As hard as it is to believe, there was a day not too long ago where people would fret that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was gearing up to enslave the American people. This mostly followed from some New World Order nonsense about the black helicopters and a vague sense of tyranny. Fox Mulder, on the other hand, thought the agency would usher in an alien takeover. As a pandemic runs rampant throughout the country and Puerto Rico is still not meaningfully recovered from a hurricane that happened in 2017, it’s almost impossible to imagine FEMA capable of operating an iPhone let alone the systematic overthrow of constitutional order.
But one thing that FEMA could do to help stem the human cost of the COVID-19 outbreak is set up avenues for legal assistance to those impacted by the fallout from the pandemic. And yet the agency has so far blown this off like it was a request for ventilators.
After most natural disasters, FEMA sets up legal hotlines that are “run through a partnership with the American Bar Association, which provides local attorneys to work for free,” as Rebecca Hersher explains at NPR. But despite not actually requiring FEMA to really do anything, the call still hasn’t been made despite rapidly mounting legal needs — many stemming from landlords illegally locking out tenants and public benefits issues.
At least 30 states have sought “individual assistance,” the FEMA name for spending directed at helping individuals hit by a disaster, with Disaster Legal Services one of the key components in that arsenal. But without federal help, getting these services set up is a nearly impossible:
“We have a handful of state partners that we work with that are very well equipped to respond to disasters, and they have hotlines that they can easily switch on,” explains Linda Anderson Stanley, the director of the Disaster Legal Services program at the [ABA]. But many states have not experienced a disaster that warranted a legal hotline for 10 years or more, “and they don’t have the capacity or the funds to just flip a switch and turn on a hotline.”
Stanley also told NPR, “By now I expected there to be a change. We’re really struggling to figure out where the breakdown is.”
Are you, though?
We already know that Jared Kushner was meddling in the agency’s efforts to undermine the response for the benefit of Republican vendors and Mitch McConnell’s demanding blanket litigation shields for businesses. The flavor of legal problems coming out of this disaster is almost exclusively to the detriment of the Republican donor class. People seeking public benefits and challenging bosses who exposed them to the virus aren’t going to be a high priority for the White House. And, what do you know, that’s where the order to release FEMA funds for individual assistance is tripped up — White House approval.
Because the people at FEMA actually know exactly what they’re doing, but they’re only as capable as their management. So the bright side is that the aliens aren’t going to get us any time soon.
COVID-19 Has Created A Legal Aid Crisis. FEMA’s Usual Response Is Missing [NPR]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.