Press Releases

It's good news, but we now face a bureaucratic nightmare

Graves asked HUD Secretary for status of funds on January 6, 2022

U.S. Congressman Garret Graves released a supplemental statement after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) updated today their announced $1.3 billion Louisiana hurricane and flood allocation and the process on how it will be distributed. HUD later agreed the $450,136,000 in Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds specifically for Laura and Delta impacted communities will be in addition to the $1.3 billion – making today's announced Louisiana total $1.7 billion. Despite Graves' January call for swift HUD action, even after today's announcement, the State is still required to complete a spending "action plan" that historically takes several months to complete and approve before disaster victims can even apply for assistance.

"Again, we appropriated funds one month after Hurricane Ida's landfall, which will now have to go through a bureaucratic nightmare before they even reach disaster victims. From start to finish of this recovery process, HUD has got to act with the same sense of urgency that disaster victims feel after a storm when their lives are turned upside down. It's unacceptable it takes this long which is why we will keep working to reform the process and secure more federal funding. HUD should be spelled with a ‘T' because when the good news of assistance funding is confronted with the bureaucracy of getting it out, the sound of progress is `thud!'."

Graves asked Secretary Fudge on January 6, 2022 – three months after passing the law – for an update on when to expect the 2021 disaster allocations would be published. Graves said then, "Publishing the allocations for the remaining $3 billion is only the first step that must be taken before dollars can reach victims of 2021 disasters: states must write action plans, which must then be approved by HUD, and then each amendment to the action plan must go through this same iterative process. States have to stand up programs to administer these block grants and disaster victims must go through the arduous process of applying for funds. From appropriation to checks in hand, this process can take from 9 months to over a year. It is critical that the Department of Housing and Urban Development take urgent action now to get the ball in motion for victims of Hurricane Ida. Anything less would be a disservice to the disaster victims who are trying to rebuild their lives."

Additionally, Graves attempted to add amendments to the U.S. House government funding bill earlier this month that would have ensured Louisiana's disaster recovery, flood insurance and other priorities were addressed. One amendment would have provided $3 billion to Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) account (increasing funding provided from $5 billion to a larger figure) to provide natural disaster relief to victims of the 2020 and 2021 hurricanes.

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