A New Jersey Congressman's legislation calls for a three-year limit on the feds for demanding homeowners repay disaster recovery money.
Congressman Tom MacArthur says his bill would prevent FEMA from trying to recoup grant money many years after it was awarded.
"What brought it to my attention initially was a single mom of a disabled child who had gotten a $40,000 grant from FEMA and about two years later FEMA came back and said they make a mistake, and they were demanding the money back. She had used the money to repair her home."
Amanda Deveca-Rinear leads the New Jersey Organizing Project, an advocacy group for Superstorm Sandy victims. She says the legislation could prevent homeowners from suffering financial ruin.
"The FEMA clawbacks can range from three or four thousand dollars to much higher than that, twenty or thirty or forty. But what it'll do is it will not yank their financial stability out from under them."
MacArthur explains why he’s putting a time limit on FEMA to demand repayment instead of banning it.
“I might have been inclined to eliminate it completely except there are times when there’s enough question as to whether a payment should have been made. There can be cases where maybe somebody didn’t share all of the information. I want to protect the U.S. taxpayer as well.”