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![handle is hein.crs/crsajkk0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Order Code RS22560
Updated January 5, 2007
Disaster Housing Assistance:
A Legal Analysis of ACORN v. FEMA
Kamilah M. Holder
Legislative Attorney
American Law Division
Summary
This report discusses the ongoing litigation in Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) v. Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), litigation that involves certain evacuees from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane
Rita. In the ACORN case now before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia,
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia addressed the constitutional
adequacy of the notice provided to hurricane evacuees who were denied long-term
housing assistance benefits by FEMA under § 408 of the Stafford Act. The court held
that the notice FEMA provided to the evacuees was unconstitutionally vague and did not
meet the standards of due process. The court ordered FEMA to provide a more detailed
explanation of its denial of § 408 assistance to each affected evacuee and to continue
short-term housing assistance under § 403 of the Stafford Act until each evacuee
received a revised notice and had adequate time to appeal the denial of § 408 benefits.
On December 22, 2006, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals
for the D.C. Circuit granted, in part, FEMA's emergency motion for a stay pending
appeal. The court of appeals stayed the district court's order requiring FEMA to
immediately restore § 403 benefits and pay short-term housing assistance that the
affected evacuees otherwise would have received from September 1, 2006, through
November 30, 2006. The court left in effect the lower court's order requiring that
FEMA provide more detailed explanations for the denial of § 408 assistance to affected
evacuees and ordered that the appeals be expedited.
On November 29, 2006, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted
a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN),' on behalf of several thousand Hurricane
Katrina and Rita evacuees, and also four individual Hurricane Katrina plaintiffs, all of
1 ACORN is a membership organization composed of low- and moderate-income families that
works to build stronger communities through improvements in housing, safety, healthcare and
other services. See [http://www.acorn.org].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/crsajkk0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)