Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), whose district has been broken by the Eaton Hearth, criticized FEMA for reportedly rejecting catastrophe help claims due to an absence of insurance coverage info.
“I am hearing about frustrations with FEMA because they have done what we asked, which is to sign up on the disasterassistance.gov site, and then some of them have gotten denied approvals or non-approvals,” Chu stated about her constituents in an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill” on Tuesday.
Within the interview, Chu sought to reassure her constituents that FEMA does, actually, have the assets to assist them, and he or she inspired residents to proceed making an attempt to get the assistance they want.
“What we want to say to them is that FEMA does have the resources to help them and that sometimes they may not have all the insurance information, and so they’ll get that message, but to keep on going,” Chu stated.
Chu inspired constituents to name FEMA instantly if their claims get denied or to go to the newly opened catastrophe useful resource middle at Pasadena Metropolis Faculty to “ask what is going on with their application.”
Constituents also can go to the middle to get their paperwork, she added, “because so many people just ran out of the house with only their clothes and lost all their documents, which were then all burned up.”
Requested why FEMA is rejecting claims over a lack of understanding, Chu stated she thinks “there’s some kind of conclusion that they reached that it is better to proactively say not approved, rather than to say pending.”
“I am actually urging them to change it,” Chu stated, noting that she mentioned the difficulty with the FEMA administrator Monday evening.
“I think they should change it because, you know, there’s nothing worse, after your life has been devastated, you’re not at your home, you’re trying to recover, and then you get a non-approval message in error,” Chu stated. “That’s not right.”
The Hill reached out to FEMA for remark.
The Hill is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which additionally owns NewsNation.
