Disaster Assistance Fairness Act

The Disaster Assistance Fairness Act would expand federal disaster relief under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to explicitly cover common interest communities such as condominiums, housing cooperatives, and manufactured housing communities. It creates new definitions for these community types, and it authorizes federal assistance for repairing essential common elements (like roofs, exterior walls, HVAC, elevators, plumbing, etc.) in these communities after a major disaster, provided that the unit owners’ pro rata shares of those costs are documented. The bill also adds a rulemaking provision allowing debris removal from property owned by these communities to be treated as a public interest when state or local governments determine it poses threats to life, health, safety, or economic recovery. These changes would apply to major disasters announced after the Act’s enactment. In short, the bill aims to ensure that residents living in condos, HOAs, housing cooperatives, and manufactured housing communities can receive federal support for critical shared-structure repairs and for debris removal, clarifying eligibility and documentation requirements and enabling expedited debris actions when deemed necessary by states and the President.