Recovery Con't.

They finally got around to it. Two and a half years after Her Horribleness roared through the area, and I'm not sure quite how long it's been since the federal government allocated the buckos, the state is finally - get this - getting ready to accept applications for local residents to apply for funding to repair their homes. They haven't quite finalized the criteria and what the grants will be, but are expected to start the process around the first of February.

Mind you - the buckos won't actually be available until around September. THREE YEARS after the devastation. The funding is for the low income, elderly, and disabled families in the area, those without resources of their own or insurance to repair their broken homes.

During this time, non-profits have been doing their best to help these families, and some 1600 homes have been repaired. For some of these homes, repairs were begun, but not yet completed, due to sufficient resources not being available.

There was actually a first round of funding which apparently only repaired 13 homes in the year since the funds were released. Ridiculous! The way the contract was written, it has become more feasible for the contractors to declare the cost of rehabilitation as being too prohibitive, so demolition and replacement became the modus operandi.

In one case, the local non-profits had already spent $13,000 toward repair of the home, and the contractors deemed it beyond hope, demolished it, and are building a replacement. Giving the contractors the benefit of the doubt, it may have been an appropriate decision. However, no one even checked to see if any repair work had been done on the home or to see if alternatives might have salvaged the $13,000 already spent on this home. As it stands (or doesn't), that's $13,000 which could have been allocated elsewhere. *very deep sigh*

For this round of funding, the state is currently allowing a maximum of $25,000 in repairs before deeming the house unsalvagable and tossing it to the contractors to demolish and replace. Sorry, but any house sitting with significant hurricane damage repairs for over two years will require more than $25,000 in repair. However, it may still be possible to repair the home for less than the cost of demolition and replacement.

Which would be the wiser use of what are admittedly limited resources? Repair of homes which may be possible through a combination of funding, donated resources, and volunteer labor at less than replacement cost or destroying and replacing homes? It seems to me that before completely writing off the possibility of repair that repair shuld be the FIRST option, especially if it frees up resources for additional families in the area.

Another aspect of repair over replacement, when possible, is the psychological boost that such a choice could provide. I've gone through all sorts of interesting responses to this situation while my home was being repaired. However, being back in my own home has been a triumph over the devastation that Hurricane Rita wreaked in my life. We've battled back to wholeness, the house and I. There's something empowering in that accomplishment.

I don't think that watching my house being razed and then starting over would have quite the same effect. Could be wrong, though, especially if I were the one to decide on what the replacement house would be like (within limits, of course).

That won't be true for these families whose homes will be demolished and replaced. Those decisions will be completely out of their hands. These are people who have already experienced a huge chunk of their lives being taken out of their hands by Her Horribleness, then living in limbo for over two years. Can you imagine how devastating it could be for some anonymous contractor coming in, declaring your best and most valuable asset hopeless, then telling you that the decisions regarding your future home is in some anonymous else's hands?

So much good could be accomplished with these recovery funds. I hope that it comes to pass ... but I'm not counting on it.