Press Release

    A provision to give houses of worship access to critical federal disaster relief, and another provision allowing disaster victims to be eligible for both federal grants and federal loans for disaster assistance, were passed Thursday by the House as part of the third supplemental disaster relief bill. Both provisions reflect legislation originally authored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

    “After Superstorm Sandy, I and others saw how leaders and volunteers at churches, synagogues, and other religious centers help feed, clothe, and shelter tens of thousands of victims—yet they were left out and left behind when it came to repairs of their own facilities,” said Smith, the author of the original bill —the Federal Disaster Assistance Nonprofit Fairness Act—to provide equity and fairness to churches and synagogues damaged in federal disasters on the House Floor on Thursday. 

    “I want to thank the chairman for including provisions from my legislation in this larger package to help ensure that houses of worship, churches, and synagogues get the kind of help they need on an equal basis, with other non-profits,” Smith said. 

    The supplemental bill also includes language that does away with the “duplication of benefits” penalty clause that penalized many NJ Sandy victims who acted quickly and responsibly after the storm only to learn that if you apply for a federal loan (which is normally available first) you will be boxed out of applying for federal grants, which are normally made available much later in the recovery process.

    “Imagine this” Smith said during the debate on the House floor “men and women who were victimized by Sandy or any other storm, they go to FEMA, they’re admonished to take out a loan—SBA loan—then a little later in the recovery time, they’re told that there is a HUD grant available, but they are precluded from applying for a grant because they pursued the loan—at the behest of the federal government. They can’t even get the grant to pay off the loan,” Smith said. 

    To help correct this unfairness, Smith has authored the Equity for Disaster Victims Act of 2017, which allowed for recipients of the Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster loans to repay the principal and interest on those loans with federal grants.   The provision in the new bill allows people to apply for both a loan and a grant so long as the assistance is used for the purposes of recovery in a declared disaster.  To view excerpts of Smith’s remarks on the House Floor in favor of the supplemental bill, click here. 

    Houses of Worship: Churches and Synagogues

    Smith introduced the Federal Disaster Assistance Nonprofit Fairness Act in 2013 in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which caused $70 billion in destruction to the Northeast including serious damage to churches, synagogues and mosques. Those houses of worship and other religious organizations and centers could not receive federal disaster relief that they could have used to rebuild, because of their religious status—a policy that has no basis in law. 

    That bill passed the House with overwhelming support in 2013, but was ultimately held up in the Senate. Smith re-introduced the bill in 2015 and again in 2017. 

    This past fall, after the hurricane season inflicted severe damage along the Gulf Coast, Smith led a letter by members of Congress to the Administration asking for a change to the policy to allow for religious groups and churches to receive disaster relief. In November, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney asked House Speaker Paul Ryan to include this policy change in a supplemental disaster relief bill that the Administration was requesting. The supplemental bill was passed by the House on Thursday. Read Smith’s letter here.

    A consortium of faith-based entities, including the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Republican Jewish Coalition, Christian Legal Society, Agudath Israel of America, and the International Conference of Evangelical Christian Endorsers have come out in support of Smith’s policy proposal.

    “The FEMA policy was—and is—unfair, unjustified, and discriminatory,” Smith said. 

    The bill which incorporates these two provisions is now pending in the Senate.