The following is a review of housing recovery developments related to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and the 2017 California wildfires since last week’s Memo to Members and Partners (for the article in last week’s Memo, see 8/20). NLIHC also posts this information at our On the Home Front blog.
Federal Response
FEMA
FEMA coordinated with legal aid groups Ayuda Legal Huracán María, Fundación Fondo de Acceso a la Justicia, and Servicios Legales de Puerto Rico—all DHRC partners – to develop an additional method to verify home ownership on appeal. The new Sworn Declaration, including any corresponding and supplementary documents, can be used in place of traditional documentation to verify ownership of a pre-disaster primary residence and determine eligibility for financial assistance. More information can be found here.
FEMA published a set of infographics showing statistics on the first year of the Hurricane Harvey recovery effort in Texas.
State Action
HUD Secretary Ben Carson signed a grant agreement on August 17 authorizing the Texas General Land Office (GLO) to begin spending $5.024 billion in Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds to help Texas communities recover from Hurricane Harvey. These funds were approved in June after HUD’s acceptance of the GLO’s CDBG-DR State Action Plan.