FORT MYERS, Fla. — A state-run program meant to help hurricane survivors rebuild their homes is falling behind.
The “Rebuild Florida” program uses federal money to repair and replace homes, but they say red tape is slowing things down.
Even now, there are hundreds of families waiting for repairs from storms that happened years ago. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said they understand those concerns and are trying to address them.
“If you’re gonna make a program where everyone is dependent on you, you need to make sure that you’re taking care of those people,” Mary Lundberg said. “Because their lives are just gonna get worse while they’re waiting for you.”
Lundberg’s life and house got worse year after year. After her house was damaged in Hurricane Irma, her roof kept leaking and the mold kept growing as she waited years for the state to fix her home.
After last year’s hurricanes, her worries grew even more.
“I am worried, first of all, about the people that are still in it,” she said. “And I’m worried about the people from Ian and Nicole who could be in it. And something needs to change.”
We took her concerns to the federal government as they announced more disaster relief funds for Lee County today. HUD Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman said they hope to avoid such long delays by putting the money in the county’s hands.
“One of the reasons that we did that is that we’ve heard about some of the difficulties of having the funds be too removed from the people,” Todman said.
Last year Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) officials said they planned to ask HUD for more funds to help Ian survivors. Todman said they could still apply for that money.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not gonna give money to the state,” she adds. “It means that we’re going to try to, for those areas that were most heavily impacted, we want to be able to try to get the funds as close to the people as possible.”
After our first story aired in November, the DEO put Lundberg in temporary housing. As of today, they still haven’t done the demolition on her home. The clock is ticking as her demolition permit is supposed to expire in July.
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