Bruce F. Vento: “This deals with the Emergency Food and Shelter Program and the public/private partnership. It is a public/private…”

“This deals with the Emergency Food and Shelter Program and the public/private partnership. It is a public/private partnership that works. Since the program began in 1983, $1.6 billion has been appropriated to the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program. What I am proposing here is to raise the funding to $130 million from $100 million that is in the bill. Why this reduction was instituted or persists is not at all clear and certainly was not justified with a program that works. Funds under this extremely well run program reach communities within 45 days from the date of release from FEMA. It is not an emergency management regular program. In fact, this program works and there are no scandals, there are no adverse GAO reports, no adverse Inspector General flack, no bad reports of this program. It is a program unique because it helps not with disasters from Mother Nature but with personal emergencies of people who have become very often homeless.”