Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson Monday announced the plans for spending $5 billion to help Texas recover from Hurricane Harvey. Houston and Harris County are designated to received $2.3 billion of that money. The funds will be allocated through the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program.
The expenditures will be:
Single-Family Homeowner Assistance Program ($1.1 billion): Provides assistance to help homeowners with rehabilitation and reconstruction after Hurricane Harvey.
Buyouts and Acquisitions ($275 million): To allow certain eligible homeowners to sell their damaged home to a local government.
Affordable Rental ($250 million): Provides funding for rehabilitation, reconstruction and new construction of affordable multi-family rent properties.
Homeowner Reimbursement ($100 million): Homeowners may be reimbursed up to $50,000 for certain out-of-pocket expenses incurred for home repairs, including reconstruction, rehabilitation or mitigation.
Partial Repair and Essential Power for Sheltering ($73 million): Provides immediate, temporary repairs to homes that sustained less than $17,000 in FEMA-verified loss. CDBG-DR will be used as matching funds to FEMA expenditures.
Local Infrastructure ($413 million): Supports infrastructure repairs and enhancements for local communities as part of a comprehensive long-term recovery program along with FEMA funding.
Economic Revitalization ($100 million): Offers interim assistance up to $250,000 to small businesses in exchange for job creation or retention.
Local, Regional and State Planning ($137 million): The state will fund planning studies on disaster mitigation in the impacted areas to promote sound long-term recovery.
Allocations to City of Houston and Harris County ($2.3 billion): The State of Texas will provide approximately $1.1 billion each to the City of Houston and Harris County, allowing these jurisdictions to address their unmet recovery needs. Plans for use of these funds will be submitted by the city and county to the State for approval.
State Administration ($251 million): Funding set aside for the State’s program costs, including contract administration, compliance monitoring, the provision of technical assistance to applicants and subrecipients, etc.
In April, HUD allocated an additional $4.726 billion of CDBG-DR funding to Texas for unmet need and mitigation purposes. HUD will soon issue requirements governing those funds, and Texas, along with other states, will be required to submit plans addressing the use of those funds.
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