Recent reports reveal how current disaster infrastructure systematically fails the 61 million disabled individuals and 48 million adults over 65 across the United States.
- June 2019: Government Accountability Office report, FEMA Action Needed to Better Support Individuals Who are Older or Have Disabilities
- May 2019: National Council on Disability report to the President, Preserving Our Freedom: Ending Institutionalization of People with Disabilities During and After Disasters
- May 2019: Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights Recommendations for Emergency Managers For Improving the Delivery of Disaster Assistance to Disaster Survivors with Disabilities March 2019, which were drawn from a series of listening sessions conducted throughout Florida detailing incidents of civil rights violations.
- February 2019: Disability Rights North Carolina released The Storm After The Storm: Disaster, Displacement and Disability Following Hurricane Florence, investigating the conditions faced by individuals with disabilities when accessing shelters.
- January 2019: Living Hope Wheelchair Association, a Texas disability-led organization, released Pre-existing Conditions In A Time Of Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities Advancing an Equitable Recovery For Vulnerable Populations, a report reviewing how Hurricane Harvey disparately impacted low-income disabled African-Americans and low-income disabled undocumented immigrants during the hurricane Harvey.
- August 2018: The American Association of Retired Persons, released Left Adrift: A Snapshot of Texas Assisted Living Facility Care During Hurricane Harvey with Policy Recommendations, a report describing three Texas Assisted Living Facilities neglect to evacuate and provide supports to their residents during 2017 Hurricanes.
- May 2018: The Partnership published Getting it Wrong: An Indictment with a Blueprint for Getting it Right, a review of 2017 disaster response and disability.
Together, these reports detail the range of barriers people with disabilities encounter during disasters- including emergency notification, evacuation, sheltering, response, registering for FEMA disaster assistance, housing, through long-term recovery. These barriers are not an inevitable part of disability or aging; rather, they are the result of the failure to comply with civil rights obligations and excluding disability and aging communities in disaster planning, response, recovery, research, and oversight.