General Facility and Work Eligibility

• Private property: generally ineligible. In rare cases FEMA funds specific limited activities, and you must at minimum have legal authority to do them. FEMA reviews your legal basis and specific authority. See private property debris removal and emergency protective measures on private property in Chapter 7.
• Other federal agencies: FEMA will not fund facilities or work where another agency’s authority is specifically and exclusively for that type of facility or work, applies to Stafford Act declarations, is specific to the incident or incident type, or was directed by Congress. That includes related activities and costs, even if the other agency provides no funding.
• Environmental and historic preservation: FEMA reviews every project for compliance with federal EHP laws, regulations and executive orders. You must comply with applicable federal, state, tribal and territorial EHP laws even for work FEMA is not funding. See Chapter 10.

Your legal authority for any work on private property, such as the statute or ordinance that allowed it; for work outside your jurisdiction, the agreement or legal basis; and any correspondence with another federal agency about whether its program covers the facility or work.

• Under construction: FEMA checks whether the contract makes the contractor or owner responsible for disaster-related repairs, requires a builder’s risk policy, has a force majeure clause relieving the contractor of responsibility for damage beyond its control, or says when responsibility transfers back to the owner.
• Leased facilities: whether you own and lease out the facility or lease it from someone else, the lease decides who must repair disaster damage. If it doesn’t say, the owner is responsible.
• Federal facilities: facilities owned and maintained by federal agencies are ineligible. If a federal agency built a facility and formally designated you as responsible for its operation, maintenance and repairs, FEMA reviews that agency’s authority and the agreement.

The construction contract (required for facilities under construction), the lease agreement (required for leased facilities), and for facilities built by a federal agency, that agency’s authority and the agreement designating you as responsible for operation, maintenance and repair.

• Work must be the legal responsibility of the applicant requesting assistance.
• Debris removal and emergency protective measures: you had jurisdiction over the area or legal authority to do the work at the time of the incident.
• Permanent work: you were legally responsible for restoring the facility at the time of the incident, based on ownership and any written agreements (for example, for facilities under construction, leased facilities or facilities owned by a federal agency).
• Ownership is usually enough, provided the facility was not under construction by a contractor or leased to another entity at the time.
• In general, you are only responsible for activities within your jurisdiction. Work outside it requires a documented legal basis.

• Small projects: a certification that the facility and work are your legal responsibility.
• Large projects: if needed to validate legal responsibility, one or more of: deed, title, lease agreement (required for leased facilities), bill of sale, land contract, mortgage documents or payments, property tax receipt or bill, real property insurance policy, or the construction contract (required for facilities under construction at the time of the incident).

• The facility must be located, and the work performed, in the designated area.
• Sheltering, evacuation and EOC activities may occur outside the designated area, but must be for activities resulting from it.
• Work on a facility outside the designated area is ineligible even if an eligible applicant is legally responsible for it, including work outside the area to protect a facility inside it.
• Tribal declarations usually do not define geographic areas. For Tribal Nations, FEMA decides eligibility based on legal responsibility and whether the work is required because of the incident.

For small and large projects: the facility location (address or GPS coordinates), or a certification that the facility and the work are within the designated area.

• Work must meet three minimum criteria: required as a result of the declared incident, located in the designated area, and the legal responsibility of an eligible applicant.
• Debris removal: the debris was generated by the incident during the incident period, and removing it addresses an immediate threat caused by the incident.
• Emergency protective measures: the work addresses an immediate threat caused by the incident.
• Permanent work, temporary repairs and mold remediation: the work addresses damage caused by the incident.
• You must separate impacts, damage, work and costs not caused by the incident from those that were.
• A facility that was functioning before the disaster and was made non-functional by it may be eligible, provided its pre-disaster condition was not a significant contributing factor in the failure.
• For tribal sacred sites closed to non-members, FEMA accepts the Tribal Nation’s certified damage assessment instead of a site inspection, and does not require photos, site maps or GPS locations where tribal artifacts are located.

• Small projects: you certify instead of providing documents: for debris, that it was generated by the incident during the incident period and its removal addresses an immediate threat; for emergency protective measures, that the threat resulted from the incident; for permanent work, that the incident directly caused the damage and it did not result from lack of maintenance.
• Large projects: if needed to validate the cause, pre-incident photos or video of the site, and records of its pre-disaster condition such as maintenance records or inspection and safety reports.
• Not every large project needs these. When the cause is evident at inspection, for example a bridge washed away or a building destroyed by fire, FEMA does not require them.
• Some project types, such as maintained natural features and beaches, always require maintenance records or photos.

• FEMA funds debris removal and emergency protective measures (emergency work), and permanent restoration of damaged facilities, including cost-effective hazard mitigation, and building code and floodplain management administration and enforcement (permanent work).
• Emergency work addresses an immediate threat. Permanent work restores a damaged facility, or covers code and floodplain administration and enforcement.
• If you do not comply with all applicable statutes, executive orders, regulations and policies, FEMA may disallow all or part of the cost of the noncompliant project.

Keep emergency and permanent work costs in separate records from the start. FEMA assigns the categories when it groups your impacts into projects, and the deadlines and documentation differ between them.

• The facility must not yet be under contract for the repair or replacement.
• The planned work must have been scheduled with non-federal funds.
• The damage claimed must not have existed before the incident. FEMA reviews procurement and contract documents to check this.
• Where damage existed before the incident, only the repair of incident-caused damage is eligible.

The budget, capital plan or schedule showing the planned work and its non-federal funding source; procurement and contract documents; and any condition assessments describing the facility before the incident.

• Inactive or partially inactive facilities are ineligible unless one of three conditions is met: it was temporarily inactive for repairs or remodeling (as long as a contractor is not responsible for repairing the disaster damage); future active use was established in an approved budget or plans; or you can clearly show intent to begin use within a reasonable time.
• Inactive portions of a partly occupied facility are ineligible unless one of those conditions applies.
• The facility must have been eligible while it was in use.
• Repairs that also benefit an inactive area are prorated by the percentage of the facility in active use. If the roof of a partly used building is destroyed, FEMA pays only that share of the replacement cost.
• A private nonprofit mixed-use facility is eligible only if more than 50 percent of it was in active use for an eligible purpose at the time of the incident.

Evidence the facility was in active use when the incident period began, such as occupancy, operating or utility records. For an exception: the repair or remodeling contract, the approved budget or plan for future use, or documents showing your intent to resume use soon. For partly used facilities, records of the share of space in active use.

• In general, the facility must be eligible before the work can be. Some emergency protective measures are the exception (see Chapter 7).
• Eligible facility types include systems (flood control, navigation, irrigation, reclamation, public power, sewage, water supply, watershed development); buildings, including sheds, restrooms and outbuildings; non-federal-aid streets, roads, ramps and access roads; public buildings and structures, including educational, recreational and cultural ones; airports and runways; parks, piers, trails, pools, golf courses and ball fields; and other assets such as pumping stations, towers, contents, equipment, vehicles, parking lots, sidewalks, ditches, guard rails and catch basins.
• A natural feature is eligible only if it has a designed and constructed improvement, the improvement enhances its function, and you maintain it on a regular schedule. Only the improved section qualifies: if 150 feet of a channel bank is armored and maintained, only those 150 feet are eligible.
• Unimproved property (hillsides, forests, natural channel banks) and land used for agriculture are ineligible.
• A facility run by a community development district is ineligible if it is not open to, or does not serve, the general public.

Records showing you own the facility or are legally responsible for maintaining it. For an improved natural feature, the design or construction records for the improvement and maintenance records showing it was maintained on a regular schedule.