Woman says FEMA refused to pay for a $200 window repair but offered to cover a month-long hotel stay

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WSOC) – A woman had a small crack in her window at her condo in Charlotte, North Carolina following Hurricane Helene.

It only cost $200 to fix.

But Susan Lewis said FEMA refused to pay for the repair, but instead offered her thousands of dollars to put her in a hotel for an entire month.

Lewis, 74, is left scratching her head at the disconnect.

“I kept rereading it thinking, what am I missing here? This makes no sense,” Lewis said.

Since FEMA is offering area residents assistance after Hurricane Helene, Lewis thought she’d apply to get her window crack fixed.

She said FEMA denied the claim and told her to submit it to her home insurance.

She did, but she ended up having to pay for the $200 repair out of her own pocket because her deductible is $1,000.

“I’m living on Social Security. I’m, you know, a 74-year-old woman, and all these little extra expenses really add up,” Lewis said.

Although FEMA wouldn’t fix the window, she said the agency offered her a month’s stay for up to four people in a hotel.

One of the hotels they offered is the SouthPark Marriott, where the average rate is $200 per night. The hotel even told her she could get two rooms if she needed space for four people.

Two rooms for 30 days would cost $12,000.

Lewis doesn’t understand why FEMA denied her $200 window repair yet offered to cover a costly hotel stay.

On top of that, Lewis said a hotel stay is something she never asked for, nor does she need.

“It makes me so sad to think maybe they’re denying people with legitimate, legitimate claims, super, super need them,” Lewis said. “I mean, when I’m hearing the people are living in tents and they’re freezing, and I’m thinking they could use a hotel room, and it just breaks my heart how mismanaged this is.”

Lewis did not take FEMA up on their hotel offer, but she did try to call the agency to sort this all out. She said, however, her attempts were unsuccessful, even after talking to FEMA workers on the phone.

A spokesperson for FEMA declined to comment specifically on Lewis’ case. They said out of an abundance of caution, money for hotel rooms was approved for a majority of registrations due to the large scale of the disaster.

FEMA also says insurance is the first step in disaster recovery and by law, the agency cannot duplicate benefits for losses covered by insurance.

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