The additional HUD funds will go to low- and moderate-income hurricane victims.
By Associated Press
Published October 6, 2004
MILTON - The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development will spend another $66-million on housing for low- and moderate-income victims of the four hurricanes that hit Florida this year, the agency's leader said Tuesday.
It will bring the agency's total hurricane spending in Florida to $95-million, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said at a news conference with Gov. Jeb Bush.
Housing is "the No. 1 problem we face," Bush said. "That and making sure we jump-start our economy and get visitors back."
The new HUD money includes $10-million to repair elderly multifamily housing, $40-million to cover rental costs higher than amounts HUD normally pays and $15-million for families displaced from public housing, Jackson said.
The money will be used to rent existing homes, but they are scarce, Jackson acknowledged. To add to that supply the Federal Housing Administration is making foreclosed houses available to hurricane victims, he said.
The housing administration is also forgiving loans for three months, and Jackson urged that private lenders do likewise.
The four hurricanes have seriously damaged 168,000 homes and destroyed 25,000 across Florida, Bush said. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in the process of sending 10,000 mobile homes to the state but no timetable for getting them here has yet been set.
"We will be the largest trailer center in the entire country," he said. "Every trailer being made is being purchased by FEMA to come to our communities as quickly as possible."
Bush said officials are also working with associations representing apartment owners, hotels and motels to try to find space for people displaced by the storms.
But out-of-state aid workers are staying in some of those accommodations and insurance companies don't have enough adjusters to handle all the claims, which is slowing down repairs and preventing people from going back to their own homes, Bush said.
