Flood Mitigation: Actions Needed to Improve Use of FEMA Property Acquisitions
Fast Facts
Removing people and homes from flood-prone areas can save lives and help communities save money on disaster response. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides funding for communities to buy flood-prone properties from willing owners and convert them to open space.
But the acquisition process is lengthy and complex—discouraging some communities and property owners from participating. To address challenges, FEMA is taking some steps to ease the application process.
We recommended that FEMA explore options for improving property acquisitions and Congress consider giving FEMA the authority to implement them if needed.
The city of Des Plaines, Illinois, received FEMA grants to buy and demolish about 25 homes in a flood-prone neighborhood.
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides funding for communities to purchase flood-prone properties and convert the land to open space. Such property acquisition can be a beneficial strategy for flood mitigation. However, the acquisition process poses challenges that can discourage homeowner and community participation.
- Benefits. Property acquisition permanently eliminates structures at risk of flooding and can lower disaster response costs. Property acquisition can also reduce the federal flood insurance program's fiscal exposure—that is, financial risk to the government.
- Challenges. Many stakeholders GAO interviewed said the length of the acquisition process could lead homeowners to refuse to participate or to drop out of projects over time. Also, local governments may lack staff and expertise to manage the complex process, and states may have limited capacity to help them conduct acquisitions. Financial considerations, such as difficulty funding the nonfederal share of project costs, can also pose challenges.
FEMA has taken or is considering actions to address some challenges. For example, to ease applications for communities, FEMA is developing a uniform application form for acquisition projects.
GAO identified options for improving acquisitions that could help address acquisition challenges (see table). Each option has strengths and limitations. For example, FEMA could preapprove properties for acquisition by reviewing their eligibility before a community submits a grant application, which many stakeholders said could expedite applications after a flood. However, some stakeholders noted that some eligibility requirements—such as the cost-effectiveness of acquiring properties—could be difficult to preapprove. FEMA officials said the agency has been considering actions related to some of these options but has not fully implemented any of them. They also said the agency would need additional authority to implement some options, including the one to preapprove properties for acquisition. Employing one or more options could help address acquisition challenges, which could in turn lead to increased disaster resilience and reduced federal fiscal exposure.
Examples of Options for Improving Federal Emergency Management Agency Property Acquisitions and Selected Challenges That Options Could Help to Address
|
Option |
Length of process |
State and community capacity |
Financial challenges |
|
Preapprove properties for acquisition |
✔ |
— |
— |
|
Reduce nonfederal cost share for acquisitions |
✔ |
— |
✔ |
|
Streamline the acquisition process |
✔ |
— |
— |
|
Enhance state and local capability to conduct acquisition projects |
✔ |
✔ |
— |
Legend: ✔ = Option could help to address challenge; — = not applicable
Source: GAO. | GAO-22-106037
Why GAO Did This Study
Flooding is the costliest natural disaster in the U.S. Through grant programs that support local hazard mitigation projects, FEMA provides funding for communities to acquire and demolish flood-prone properties from willing owners. From 1989 to 2018, FEMA awarded about $4 billion to acquire about 46,000 properties.
GAO was asked to review FEMA's property acquisition efforts. This report examines (1) benefits and challenges of property acquisition and FEMA's efforts to improve acquisitions, and (2) options for improving FEMA property acquisitions, among other objectives.
GAO reviewed literature and FEMA documentation and interviewed FEMA officials. GAO also conducted 30 interviews with stakeholders, including representatives of state and local jurisdictions (selected to capture a range of acquisition funding levels and local conditions), acquisition programs that interviewees or literature identified as successful, organizations with relevant expertise, and researchers.
Recommendations
Congress should consider providing FEMA direction or authority to implement one or more options to address property acquisition challenges. GAO is also making four recommendations to FEMA, including that it evaluate the options and determine whether to pursue implementation of any of them. The Department of Homeland Security agreed with the recommendations.
Matter for Congressional Consideration
| Matter | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Congress should consider providing direction or authority to FEMA to implement one or more of the options identified in this report to address property acquisition challenges and enhance disaster resilience. (Matter for Consideration 1) | In our September 2022 report, GAO identified 10 options for improving property acquisitions. One of these options--streamlining the acquisition process--could involve allowing communities to implement acquisitions and apply for reimbursement. The Hazard Eligibility and Local Projects Act (Pub. L. No. 117-332), which was enacted in January 2023, authorizes FEMA to award hazard mitigation assistance to certain acquisition projects for which an entity began implementation before or after requesting assistance. We will monitor implementation of this law to determine if it fulfills our recommendation. The authorization expires in January 2026. In October 2023, S 3067 was introduced which would require the FEMA Administrator to conduct an evaluation of ways to reduce the complexity of the cost effectiveness requirements for hazard mitigation assistance. As of September 5, 2024, there was no subsequent movement on this bill. |
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Federal Emergency Management Agency | The Deputy Associate Administrator of FEMA's Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration should collect property-level data on property acquisition project milestones across FEMA's hazard mitigation assistance grant programs—including the dates when properties are purchased and demolished. FEMA should use this information to support its efforts to reduce the overall length of the property acquisition process, such as by analyzing patterns to identify problems and promising practices and, over time, establishing metrics to encourage and track progress in shortening property acquisition time frames. (Recommendation 1) |
DHS agreed with our recommendation and described steps FEMA would take to collect additional property-level data and capture it in a cohesive manner in its data systems. In February 2024, DHS reported that FEMA would consider including additional data points upon completion of an ongoing effort to integrate its two main data systems for managing its hazard mitigation assistance grant programs, which it expected to complete by September 30, 2026. As of November 2024, the expected completion date was unchanged. To fully implement this recommendation, FEMA will need to begin collecting property-level data on acquisition project milestones, including purchase and demolition dates, and demonstrate how it will use that information to support efforts to reduce the overall length of the property acquisition process. We will continue to monitor the progress DHS makes in implementing this recommendation.
|
| Federal Emergency Management Agency | The Deputy Associate Administrator of FEMA's Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration should estimate the extent of participant attrition from property acquisition projects across FEMA's hazard mitigation assistance grant programs and use that information to help measure progress in addressing challenges that contribute to such attrition. (Recommendation 2) |
DHS agreed with our recommendation. DHS noted that FEMA already captures data needed to estimate project-level property acquisition attrition rates and described FEMA's plans to explore collecting information about why certain properties may drop out or change mitigation strategies. In January 2024, FEMA reported that it had identified additional data points that could be helpful in tracking property attrition across all of the hazard mitigation assistance grant programs. In February 2024, DHS reported that FEMA would consider including such data points after it integrated its two main data systems for managing the programs, which it expected to complete by September 30, 2026. As of November 2024, the expected completion date was unchanged. To fully implement this recommendation, FEMA needs to estimate project-level property attrition rates for projects across all of the hazard mitigation grant programs and demonstrate how it will use that information to help measure its progress over time in addressing challenges that contribute to attrition. We will continue to monitor the progress DHS makes in implementing this recommendation.
|
| Federal Emergency Management Agency | The Deputy Associate Administrator of FEMA's Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration should define and report on additional measures, beyond cost-effectiveness, for assessing the outcomes and effects of using property acquisition to mitigate flood risk. (Recommendation 3) |
DHS agreed with our recommendation and stated that FEMA would define additional measures for assessing the outcomes and effects of using property acquisitions to mitigate flood risk. As of November 2024, FEMA has partially addressed this recommendation. FEMA focused its implementation on reviewing opportunities to ensure equitable access to the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. FEMA conducted an equity assessment of program funding awarded between 1989 and 2023 that, among other things, compared the shares of properties mitigated through acquisition that were and were not located in sociaily disadvantaged census tracts. FEMA provided a summary of the assessment and stated the agency planned to post it to its website by January 2025. FEMA stated it intended to use the analysis as a baseline for measuring equitable program access. To fully implement this recommendation, FEMA will need to demonstrate that it has reported information from its equity assessment to the public or Congress. We will continue to monitor the progress DHS makes in implementing this recommendation.
|
| Federal Emergency Management Agency | The Deputy Associate Administrator of FEMA's Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration should evaluate the options for improving property acquisitions identified in this report and determine whether and how to implement one or more of them. If FEMA determines that it needs authority for actions it seeks to implement, it should request that authority from Congress. (Recommendation 4) |
DHS agreed with our recommendation and completed implementation as of September 2024. FEMA prepared a detailed assessment of the options for improving property acquisitions identified in our report. The assessment identified FEMA's considerations related to the options, such as implementation mechanisms that might require additional funding or legal authority; potential impediments to implementation; and related steps that FEMA was already implementing or considering as part of its continuous improvement process. For each option, the assessment outlined potential FEMA actions (including taking no action) and identified those recommended for implementation. FEMA's Mitigation Directorate approved the recommended actions in August 2024, and FEMA developed an action plan with timeframes for implementing approved actions.
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