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Hillsborough County seeks feedback to decide how to spend $700 million in hurricane recovery funds

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Published  June 9, 2025 11:43pm EDT
Hillsborough County
FOX 13 News
Funding for hurricane recovery

Funding for hurricane recovery

Jordan Bowen reports.

The Brief

    • Hillsborough County plans to receive $700 million in federal funds to be spent on hurricane recovery.
    • The county is hosting a series of meetings with residents to figure out how to spend the money.
    • Some homeowners want the money to be spent on flood mitigation efforts and help offset the costs of pricey repairs.

TAMPA, Fla. - Hillsborough County residents filled the meeting room at The Platt Regional Library in Tampa Monday night to learn more about how the county plans to get back to normal after a devastating hurricane season.

"We are a community of at least 400 plus senior citizens, and we were very hard hit by both hurricanes," resident Elaine Melvin said.

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What we know:

The county plans to get $709 million from the federal government as part of a community development block grant. The money is to be used to pay for recovery and mitigation efforts from Hurricane Idalia in 2023 and Hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton in 2024.

Local perspective:

Elaine Melvin and her neighbors at Regency Cove said their entire electrical system has to be repaired at a cost of $4.6 million. It's a bill which she says will be split up among the 400 residents.

"Most people are on a fixed income, and we cannot afford this, along with repairing of the homes also. We're right on the water, and we really got in the band," Melvin said.

READ: Palm Harbor entrepreneur launches portable energy storage unit for hurricane season

Micheal Bales also lives in the same community.

"Our cost is going to be between $11,000 and $18,000 per person depending on the financing of our project. It's going to take a couple years," Bales said.

Both are hoping some of the grant money can be used to help off set the costs to residents.

What they're saying:

As part of the Grant restrictions, 70% of the money must directly benefit low-to-moderate-income populations, which are households that make below 80% of the area's median income, which is about $76,000 a year.

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"I cannot say to you, yes, your project is going to qualify. I can't do that this evening. There are a lot of nuances and so please note that I'm not able to do that. Once we get in the implementation phase, then we can employ those efforts," Hillsborough County Assistant County Administrator Cheryl Howell said.

What's next:

The county will submit their spending plan to the Board of County Commissioners on July 16th for approval. They plan to implement the plan in the fall.

The Source: The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Jordan Bowen. 

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