance instead to pay, which makes no sense after a deductable. Anyway.
