Objective 3.3 - Unify Coordination and Delivery of Federal Assistance

Disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery are not the responsibility of just one agency. Rather, these functions are a shared responsibility requiring coordination of federal agencies, private and social sectors, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, and other partners. FEMA is uniquely postured to lead the federal government in integrating delivery of federal resources through leveraging both nationwide initiatives through the Emergency Support, Recovery Support, and Mitigation Support Functional Leadership groups.

Federal support to communities begins with how FEMA helps them prepare before a disaster occurs. Numerous federal partners provide training and technical assistance to communities aimed at increasing resilience. Through better coordination of pre-disaster programs, FEMA can help communities identify, prioritize, and plan to address their specific community-based threats, identify hazards and risks, and mitigate capability gaps. Together federal assistance can be targeted to address areas of greatest national risk and increase support to the most at-risk communities.

Focusing on people first means that federal programs should be easy for individuals and communities to access and navigate in order to meet their unique needs.

For example, under the National Response Framework, FEMA collaborates with the Small Business Association (SBA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide initial recovery assistance to individuals. Building on previous efforts to reduce FEMA’s complexity, FEMA will collaborate with federal partners to streamline the disaster survivor and grantee experiences. When individuals and communities can easily navigate federal disaster programs, the burden on those individuals and communities is greatly reduced.

For individuals and communities, the time after a disaster is challenging as they work to figure out how to meet their immediate and longterm recovery needs. The vast range of federal programs can make identifying resources that address their specific circumstances time-consuming and confusing.

FEMA will reduce this burden by partnering with agencies to better sequence federal disaster recovery programs from the perspective of the end users. This includes identifying and reducing potential gaps in recovery programs and better enabling individuals and communities to use federal support to drive their own recovery.