In a joint letter to the Puerto Rico Department of Housing, the House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Representative Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) raised concerns about the potential displacement of low-income people under the territory’s “Home Repair, Reconstruction or Relocation” (R3) disaster recovery program.
The letter urges the Department of Housing to immediately address deficiencies in the program, which is funded by federal disaster recovery dollars. In its current form, the program could displace thousands from low-income neighborhoods in flood zones, ignoring HUD requirements that displacement should be used only as a last resort. The letter also raises concerns that stakeholder input was not included in the planning and rollout of the R3 program. This call for increased public participation echoes statements by the NLIHC-led Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition (DHRC) consisting of over 800 state, local and national organizations working on disaster recovery. The DHRC has strongly supported greater civil-society participation in Puerto Rico recovery and planning, and DHRC members raised similar concerns about displacement during a September webinar on the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria.
Read the joint letter at: https://bit.ly/2MyMMbW
Read the DHRC statement at: https://bit.ly/2MjyAoN
Listen to the DHRC webinar on Hurricane Maria recovery at: https://youtu.be/HQSHo2ymqA0