TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Rebuild Florida’s Housing Repair and Replacement Program for Hurricane Irma has completed 3,651 homes. An additional 233 are under construction, and 58 are in pre-construction.
While 10 Investigates has spoken to homeowners who are either still waiting or not happy with the construction on their homes, many homeowners, according to FloridaCommerce, are happy with the way their homes turned out.
The Rebuild Florida website features nine families who made videos explaining how happy they were with the program.
“We’re very grateful for the assistance received from Rebuild Florida after Hurricane Irma damaged our home,” said Angela and Terry Edwards of Deland. “It’s truly a blessing.”
The agency says it ultimately wants to encourage homeowners in the community who are eligible for the Hurricane Ian Housing Repair and Replacement Program that just launched on April 1 to apply for the critical assistance they may need.
“If you’re interested in having your home repaired from Hurricane Irma, reach out to Rebuild Florida — they’re the best! I was very pleased with the work they did and the construction crew that did all of the repairs,” said John Baretela of Palm Bay. “I’d recommend them to anyone.”
When we asked Alex Kelly, the secretary of commerce, why some people are still waiting to move into their homes after years, he told 10 Investigates Jennifer Titus: “Well, in some cases, Florida didn't have enough funding for some of these individuals.
"The funding that Florida received from HUD for the Irma program was not enough. And so some of those individuals who just now had maybe that mobile home repaired or replaced, some of the individuals we didn't have enough money for.
"We've done some things over the last few years to move dollars around," he continued. "My predecessor had to write a letter to HUD, explaining that at the time, I think we had, that the projected funding shortfall and it was about an estimated 541 homes worth of funding that we needed. We've done some creative things to move some funds around. So some of those homeowners, including some of the ones that we've been visiting the last couple of weeks.
"It's only because we moved some dollars around and got creative," he added. "We didn't get extra support from HUD. So because we got creative and moved dollars around, we were able to serve them. So they might not just realize the sort of dollars, we had to move around and make it work but there was not adequate funding to serve them from the beginning.”
