The wildfires sweeping through California this week, along with those that devastated Texas, Hawaii, North Carolina, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, Wyoming, and Florida in 2024, offer a sobering reminder of the growing intersection between natural disasters and public policy responses.
For children, these disasters are not only fleeting emergencies but profound disruptions to their physical safety, mental health, education, and family stability. Unfortunately, children rarely figure prominently in the policy debates that dominate the headlines. However, their needs are urgent and the stakes in their present and future are immense – not just for them but the nation.
Natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards, droughts, and earthquakes, impose tragedy on families and their children. When we ignore and fail to center children and their unique needs in our disaster-response policies, we compound their trauma and deepen inequities that will haunt both them and us for generations.
Medicaid and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) offer two policy areas that are critical but often overlooked in these discussions. In addition to the disaster response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), policymakers must prioritize these programs as vital tools for protecting children from disaster and harm.
The Human Toll: Stories from the Fires
At this very moment, families in Los Angeles County, including Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and other communities, are being devastated by wildfires. They are losing their homes, their possessions, their jobs, their schools, and their savings.
Children are coughing from smoke inhalation, unable to attend school (if their school is not gone), while their parents frantically search for temporary housing and safety.
Families with limited means struggle the most, and children bear the heaviest burden. Our public policies are sometimes responsive but too often fail to meet the needs of hardest-hit children and their families in both the short- and long-term.
Rather than pointing fingers of blame, as far too many policymakers are apt to do, they should, on a bipartisan basis, learn the lessons from the past and urgently prioritize the needs, concerns, and safety of children and families.
Hurricane Katrina: A Case Study in Unmet Needs
Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, was a disaster of historic proportions and its long-term impacts on children often go unrecognized. More than 800,000 children were displaced, and many experienced homelessness, disruptions in education, and prolonged separation from caregivers.
A decade later, research revealed just how deep the scars ran. Studies conducted by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and other organizations found that children who had lived through Katrina faced significantly higher rates of mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- Educational Setbacks: Children displaced by Katrina missed months, and in some cases years, of schooling. Many never caught up. Displaced children experienced long-term declines in academic achievement, with ripple effects on their economic prospects as adults.
- Mental Health Crises: Children who lived through Hurricane Katrina showed increased symptoms of PTSD. Years later, many still reported elevated levels of anxiety and emotional distress.
- Economic Hardships: Families that lost homes and livelihoods struggled to regain financial stability. Children in these families were more likely to experience food insecurity and poverty for years after the storm.
When disaster strikes, policies should protect children and families from harm. The question is not whether children and families will need help because they undoubtedly will – it is whether we will meet their needs with compassion and urgency.
The lessons of Hurricane Katrina should guide our responses to today’s wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters. Children are particularly vulnerable to the cascading effects of displacement, poverty, and trauma. However, with the right policies, we can mitigate these harms.
Medicaid Arbitrary Caps or Block Grants Would Abandon Children in Crisis
Medicaid is an essential safety net for families during disasters, offering health coverage for children injured, traumatized, or displaced by fires, floods, and storms. Fortunately, it is currently responsive to increased needs, with federal funding to states increasing as needs rise.
Unfortunately, some policymakers and think tanks continue to push for converting Medicaid into a block grant, a funding model that would arbitrarily cap federal dollars, leaving states scrambling to cover gaps during emergencies, and forcing them to ration care.
For example, studies of past California wildfires have found increased hospital admissions among children for respiratory illnesses in affected communities. Similarly, after Hurricane Harvey in Texas, children experienced increased medical conditions in the aftermath of the hurricane and flooding. These surges in demand would strain any capped funding system. States already struggling to fund emergency response could not afford to fill the gap left by Medicaid block grants. Families, including children, would be left without essential medical care just when they need it most.
Andy Schneider with Georgetown Center for Children and Families explains:
Under block grants, there’s a fixed amount of money, come hell, high water or hurricane.
Unfortunately, the idea of imposing arbitrary caps on Medicaid remains a perennial favorite of right-wing think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. For families in wildfire zones or hurricane paths, these proposals are more than academic — they are existential threats.
As Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) said after House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) proposed block granting and slashing Medicaid funding in 1995:
Under block grants, a State that is knocked down to its knees by a flood, earthquake, hurricane, would not find a helping hand from the Federal Government at the time it needed help to get back on its feet. No, Mr. President, acts of God and block grants do not mix.
Congress must reaffirm Medicaid’s role and capacity to respond to crises without bureaucratic or financial delays and oppose proposals to cap, limit, or ration care when it is most needed.
The Child Tax Credit: A Lifeline Leaving Children Behind Who Need It the Most
The Child Tax Credit (CTC) has the potential to be a lifeline for families recovering from natural disasters. However, in its current form, it often excludes the families who need it the most.
According to the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, the 18 million children “left behind” by the lack of refundability of the Child Tax Credit are disproportionately: (1) children under the age of 6 (40% receive only partial or no credit); (2) Black and Hispanic children; (3) children in single-parent households (“70% of children in families headed by single parents who are female do not receive the full credit”); and, (4) children in rural communities.
These exclusions become especially devastating in the aftermath of a natural disaster. When a family’s income drops because a business is destroyed or a job is lost, they are punished twice: first, they lose income, and second, they receive a reduced benefit or are excluded from receiving the CTC altogether.
Consider the Grahams, a family that lost their home and farm in the Texas-Oklahoma wildfires this past spring. Their income dropped overnight, which depending on how much it declined for the full year, would make all five of their children ineligible or only partially eligible for the CTC. Their children lost not just their home but also a financial cushion that could have helped them rebuild their lives, replace clothes and school supplies, secure temporary housing, or simply keep food on the table. These are not luxuries but necessities for recovery.
Even worse, children are excluded or “left behind” by the CTC when a parent dies and household income declines. Nobody should think such a policy makes sense.
And yet, that is current law.
Fortunately, there is an alternative. The expanded, fully refundable CTC in 2021 demonstrated the program’s potential to protect those children who need it the most. During its brief existence, the expanded and improved CTC lifted nearly 3 million children out of poverty.
Unfortunately, the improvements were temporary and their expiration at the end of 2021 contributed heavily to the fact that child poverty increased from 5.2% in 2021 to 13.7% in 2023.
Therefore, making the CTC fully refundable on a permanent basis would ensure the children in families who lose income during disasters are no longer punished with a loss of financial support.
While many in Congress, including Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and their hundreds of cosponsors in the Senate and House, have called for a permanent expansion of the CTC, opposition has stalled progress.
In the meantime, families in disaster zones continue to fall through the cracks. Advocates must redouble efforts to build bipartisan support, framing the CTC as – not just a pro-child, anti-poverty tool – but as a disaster-recovery necessity.
Children: The Overlooked Victims of Disasters
Children’s needs are too often sidelined in disaster recovery planning. After the 2024 wildfires in Texas, schools and even school districts were closed for long periods — widening educational gaps that take years to repair. Similarly, studies of hurricane recovery in Louisiana, Texas, and Florida have found that children in low-income families are more likely to suffer lasting mental health impacts, yet few states allocate adequate resources for pediatric mental health services.
Natural disasters also exacerbate existing inequities. Families of color, who are disproportionately low-income, are more likely to live in high-risk areas and face greater barriers to recovery. Policies like Medicaid block grants and a non-refundable CTC worsen these inequities, leaving the most vulnerable children further behind.
A Call to Action
Wildfires and other natural disasters are no longer rare, isolated events. They are becoming a defining feature of life in America, exacerbated by climate change. Policymakers must act with urgency to protect children and families before, during, and after these crises. Specifically, Congress should:
- Reject Medicaid block grants to ensure that healthcare systems can respond flexibly to spikes in demand during disasters.
- Make the Child Tax Credit fully refundable so that families who lose income during a disaster are not penalized further.
- Increase funding for disaster-specific mental health services for children, particularly in low-income and underserved areas.
Every child deserves to be seen, heard, and valued. It’s time to put children at the center of our public policies and not treat them as an afterthought.
Every wildfire, hurricane, or flood is a test of our nation’s priorities. By centering children in our disaster response policies, we choose to invest in resilience, equity, and the future. It’s not just the right thing to do — it’s a moral and practical imperative.