Taxpayers wait for help as government spends on ‘diversity’
Hurricane survivors and veterans are waiting for financial aid from the Biden-Harris administration which is spending heartily on “diversity.”
Hundreds of thousands of people turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the wake of Hurricane Milton, which ravaged Florida on October 9th. Politico reports that between October 14th and October 20th, FEMA received approximately 900,000 calls from survivors but answered only 47% of them. For the 53% that got through, the average wait time was an hour and five minutes.
This was reportedly due to staffing shortages caused by a lack of funding. One week before Milton hit, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that FEMA did not have enough money to get through hurricane season.
But that was after the agency spent a billion dollars on housing and sheltering illegal immigrants over the last two fiscal years. It also doled out $12 million for “diversity” investments to benefit minorities and LGBT people.
Last year, FEMA operatives openly called for the agency to prioritize “LGBTQ people” for financial aid. FEMA Mitigation Emergency Management Specialist Tyler Atkins, who says his pronouns are “he/they,” advocated to focus disaster relief on “LGBTQIA” people.
“LGBTQIA people and people who have been disadvantaged already are struggling. They already have their own things to deal with. So you add a disaster on top of that, it’s just compounding on itself. I think that is maybe the why of why we’re having this discussion. It isn’t being talked about, it isn’t being socialized. We’re not paying attention to this community,” Atkins said.
Maggie Jarry, an emergency coordinator with the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), responded that FEMA relief is no longer about helping the most people possible.
“The shift that we’re seeing right now is a shift in emergency management from utilitarian principles where everything is designed for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people to disaster equity,” she said.
Veterans languish as VA spends on ‘racial equity’
Veterans have also been waitlisted while the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spends money on diversity. Last year, the number of homeless veterans surged by 7.4% and the backlog of claims for benefits increased to approximately 378,000.
At the same time, the VA spent $718,000 on advancing “equity” in 20 hospitals and began collecting information on the sexual and racial characteristics of veterans, according to data published by the nonprofit Do No Harm. The VA also established the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Council and created an Equity Action Plan.
The department launched marketing campaigns aimed at LGBT and women, though it is unknown how much was earmarked for those.
