It has been just more than two months since Hurricane Helene tore through the Gulf states like a runaway freight train, leaving a path of death and destruction in its wake.
This includes my hometown of Valdosta, Ga., the place I have called home my entire life, a community in which I have proudly served as mayor-pro tem, a city councilman, a paramedic, and now a state representative. It’s where my wife and I raised our four children. Everyone here is a neighbor and a friend.
As I drive down litter-strewn streets, the same streets my children traveled by bicycle not long ago, I am aghast at the width and breadth of the destruction. Homes and buildings that have stood for generations were reduced to rubble; natural beauty as old as time itself now bears deep and enduring scars. And meanwhile, my neighbors, my friends, sift through the wreckage in an attempt to reclaim a piece of their shattered lives.
We all pitch in and do what we can. We are gutting homes, delivering water and generators and providing meals to those who’ve lost everything.
But this is not enough — it’s a Band-Aid on a severed limb, a bit of salve on a third-degree burn. Without critical disaster funding, families will be homeless this holiday season and with no assurance of being made whole.
And the folks of Valdosta are not alone in facing seemingly insurmountable challenges in the wake of national disasters. Communities throughout western Georgia, North Carolina and across Florida also had their lives upended during the 2024 hurricane season, and there are others — including the victims of Hurricane Idalia and the Maui wildfires in 2023 — that have still yet to receive the assistance they were promised.
This is where Congress needs to step up. In the absence of permanent federal funding, there is a new fight in Congress after every storm season regarding long-term funding to rebuild in impacted communities.
Lawmakers continually kick the can down the road on disaster relief funding through continuing resolutions. Yet we are encouraged by the bipartisan support shown on this issue, and urge both sides to come together to aid the communities whose homes and communities were devastated by storms and fires in 2023 and 2024.
Now is the time for our members of Congress to come together and agree on a budget that:
- Permanently authorizes and funds the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR): CDBG-DR funds are critical to filling the gap left by short-term Federal Emergency Management Agency aid and insufficient insurance payouts. Making this a permanent funding source provides faster support for future survivors.
- Allocate CDBG-DR funding for disasters since January 2023: It is critical we get relief to families from the Hawaiian Islands to the mountains of North Carolina.
- Fully fund FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund: FEMA needs resources to provide temporary housing, repair homes, and meet immediate needs.
- Make FEMA rule changes retroactive to all disasters since 2021: This would ensure that those affected by past events, such as Hurricane Ida in 2021, can benefit from the improved and more accessible assistance.
In the absence of permanent federal funding, there will always be a new fight in Congress after every storm season, a fight based purely on politics — not people. The last authorization vote was in December 2022, meaning communities impacted by natural disasters after January 2023 still have not received CDBG-DR dollars. This is unacceptable by any measure.
Despite the challenges, heartbreak and hardship, I couldn’t be more proud of my fellow Valdosta residents, as their strength and resilience are a true testament to the American spirit. And I know the scenes I see play out on our battered streets every day are being repeated in similar disaster-ravaged communities across the country.
We are not looking for a handout, just a hand-up. It’s the holiday season, a time for optimism, hope, and faith, and Congress has the power to restore all of that and more by providing stability to families still struggling to recover from past disasters.
We ask you to urge your member of Congress to work toward the passage of a comprehensive disaster recovery package that fully funds FEMA, permanently authorizes CDBG-DR and funds it for 2023 and 2024 disasters, and makes FEMA rule changes retroactive to 2021.
This will go a long way toward making the holiday season just a bit brighter for so many families that have suffered so much.
Georgia State Rep. Dexter Sharper has represented Georgia’s 177th District since 2013.
