AI is being used to send some households impacted by Helene and Milton $1,000 cash relief payments
The Associated Press
Featuring Chris Smith, Director of Individual Assistance and Disaster Housing at IEM
Technology could help FEMA improve its system, said Chris Smith, who managed FEMA’s Individual Assistance program from 2015 to 2022 and is now director of individual assistance and disaster housing at the consulting firm IEM. “I think that we have to open up our imaginations that maybe there are other ways to quickly identify need and quickly identify eligibility.”
But Smith cautions that a publicly funded program doesn’t enjoy the same license to experiment as a philanthropic one. “There has to be ultimately an accountability of how any level of government is providing assistance to individuals. People are going to want to know that, and to have that degree of certainty is very important.”
Reprinted on ABC News, News-Times, WHEC, WPLG, KSAT, KESQ, WNKY, Watauga Democrat, WDRB, The Avery Journal-Times, The Derrick, KEYT, and The Wilton Bulletin.
