The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today that Secretary Ben Carson approved a disaster recovery plan to help Texans recover from Hurricane Harvey.
In November, HUD Deputy Secretary Pam Patenaude and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced HUD would provide more than $5 billion to the state of Texas for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts.
HUD used information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration to determine how funds would be distributed.
The Texas plan required grantees to develop a recovery program informed by local residents and will be funded through HUD's Community Development Block Grant—Disaster Recovery Program.
"The Trump Administration is committed to helping Texans impacted by Harvey to rebuild their homes and their lives," Secretary Carson said. "As the state now turns to the long-term recovery of its communities, Texans can be sure that HUD will be there to help in any way we can to make the state whole again."
The Texas recovery plan includes:
- 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.
