The grants represent the largest single amount of disaster recovery assistance in HUD's history
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced an award of $28 billion in disaster recovery funds to help repair damaged housing, businesses, and infrastructure, the largest single amount in the department’s history.
The grant will support long-term disaster recovery in hard-hit areas in nine states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The award includes approximately $18.4 billion for Puerto Rico, $4.7 billion for Texas, and $1.6 billion for the US Virgin Islands.
“It’s clear that a number of states and local communities are still struggling to recover from a variety of natural disasters that occurred in the past three years,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said. “These grants will help rebuild communities impacted by past disasters and will also protect them from major disasters in the future.”
The grants include more than $12 billion for major disasters that occurred in 2017 and nearly $16 billion to support mitigation activities in areas that experienced major presidentially declared disasters since 2015. Mitigation can broadly be described as actions taken to protect communities from the predictable damage from future events.
The funds are provided through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery Program and will address seriously damaged housing, businesses, and infrastructure from major disasters that occurred since 2015.
