Summary

  • FEMA officials told GAO that the agency temporarily discontinued Including People with Disabilities in Disaster Operations in March 2025 for an internal review related to various Executive Orders. The course remained unavailable in August 2026; FEMA estimates a September 2027 training update.
  • Three of FEMA's ten regions had no disability specialist in May 2026. In two of GAO's three selected states, local partners did not know their regional specialist before a disaster. The agency also lacks a standardized description of the specialist's pre-disaster coordination role.
  • FEMA ended door-to-door survivor assistance teams in June 2025, citing use by fewer than 2% of all individual-assistance applicants over the preceding 18 months. GAO heard that the teams mattered for people who could not leave home or lacked transport, a phone or internet. FEMA's three agreed recommendations remain open.

The course disappears before the storm

The most useful disaster lesson is the one taught before a disaster. FEMA's on-demand course, Including People with Disabilities in Disaster Operations, gave state and local emergency managers a common starting point for preparedness, response and recovery. They could use it without waiting for a federal specialist to arrive at a flooded office. The Government Accountability Office's September 2026 report says FEMA removed the course from both its curriculum and its website in 2025. Officials told auditors in May 2026 that it had been temporarily discontinued in March 2025 for an internal review to ensure compliance with various Executive Orders. In August 2026, the course was still absent. The planned training update is dated September 2027.

That sequence is the story. A review inside Washington occupied the place where a usable public lesson had been. State and local partners still had to prepare for disasters, but the named federal course could not be taken. The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act assigns curriculum development to FEMA's Disability Coordinator. A statutory responsibility cannot train a county employee by sitting in a statute book.

The report does not identify which order required which change to the course. The question that matters for a partner is more concrete: where was the replacement, who could use it, and what was taught while the review ran? A dated restoration notice with the actual course and participation records would answer it. Until then, September 2027 is a plan for future capacity, not evidence of present capacity.

A regional contact who remains a stranger

Training is only one part of FEMA's disability-response system. Regional disability specialists are supposed to build working relationships before a disaster, when a local emergency manager has time to learn which number to call and which access problem needs advance planning. GAO examined three selected states associated with the 2023 Maui wildfires, 2024 Hurricane Francine in Louisiana and 2025 storms in Kentucky. In two of those states, local partners did not know their regional specialist and had not coordinated with one before a disaster. This is a close look at three cases, not a national rate.

Staffing supplies another hard count: three of FEMA's ten regions lacked a disability specialist in May 2026. GAO also found that FEMA had not supplied a standardized job description establishing the specialist's external coordination duties before a disaster. Some specialists told auditors they had been restricted from external coordination starting in 2025. FEMA officials said external engagement continued across the agency when appropriate, aligned with presidential priorities, Executive Orders, departmental guidance and law. Those accounts differ on what the role allowed in practice.

The missing control is a named duty, an assigned person and a relationship visible to the partners who will need it.

An organizational chart can show an office exists while a county has never met its contact. GAO recommended that FEMA define pre-disaster coordination consistently. FEMA agreed and set September 2027 as its estimated date for specialist documentation. The GAO recommendation page still lists the recommendation as open. A finished job description will matter when it produces introductions and joint planning before the next warning, rather than merely a new paragraph for an internal handbook.

The application has its own locked doors

In June 2025 FEMA discontinued the door-to-door teams that helped survivors apply for individual assistance. FEMA said fewer than 2% of all individual-assistance applicants had applied through those teams from January 2024 to June 2025. That is a volume measure across all applicants. GAO's state and local interviewees pointed to a different operational question: what route remains for someone who cannot leave home, has no transport, or cannot reliably use a phone or internet? Two of the three selected states said the teams would be difficult to replace. A narrow channel can be vital to the people who use it precisely because it is narrow.

GAO also found that, for applications from 2022 through 2025, approval was four percentage points lower among applicants reporting a household disability than among those who did not. The data were measured as of May 2026. The report does not estimate that the removed course or door-to-door teams produced that difference. It does show why the application path deserves close measurement. GAO judged the current application to require a tenth-grade reading level and July 2025 determination letters a twelfth-grade level. People with disabilities had not been specifically included in FEMA's March 2025 letter-usability focus groups.

The agency agreed to GAO's third recommendation: solicit and incorporate disability-specific feedback throughout the individual-assistance application process. Its guide is planned for May 2028, and GAO still marks the recommendation open. A guide three hurricane seasons after the door-to-door decision cannot substitute for a measured answer about how applicants now cross the front door.

The course, the regional contact and the application are separate controls over the same public promise. FEMA can restore each one and show its work: publish the course and participation, staff and define regional coordination, then test the entire application path with people who use it. The agency has dates for documentation. Disaster operations need evidence that the route works.

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