LEE COUNTY, Fla. – Two months ago the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced they would give over one billion dollars to Lee County to assist with Hurricane Ian rebuilding efforts.
The county has not received the money yet. In order for them to receive it, county leaders must submit an action plan on how they’re going to use the money and it has to be approved.
Ever since the announcement Lee County leaders have been working hard to figure out how to divvy up the money so they get approval from the government for the funds.
Lee County Commissioners created the Recovery Task Force, to assist with this, also creating an online survey called ResilientLee.
They want Lee County residents who were affected by Hurricane Ian to fill out the survey to let them know where the money should go. The survey will determine the priorities for the county.
NBC2 found out that many Lee County residents are unaware that there is a survey that could help them get the money they need to rebuild. When we told them about the survey they immediately wanted to fill it out.
Steven Bontz said he had no idea about the survey, but thinks it’s very important.
Bontz said, “Fort Myers Beach got hit pretty bad and Sanibel got hit really hard. Matlacha obviously got hit really hard there’s a lot of areas.”
Travis Rembrandt said he hasn’t heard about it either. Rembrandt said,”It’s a relief effort that’s supposed to help the public, so definitely the government should make the citizens more aware of it.”
Rembrandt said he had trouble finding the survey on the Resilient Lee website,”There’s lots of people who didn’t grow up with electronics that might not be comfortable clicking a bunch of buttons. For the older demographic it’s important to make the survey easy to access for the majority of the population here.”
Angela Schimka also didn’t know about the survey. She said there is still so much damage, even seven months after the hurricane, “Southwest Florida you have tons of homeless people that are living in tents and forests throughout this 20 mile radius that now have nothing so I think that would be important.”
Beno Santana and Fresh Casino said, “That would help with my living situation, yeah just help out everyone who needs help, you all should market it and put it out there there’s a lot of people who don’t know that should know.”
If you haven’t filled out the survey yet there still is time. It can be accessed here.
The Recovery Task Force is holding its next public meeting Wednesday, May 17th at 4:00 p.m. at the Boca Grande Community Center.
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