New Multi Million Dollar Home Repair Grant Awarded

A new grant program using hurricane recovery money is helping Gulf Coast residents make final repairs so that they can get back into their houses. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

The latest project to come out of the $5.4 billion dollars allocated to the state for hurricane recovery is the Coming Home Collaborative. That $15 million dollar grant administered through the Gulf Coast Community Foundation will help 175 families get back into their houses says Lee Youngblood with the Mississippi Development Authority,

“To help people rehab and repair damage to their structures. So this is just one aspect of our recovery, but it is something that should be addressed and we feel like this program will help do that.”

More than half the hurricane recovery package was allocated to housing programs. The Coming Home Collaborative is unique in that it allows individuals in the three coastal counties who may have already started repairs on their home, but just can’t afford to finish them to apply for specific grant help. Bill Stallworth, is a councilmen in Biloxi, and executive director of the Hope Coordination Center,

“As we start looking at these homes, say someone’s got everything done but flooring. Well now we can make some applications for the flooring, for the sheetrock, or whatever it is going to take to get that person back into the home. Now the only real restriction is that it is restricted to those folks making 80 percent or below the median income. But those are the folks that need it the most.”

Priority will be given to those applicants still living in FEMA and MEMA temporary housing. Interested individuals will have until the end of May to apply for grants.