Mar 6th 2019 | Posted in Vertical by Texas Government Insider

Texas– The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has allocated $652 million to benefit unmet housing recovery needs. This is the third allocation of funding from HUD for Harvey recovery efforts, and will provide additional restoration resources for homes, businesses and infrastructure impacted by the storm. These funds, provided from the Community Development Block Grant for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program, will further supplement the $5 billion in recovery programs approved by HUD in June of 2018

The amount will be dispersed as follows:

– $236 million added to the Texas General Land Office’s (GLO) Homeowner Assistance Program to repair single family homes damaged by Hurricane Harvey;

– $200 million added to the GLO’s Affordable Rental Program for the rehabilitation, reconstruction or new construction of multifamily rental units;

– $89.3 million additional direct allocation for Harris County programs; and

– $89.6 million additional direct allocation for city of Houston programs.

The GLO is currently awaiting guidance through a Federal Register notice from HUD to begin the planning process for the remaining $4.3 billion. HUD officials are still working on the rules that will dictate how the remaining disaster mitigation money can be used in Texas to help homes and neighborhood brace for future storms. Those rules are scheduled to be done by May. Then Texas would start working on a plan for how to comply with those rules, which would require additional HUD approvals.

More than $5 billion has now been sent to Texas, including more than $1.1 billion for Harris County and $1.2 billion for Houston. Another $2.7 billion went to the other 48 counties hit by Harvey. The recent $652 million that has been approved will increase spending in Houston and Harris County by another $179 million for fixing damaged homes. That is in addition to $1.2 billion in housing aid the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has distributed to more than 170,000 Harvey victims since the storm hit in August 2017.

On Feb. 25, President Donald Trump granted Gov. Greg Abbott’s request for a Presidential Disaster Declaration for 33 Texas counties. This action provides access to the FEMA’s Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation grant programs for impacted communities that are recovering and rebuilding following severe weather and flooding this past fall. The following counties are included in the Presidential Disaster Declaration: Archer, Baylor, Brown, Burnet, Callahan, Comanche, Coryell, Dimmit, Edwards, Fannin, Franklin, Grimes, Haskell, Hill, Hopkins, Houston, Jones, Kimble, Kinney, Knox, Llano, Madison, Mason, McCulloch, Menard, Nolan, Real, San Saba, Sutton, Throckmorton, Travis, Uvalde and Val Verde counties.


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