# Plain Language Summary: Disaster Assistance Fairness Act

When a major disaster strikes—like a hurricane, earthquake, or tornado—the federal government provides emergency assistance to help people rebuild. However, there's been a gap in this system: people who live in condominiums, housing cooperatives, and other shared-ownership communities haven't been able to access the same disaster relief as people in single-family homes. This bill fixes that problem by making sure condo owners, co-op residents, and people in other shared housing arrangements can get federal disaster assistance just like everyone else.

The bill does three main things. First, it clarifies what counts as a shared-ownership community so there's no confusion about who qualifies for help. Second, it makes sure that when debris from a disaster threatens the safety or economic recovery of a shared community, the federal government will help pay to remove it—something that wasn't always clear before. Third, and most importantly, it allows federal disaster funds to pay for repairs to shared building systems like roofs, exterior walls, elevators, plumbing, and electrical systems. When these common elements are damaged, individual residents can now get their share of the repair costs covered through federal assistance, as long as they can document what they owe.

This matters because in a condo or co-op, individual units depend on shared infrastructure. If the building's roof is damaged, every resident suffers, but the costs are split among all owners. Previously, residents couldn't easily access federal disaster money for these shared repairs, leaving them stuck paying out of pocket or waiting for their condo association to figure out funding. Now, residents can get federal assistance for their proportional share of essential repairs, making recovery faster and fairer for everyone living in these types of communities.

Disaster Assistance Fairness Act

Rouzer, David

Disaster Assistance Fairness Act This bill makes common interest communities, such as housing cooperatives (co-ops) and condominiums, eligible for the same assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as other homeowners. Specifically, the bill <ul> <li>adds definitions of residential common interest community, condominium, and housing cooperative to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act;</li> <li>requires FEMA to issue rules for the removal of debris or wreckage from real estate owned by a residential common interest community resulting from a major disaster and deems such removal to be in the public interest when a state or local government determines in writing that such debris or wreckage constitutes a threat to life, public health or safety, or the economic recovery of such community; and </li> <li>provides for the repair of essential common elements of a condominium or co-op damaged by a disaster under FEMA's Federal Assistance to Individuals and Households Program.</li> </ul>