This month, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary, Julián Castro, awarded $500 million to Louisiana, Texas and West Virginia as part of the HUD’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery Program. The motion was approved by President Barack Obama on September 29, 2016, when he signed the Continuing Resolution into law. With this resolution, the Department of Housing and Urban Development could allocate $500 million “in the most impacted and distressed areas” that experienced natural disasters before September 29 of this year.
“Immediately after President Obama signed this spending bill into law, my team began identifying the strongest cases to receive disaster recovery spending,” reported Castro. “These three states—Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia—experienced intense and destructive flooding causing great damage to residents’ homes and draining state resources.”
In order to decide how much to allocate to each state, HUD studied the most up-to-date information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. With this information, Castro and his team decided to award the following:
- Louisiana: $437.8 million
- Texas: $45.2 million
- West Virginia: $17 million
HUD will soon publish a notice in the Federal Register to outline the criteria for the use of these funds. To stay up-to-date with the latest mortgage news, subscribe to our blog or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
