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Before FEMA leaves, localities are required to establish a Long-Term Recovery Group (LTRG) if one does not already exist. LTRG’s are independent of FEMA, HUD or any other federal agency, and exist to help meet the unmet disaster recovery needs of the community and individuals.

Involve as many community stakeholders as possible.

• This ensures that your locality takes a “whole community approach” to long-term disaster recovery.
• Stakeholders to consider engaging in your LTRG can include city councilman, emergency managers, staff from a local Congressman’s office, pastors, community centers, your local Continuum of Care (CoC) agency, and local charitable groups, among other relevant local stakeholders.

Appoint a leader.

• It’s important to have one person directing the efforts. Community members like judges, retired local leaders, pastors or community organization leaders are often a good fit to lead LTRGs.

Establish clear roles and responsibilities.

• Ensure that volunteer and charitable organizations, such as the American Red Cross and Salvation Army, are assigned specific duties.
• Consider having them sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU), that outlines what, when and how they will provide services or supplies.

Bring awareness to the need for additional resources in the community.

• LTRG’s can’t apply for disaster recovery funding, but they can assist by promoting the need for additional funding in the community and pushing local leaders to develop an action plan to submit for Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding allocation.
• LTRG’s can also help research and identify additional funding opportunities for the locality.

Avoid providing LTRG volunteers to perform construction work on homes.

• This can cause liability issues, especially since volunteer construction services are not required to have inspections or be built to code.
• If your LTRG does provide volunteers to help homeowners reconstruct or repair their homes, consider requiring that homeowners sign a liability waiver.

To avoid liability issues, provide vouchers to help homeowners perform construction on their home.

• Provide vouchers or gift cards for homeowners to purchase  materials, such as sheetrock or shingles, or to make repairs themselves.

Ask homeowners to provide to provide a price list of the materials they need.

• Homeowners can search for the materials they need online, find prices and print out a list of their needs. The East Texas Long Term Recovery group, for example, successfully implemented this tactic and set the maximum donation at $3,000.

Be cautious of duplication of benefits.

• Typically a small donation to a homeowner for something like rental assistance, food or medical supplies, will not count as a duplication of benefits.
• If your LTRG provides larger donations or construction support, be sure that you are not duplicating efforts the homeowner has already received assistance for under FEMA, CDBG-DR or another federal disaster assistance program.

Stay active between disasters.

• Meet at least quarterly, even if there is no disaster in sight to ensure the group builds relationships and stays up-to-date with what the changes are to activating a disaster recovery. This also helps keep all members on the same page when there’s turnover within the LTRG.

Read more about how one long-term recovery group in Brazoria County, Texas, implemented LTRG best practices and helped the community recover long-term, and see more long-term recovery planning tips.