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Pinellas County to allocate hurricane recovery grant
FOX 13's Kailey Tracy reports.
TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. - Keith Dalton says he just recently finished renovations on his Treasure Island home after Hurricane Helene destroyed almost everything inside.
"Financially, it has been rough," Dalton said. "Mentally and spiritually, it has been brutal."
"We ended up having about three feet of water in the house, which just devastated everything," Dalton said.
He got some money from FEMA, but paid upfront for things like rent at another home while his family was displaced. According to Pinellas County officials, Dalton’s home was one of more than 33,000 that Hurricane Helene damaged. Hurricane Milton, not even two weeks later, damaged around 12,000 homes.
County leaders say a new $813 million Community Development Block Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development will help residents recovering from Hurricanes Idalia, Helene and Milton.
"It does seem like, ‘oh, it has been a year and this is now just finally happening,’ but to put some perspective to it, we were able to learn, unfortunately, from counties and communities that had gone through this prior to us two years ago down in Lee County," Pinellas County Commission Chair Brian Scott said. "It took them two years to actually start getting money into people's hands. So, we've actually, in terms of government efficiency here, we've moved at lightning speed in that world," he said.
Scott said they’re going to start rolling out programs soon that will act as different categories for the money. That includes home repair costs, which includes reimbursement if you’ve already made repairs, reimbursement if you were displaced and had to pay rent elsewhere, money for mobile home communities, money for not-for-profits damaged and money for owners of rental properties to repair damage.
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Scott said 70% of the grant has to be spent on people with low to moderate incomes.
"Once we get a better understanding of where the real interest is, then we can apply to move money from one program to another, and once we can prove that we've met the unmet need in that low to moderate income category, then we apply for waivers to move the money into other income categories," Scott said.
He said within a few weeks, they’ll start accepting applications.
"At our meeting this past Thursday, we had a vote to hire Horne, which is a company that's going to administrate all this for us. So, they're fast tracking right now to get these programs stood up, to get these grant applications ready, to call centers set up, to get online portals ready to begin accepting applications," Scott said.
He says they hope to get money in people’s hands by Christmas. Dalton says every little bit helps.
"If we looked at, ok, how much did your insurance give you? How much did you get in from FEMA? And then if there are any after that that's left over, then that's probably what I would apply for. I don't think it's fair to just apply for as much as you can get," Dalton said.
St. Pete residents are the only ones who can’t apply for this grant in Pinellas. St. Pete got similar funding of its own that it’s hoping to roll out early next year.
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The Source: This story was written with information provided by Pinellas County officials.