FLASHBACK: FEMA touted plan to prioritize LGBTQ community for disaster preparedness

A recording of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) meeting, seemingly over Zoom, shows to what lengths the agency has gone to promote diversity as its top objective. The video, titled Helping LGBTQIA+ Community Before Disasters: Preparedness and Mitigation Consideration is from a March 23, 2023 session available on YouTube.

The meeting was chaired by FEMA employee Tyler Atkins, who seeks the advice and input of a number of LGBTQ-related “experts” on how disaster assistance should be assessed in the light of diversity concerns.

At one point, Atkins noted how he was particularly impressed with the phrase "radical spaces of kindness and care" and said the meeting has “sparked, in my mind, thinking about preparedness and how you said, you know, LGBTQIA people and people who have been disadvantaged already are struggling. They already have their own things to deal with. So you add a disaster on top of that, it's just pounding on itself. And I think that is maybe why we're having these discussions. It isn't being talked about. It isn't being socialized. We're not paying attention to this.”

Maggie Jerry, an employee of the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, responded to that by saying, “Yeah, there are a couple of things that are intersecting in my mind here. One of them is the culture of emergency management as an organization, as an industry in the United States, specifically not abroad.”

“The shift that we're seeing right now is a shift in emergency management from utilitarian principles, where everything is designed for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, to disaster equity,” she continued. “But we have to do more, right? And so this topic is intersecting, I think, with a number of other topics where we have to look at policies and understand what extent they have disadvantaged communities that had less assets communities that had pre-existing vulnerabilities in accessing disaster related recovery supports.”

While FEMA has spent more than $1.4 billion on illegal immigrants in the last two years, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is claiming that there is not enough money in the agency’s budget to cover continued disaster relief for hurricane victims. Its website also heralds how delivering “equity” is one of FEMA’s top objectives.