Use case
FEMA tests eligibility in four blocks, in order: applicant, facility, work, cost. Ask what the policy says and get the document, section and page it cites.
Citations checked against current published sources 2026-09-04
Is this eligible? The applicant, the facility, the work, the cost — and if it is eligible, is it emergency or permanent work, and which category does it land in? Show me where policy actually says so.
Two doors only: SLTT government entities, or qualifying private nonprofits (44 CFR § 206.222; PAPPG v5 Ch. 3, PDF pp. 49–56). For-profit entities are not eligible applicants. Paste your charter or determination-letter language and ask which door you are in. For PNPs it also brings up the critical vs. noncritical essential-social-service tables (PAPPG v5 Ch. 3, Tables 3–4, PDF pp. 56–61) and the SBA disaster-loan prerequisite before FEMA funds permanent work (44 CFR § 206.226(c)(2); Stafford Act § 406(a)(3)).
Ask whether the thing you are claiming is a facility at all. Active-use rules and proration for partially occupied buildings, plus the improved-and-maintained test for natural features — a creek bank or beach is a facility only where a designed and constructed improvement enhances its function and you maintain that improvement on a regular schedule (44 CFR § 206.201(c), definition of "facility": "an improved and maintained natural feature"; PAPPG v5, Ch. 4, Sec. I.A, PDF pp. 64–65). Only that improved section is eligible. Improved property means something built, constructed or manufactured; land used for agricultural purposes is not (44 CFR § 206.221(d)).
Required as a result of the declared incident, located within the designated area, and the legal responsibility of an eligible applicant (44 CFR § 206.223(a)). PAPPG v5 lists what fails causation: pre-existing damage, wear and tear, deferred maintenance, failure to protect the facility in time, negligence (Ch. 4, PDF p. 67). Sheltering, evacuation and EOC activity are the location exception (PDF p. 69).
Emergency work turns on immediate threat — the threat of additional damage or destruction from an event that can reasonably be expected to occur within five years (44 CFR § 206.221(c)). Permanent work restores pre-disaster design and function (44 CFR § 206.201(i)). The split sets your deadline — six months for debris and emergency work, 18 months for permanent (44 CFR § 206.204(c)) — and carries consequences: power restoration claimed as Category B rather than Category F loses budgeted straight time and Section 406 mitigation (PAPPG v5, Ch. 8, Sec. V.D, PDF p. 206).
Six criteria in PAPPG v5 Ch. 6 (PDF pp. 79–81): directly tied to eligible work, adequately documented, reduced by credits such as insurance proceeds and salvage, lawful, consistent with your own uniformly applied policies, and necessary and reasonable. Reasonableness is the prudent-person standard at 2 CFR § 200.404.
Split the claim. A natural feature is a facility only where a designed and constructed improvement enhances its function and you maintain that improvement on a regular schedule (44 CFR § 206.201(c); PAPPG v5, Ch. 4, Sec. I.A, PDF pp. 64–65) — only that improved section is eligible. Your 1,200 LF spans both. The engineered reach is Category D permanent work, and PAPPG v5 conditions restoring pre-disaster carrying capacity on documenting that capacity and a regular maintenance schedule (Ch. 8, Sec. V.B, PDF pp. 198–199). The natural reach is unimproved property and stays ineligible. Policy limits eligible work to the maintained reach.
Sources
This answers targeted questions. It retrieves the passages of your file that match what you asked — not the whole document — so it can tell you how your scope reads against policy, but not what your scope leaves out.
Free while PAPPAIA is in public preview. Answers are grounded in cited policy sources and include exact references for independent verification. General information, not legal or grant-compliance advice.
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