Where have FEMA grant programs in CT been cancelled?

by Sasha Allen, CT Mirror
August 1, 2025

by Sasha Allen, CT Mirror
August 1, 2025

The federal government recently cancelled a disaster relief grant program and discontinued another, leaving some projects stuck in various stages — without full funding.

The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program has officially ended and is canceling all grants from 2020 to 2023 that have not already been distributed. For Connecticut, only 22% of all BRIC projects have been funded. The rest will remain unfunded.

While some projects did not receive funding for other reasons before the grant program was cancelled, many of the more recent projects from 2023 are affected by the cancellation.

One of the projects confirmed to have been affected by the grant cancellation is the a coastal flood defense project in Bridgeport. This project was a part of the Resilient Bridgeport infrastructure initiative.

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The Flood Mitigation Assistance program also has been removed from the 2025 grant cycle, halting new grant applications. As of now, the federal government has not made any announcement regarding funding of current projects.

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Connecticut had 35 ongoing projects from 2020 to 2023 that were in various stages of receiving BRIC and FMA funding. Of these, 23 were projects funded under BRIC to address hazards ranging from flooding and severe storm impact to infrastructure failures. As of July 29, only $25.9 million of $120 million that was selected for federal grants had been obligated to the 35 BRIC and FMA projects.

Many federal funds are allocated under FEMA’s hazard mitigation assistance projects where spending and projects tend to peak following a natural disaster. Some BRIC and FMA grants fall under this category. 

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While the BRIC grant was cancelled because it was “a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” according to a since-deleted press release from FEMA, many are concerned about what could happen without the federal funds.

“The FEMA funds, through BRIC and also through the hazard mitigation grant program, have been pretty critical at helping the towns do the legwork and the planning and design work and move these things forward,” said John Truscinski, the director for resilience planning at the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation. “And they do take a long time for a variety of reasons, and so cutting back on the commitment of funds after several years of work has gone into those projects, it has a big impact in setting things back for the state.”

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