FEMA Officials Staying in $1,000 Per Night Luxury Hotel Rooms

Many news sources are now reporting that FEMA officials are staying in $1,000-a-night luxury hotels in Maui amid the recovery efforts in Lahaina.

It seems the FEMA bureaucrats are enjoying the same accommodations and amenities that well-funded vacationers do on a Hawaiian holiday.

The Daily Mail broke the exclusive news and included pictures in an article today:

Bungling U.S. government bureaucrats dispatched to the Maui disaster zone are shacked up in $1,000-a-night luxury hotels on the Hawaiian island, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been slammed by locals over their slow response to the devastating wildfires that have claimed at least 114 lives and left thousands of people homeless after their houses were scorched to the ground.

But that has not stopped the under-fire agency from splashing taxpayer cash to put up more than 1,000 of its personnel at four bank-breaking resorts in Wailea after the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. for more than a century that caused an estimated $5billion in damage.

Four and five star luxury lodgings are worlds apart from those of the displaced residents of Maui who have not found more permanent housing.

What FEMA is supplying to its staff costs a lot more than what’s allocated to the people they are there to assist.

Last week, Forbes reported on the FEMA approved expenditures for the displaced families.

Maui Wildfires: FEMA Approves More Than $5.6 Million For 2,000 Households—Including Rent And Hotel Paymentshttps://t.co/yCyxmFX1jY pic.twitter.com/vqtWbf9Nc2

— Forbes (@Forbes) August 18, 2023

Let’s do some math. The reported $5.6 million divided among 2,000 households is $28,000 per household.

At the $1,000/night rate of the hotels where the FEMA officials are staying, each household would have about a month of lodging expenses paid for by their FEMA allocation.

That dollar amount doesn’t include food and other necessities like clothing and toiletries.

Is this really a good way to spend taxpayer dollars? Especially for an agency that just reported it’s almost out of cash?

FEMA is expected to run out of funds as it responds to the Maui wildfires and the potential effects of Hurricane Hilary, the agency's leader said. https://t.co/zuiUmmGt6o

— WJZ | CBS Baltimore (@wjz) August 20, 2023

A quick sidenote about FEMA and spending taxpayer dollars on hotels.

The Center For Immigration Studies published this note about FEMA money and illegal migrants in December, 2022:

Massive Spending Bill Includes $785 Million to Feed, House, and Transport Migrants.

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President Biden took a break yesterday from his Caribbean vacation to sign a massive, $1.7 trillion spending bill, expressly flown to him in St. Croix for that purpose. Included in that bill is the transfer of $800 million from CBP to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), $785 million of which will go “to support sheltering and related activities provided by non-Federal entities, including facility improvements and construction, in support of relieving overcrowding in short-term holding facilities.”

The open southern border of the United States is causing such a huge influx of people needing shelter that FEMA is spending money on hotels for them, too.

In New York’s Long Island City, a 4-star hotel is now being converted for migrant housing according to the LICPost:

A four-star hotel in Long Island City will soon serve as a location to house economic migrants, sources tell the Queens/LIC Post.

The Collective Paper Factory, a hotel located at 37-06 36th St., is understood to have closed last week and work is underway to convert it into a Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, a shelter for economic migrants, according to sources familiar with the plan.

When operating as a hotel, the premises boasted 125 guest rooms, communal spaces, a gym, several meeting rooms, and a bar/restaurant on the ground floor.

It is unclear how many people will be housed at the 5-story facility as the city continues to struggle to cope with an unprecedented surge of migrants. Nearly 100,000 migrants have come through the city’s intake system since the spring of 2022 and the revised cost to the taxpayer is now expected to hit $12 billion by the summer of 2025.

Now let’s go back to Hawaii, and the government money waste there.

Here’s one of the hotels on Maui where FEMA bureaucrats are holed up.

Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort offers a lavish selection of villas, perfect for large families, small groups, or friends traveling together! 🌴⁠
⁠#hawaii #beach #vacation #luxury ⁠ pic.twitter.com/WdbIMhtI2K

— AZ Foothills Magazine (@azfoothills) August 21, 2023

And here’s another one.

Grand Wailea, Waldorf Astoria Resort #Muai #TravelTheWorld pic.twitter.com/w01dOEyhdY

— O.B. Cryer (@O_B_KOOL) October 30, 2022

The devastated and homeless folks of Maui could surely benefit from the same or better treatment than the FEMA officials and illegal migrants.

Let’s hope and pray it happens.