FEMA Disaster Assistance and Community Associations

Section 1: Overview — The assistance that does not arrive

After a Presidentially declared disaster, federal assistance reaches individual households. The common elements a community association owns and must repair sit largely outside the programs boards expect to help.¹ The controlling statute is the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. sections 5121 through 5207, which authorizes two programs relevant here: Individual Assistance, delivered mainly through the Individuals and Households Program at 42 U.S.C. section 5174, and Public Assistance, which funds governments and certain private nonprofits.² A condominium unit owner may qualify for Individual Assistance for damage to the interior of the owner's unit, but the association generally cannot recover for the common elements, because FEMA treats a community association as a business-type entity outside the Individuals and Households Program.³ Public Assistance rarely reaches associations either. A private nonprofit must own or operate a facility that serves the general public, and a facility limited to a group with a financial interest in it, such as a condominium association, generally fails that test.⁴ One federal pathway does touch association property: debris removal from private roads and gated communities. That pathway runs through the local government that performs or authorizes the work, not through the association.⁵ The federal tool that does apply to associations is the SBA disaster loan, which an association can use to repair common elements.⁶ Bills to close the common element gap recur in each Congress, but none has become law, and the sections that follow map what applies today.⁷

Section 2: The Stafford Act programs and the association gap

2A. Individual Assistance and the common element line

The Stafford Act authorizes the President to provide financial assistance and direct services to individuals and households who, as a direct result of a major disaster, have necessary expenses and serious needs they cannot meet through other means. Section 408 of the Act, codified at 42 U.S.C. section 5174, delivers that help through the Individuals and Households Program.⁸ The program ties to the applicant's predisaster primary residence: it responds to the housing needs of individuals and households displaced from, or whose primary residence a major disaster renders uninhabitable.⁸ A condominium unit owner whose primary residence is the unit may pursue this assistance for damage to the interior of that unit under the program's ordinary eligibility rules and caps.³

The association, as owner of the common elements, generally cannot. FEMA interprets the Individuals and Households Program to reach individuals and households, and it treats a community association as a business-type entity that falls outside the program. That interpretation is why FEMA directs associations to SBA disaster loans rather than Individual Assistance grants for common element repair.³ FEMA's own definition describes a condominium association as the entity of unit owners responsible for maintenance and operation of common elements owned in undivided shares.⁹ FEMA's Individual Assistance Program and Policy Guide, Version 1.1 Amended, July 2025, governs this treatment and addresses condominium and cooperative ownership within its Individuals and Households Program eligibility material.¹⁰ The categories that fall on the association side of the line are the shared systems a board is responsible for: roofs, elevators, structural systems, private streets, and shared utility infrastructure.⁷ How the recorded declaration allocates repair responsibility between the association and the unit owner interacts with this line, and that allocation is a matter of state law and governing documents addressed in the state matrix rather than here.

2B. Public Assistance and the private nonprofit question

Public Assistance, authorized under Section 406 of the Stafford Act at 42 U.S.C. section 5172, funds debris removal, emergency protective measures, and repair or restoration of damaged facilities for state, tribal, territorial, and local governments, and for certain private nonprofit organizations.² For a private nonprofit, eligibility turns on two questions in the Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide, Version 5.0 Amended, effective January 6, 2025: whether the organization holds qualifying nonprofit status, and whether it owns or operates a facility that provides an eligible service.¹¹ A facility providing a non-critical service must be open to the general public.⁴

Community associations generally fail that test. Under the eligibility criteria, a facility is not open to the general public if its use is limited to a defined group of individuals who have a financial interest in it, such as a condominium association, or if gates or other security systems prohibit access.⁴ Those two conditions describe the typical association, so association common facilities generally do not qualify as eligible private nonprofit facilities. The narrow exceptions in the guidance depend on the specific facility type and on genuinely open access, and a single unusual grant should not be read as a rule that associations qualify.¹¹

Debris removal is the one place where federal money can reach work on association property, and it flows through the local government. Under the Public Assistance debris provisions, removal of disaster debris from private roads, including within gated communities, can be eligible when an eligible applicant, typically the local government, performs or authorizes the work, subject to conditions that include the applicant's legal responsibility for the work, a right-of-entry, and a determination that removal serves the public interest.⁵ The association is not the applicant, does not apply to FEMA, and has no entitlement to reimbursement if the local government does not undertake or authorize the work.⁵

2C. SBA disaster loans and duplication of benefits

The federal program associations actually use is the SBA business physical disaster loan. Businesses of any size and most private nonprofit organizations in a declared disaster area may apply for up to $2 million to repair or replace disaster-damaged real property and other physical property not fully covered by insurance, which for an association means damaged common elements.⁶ Unit owners use SBA home disaster loans for their own losses: homeowners may borrow up to $500,000 to repair or replace a primary residence, and homeowners and renters may borrow up to $100,000 for personal property.⁶ SBA publishes these caps on its physical damage loans page, last updated July 23, 2025, and restated them in disaster declaration notices in 2026.⁶

SBA disaster loans become available when a disaster is declared, and eligibility ties to the declared disaster area, so an association's access depends on whether its location falls within the designated areas of the declaration.⁶ Federal disaster assistance may not duplicate insurance or other recoveries. Section 312 of the Stafford Act, at 42 U.S.C. section 5155, makes a recipient liable to the extent federal assistance duplicates benefits available for the same purpose from another source, including a flood settlement under a Residential Condominium Building Association Policy, and the NFIP page takes up the coverage side of that policy.¹² In practice the financing sequence a board faces runs from insurance recovery first to a loan or special assessment for the shortfall, and state law governs the limits on assessments for uninsured damage, addressed in the state Assessment Limits column.

Section 3: What federal disaster programs do and do not cover for associations

A. Before a disaster

Boards should confirm the association's property and flood coverage, including any Residential Condominium Building Association Policy, before an event, because FEMA calculates federal assistance net of insurance recoveries under the duplication-of-benefits rule at 42 U.S.C. section 5155.¹² Current reserve and structural records, and the recorded declaration establishing what the association owns as common elements versus what a unit owner owns, determine which losses fall to the association and which fall to the owner. State law and governing documents draw that line, not FEMA.⁹

B. Individual Assistance in practice

A unit owner whose primary residence is the unit may pursue Individual Assistance for interior damage under the Individuals and Households Program at 42 U.S.C. section 5174, subject to that program's rules and caps.⁸ An association can help owners by documenting damage and directing residents to register with FEMA, but it cannot file for Individual Assistance on its own behalf, and it cannot recover for common elements through that program, because FEMA treats the association as a business-type entity outside the program under the Individual Assistance Program and Policy Guide, Version 1.1 Amended, July 2025.¹⁰

C. Debris removal and the local-government channel

The local government, not the board, decides whether federal support clears disaster debris from an association's private roads. Under the Public Assistance debris provisions in the Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide, Version 5.0 Amended, an eligible applicant such as a local government may be reimbursed for removing debris from private roads and gated communities where it establishes legal responsibility for the work, obtains a right-of-entry, and the work meets a public interest determination.⁵ The board's role is limited to coordinating access, and the outcome sits outside its control.

D. Funding the gap

An association applies for an SBA business physical disaster loan directly to SBA, up to $2 million, for common element repair not covered by insurance, and SBA inspectors estimate the loss after the association submits the application.⁶ Because assistance cannot duplicate benefits under 42 U.S.C. section 5155, SBA deducts insurance proceeds from the eligible loan amount, and a board typically resolves the remaining shortfall through reserves or a special assessment governed by state law.¹² This section describes program mechanics and is not legal or financial advice.

Section 4: Recent policy activity, agency guidance, and legislation

A. Recent agency guidance and rulemaking

B. Legislation

C. Advocacy and active debates

As an industry position, the Community Associations Institute states that during the 119th Congress it spearheaded and supported the reintroduction of the Disaster Assistance Fairness Act (H.R. 834 and S. 352) by Representative David Rouzer and Senator Ted Budd of North Carolina, and supported the introduction of the FEMA Act of 2025 (H.R. 4669) by Missouri Representative Sam Graves. CAI argues that condominiums, cooperatives, and homeowners associations should have access to FEMA assistance for essential common elements and to federally funded debris removal on par with single-family homeowners.¹⁵ Several states have created programs that reach association property where federal programs do not. Florida runs the My Safe Florida Condominium Pilot Program under Fla. Stat. section 215.5587, a hurricane mitigation grant program offering up to $175,000 per association for buildings within 15 miles of the coast, as amended by CS/CS/HB 393 (2025) effective July 1, 2025. Maryland's 2024 law (SB 446 / HB 280, Chapters 297/298, adding section 1-1319 to the Local Government Article) authorizes counties to establish funds to repair association roads and stormwater management facilities. The state matrix is the place to check for a given state.¹⁶

Section 5: Interaction with state law and related coverage

Federal programs set what assistance exists, but state law and the recorded declaration decide who bears the repair obligation, how a special assessment for uninsured damage is levied and capped, and what insurance the association must carry. Several states operate post-disaster grant or loan programs, or mitigation grant programs, that reach association property where federal programs do not, so readers should check their state's coverage rather than assume the federal answer is the whole answer.¹⁶ The NFIP page covers the insurance layer, including the Residential Condominium Building Association Policy and the duplication-of-benefits interaction. For state-specific obligations, readers go next to the Insurance Requirements, Condo Safety Inspections, and Assessment Limits columns in the state matrix.

HOA Weekly's FEMA coverage updates quarterly, and each cycle re-verifies pending common element legislation on congress.gov. The state-level obligations and funding tools that fill the federal gap appear throughout the state matrix, in the Insurance Requirements, Condo Safety Inspections, and Assessment Limits columns.

Footnotes

1. FEMA, Individual Assistance program overview, fema.gov ↩
2. Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. ch. 68 (secs. 5121–5207); Public Assistance authorized under sec. 5172, uscode.house.gov ↩
3. Analysis of FEMA's interpretation excluding condominium and cooperative associations from the Individuals and Households Program by treating them as business-type entities, with SBA loans as the alternative (Becker); see also FEMA IAPPG, note 10 ↩
4. FEMA Public Assistance private nonprofit eligibility criteria: a facility is not open to the general public if limited to a defined group with a financial interest in it, such as a condominium association, or access is prohibited by gates or other security (PAPPG, Ch. 2, Applicant Eligibility) ↩
5. FEMA, Debris Removal (Category A), fema.gov; debris removal from private roads and gated communities is performed by an eligible applicant subject to legal responsibility, right-of-entry, and public interest conditions ↩
6. U.S. Small Business Administration, Physical damage loans (business physical disaster loan up to $2 million; home real property up to $500,000; personal property up to $100,000), sba.gov, page last updated July 23, 2025 ↩
7. S. 352, 119th Congress, Disaster Assistance Fairness Act text listing essential common elements (roof, exterior wall, heating and cooling equipment, elevator, stairwell, utility access, plumbing, and electrical) that the bill would make eligible, congress.gov ↩
8. 42 U.S.C. sec. 5174, Federal assistance to individuals and households, uscode.house.gov ↩
9. FEMA glossary, Condominium Association (entity of unit owners responsible for maintenance and operation of common elements owned in undivided shares), fema.gov ↩
10. FEMA, Resource Library for Individual Assistance: "The IAPPG Version 1.1 Amended, July 2025, supersedes the IAPPG Version 1.1 dated May 2021," fema.gov ↩
11. FEMA, Assistance for Governments and Private Non-Profits After a Disaster: "Version 5 of FEMA's PAPPG is applicable to emergencies and major disasters declared on or after Jan. 6, 2025," fema.gov ↩
12. 42 U.S.C. sec. 5155, Duplication of benefits (Section 312 of the Stafford Act), uscode.house.gov; see also 44 C.F.R. sec. 206.191 ↩
13. H.R. 834, 119th Congress, Disaster Assistance Fairness Act (Rep. Rouzer, for himself and Rep. Nadler), introduced Jan. 31, 2025, referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, congress.gov ↩
14. S. 352, 119th Congress, Disaster Assistance Fairness Act (Sen. Budd, for himself and Sen. Tillis), read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, congress.gov ↩
15. Community Associations Institute, "Congress Continues Action on FEMA Disaster Relief," CAI Advocacy Blog, June 10, 2026 (advocacy), describing H.R. 8409 Post-Disaster Protection Act, the support-letter coalition, and CAI support for H.R. 834 / S. 352 and H.R. 4669 ↩
16. Florida CS/CS/HB 393 (2025), My Safe Florida Condominium Pilot Program (Fla. Stat. sec. 215.5587); and Maryland SB 446 / HB 280 (2024), Local Government Article sec. 1-1319, authorizing county condominium and homeowners association repair and rehabilitation funds ↩