FEMA activated its “Emergency Lodging Assistance (ELA) Program” to provide temporary lodging assistance to disaster evacuees. FEMA also refers to this program as the “Transitional Shelter Assistance (TSA)” program when communicating with evacuees seeking aid.
FEMA is making a renewed call for hotels to participate in the lodging assistance program. Hotels can seek direct payment for the rooms from FEMA’s agent, Corporate Lodging Consultants (CLC).
Additionally, CLC is requesting that hotels log in to the online account at ela.corplodging.com as frequently as possible to reflect accurate room availability and list rooms either available or unavailable.
Reminder: Lodging taxes are paid for guests participating in the FEMA assistance program through CLC. Be sure to input hotel occupancy taxes for FEMA guests when using the CLC program.
(State and local taxes are exempted until Sept. 22nd for individuals affected by Hurricane Harvey who are paying their own lodging costs.)