Postal Service Denies Mail to Wildfire Victims

The USPS must do right by its customers.

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

Having your house destroyed in a fire is a terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, Hawaiian wildfire survivors can’t catch a break even after rebuilding their homes. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is making survivors’ lives needlessly difficult by refusing mail service.

According to a recent report by The Guardian reporter Dara Kerr, “As fire victims have started to return to Lahaina after going through the process of rebuilding their homes, dozens of these mailboxes have become useless.” While residents weren’t told initially why they were no longer getting mail, a complaint resulted in the following email by the agency: “All dwellings that were affected by the fires in 2023 that have been rebuilt will no longer receive street delivery” because “new development[s]” are not eligible for door-to-door service. This will almost certainly cause significant inconvenience for affected families, including unnecessary trips to out-of-the-way post offices and long lines. The USPS’s travesty of a response shows an out-of-touch agency too often unresponsive to the needs of its customer base.

The USPS’s shocking apathy toward wildfire victims is certainly not the first time the agency has inappropriately tried to restrict door-to-door service. For example, America’s mail carrier has been sending notices to ordinary apartment buildings bizarrely claiming that the complexes are “dormitories” and therefore responsible for distributing their own mail.

Located in Statesboro, Georgia, the Copper Beech apartment and townhouse complex operates similar to any other apartment/townhouse complex. Residents enjoy private kitchens, bathrooms, and living rooms, with a few community amenities such as fitness facilities and a pool. After a petty feud over electronically logging packages escalated between an apartment property manager and the local postmaster in late 2023, the postmaster notified Copper Beech that ... they are in fact a dormitory (after considering them an apartment complex for fifteen years). As a result, Copper Beech would be in charge of delivering mail from the front office to its residents. The postmaster cited the Postal Operations Manual (POM) to justify the change. There was only one problem: the POM wasn’t publicly available. Copper Beech was forced to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to get the manual, which (in part) defines dormitories as separate units with shared access to “centrally located kitchens, bathrooms, showers, or social or common areas.”

That simply does not describe Copper Beech’s unexceptional multi-bedroom apartment setup. Yet, the postmaster insisted on unfair treatment based on what appears to be a petty argument with staff. When it became clear that Copper Beech would put up a fight, the postmaster went nuclear. In August 2024, USPS “completely stopped delivering mail and packages to all residents at Copper Beech. Amazon packages were returned; relatives’ care packages weren’t delivered; important tax notices didn’t reach taxpayers. Residents reported to Copper Beech that they weren’t getting jury summonses, critical medications, and other important mail.” While the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) stayed the resulting proceeding over the dispute pending the outcome of external litigation, this and similar fights will almost certainly continue.

While it’s understandable that the USPS is trying to save money after losing $9 billion each year, denying service to customers—especially customers reeling from a tragedy—is exceptionally poor form. If the agency wants to get back into the black, there are plenty of ways to do so while still doing right by people.