MDA Approves More 1000 Elevation Grants Approvals Have Climbed from Zero to 1,004 in Fve Months From: MDA News Release Filed 9/23/08 GCN JACKSON, Miss. – As of this week, more than 1,000 Mississippi Coast homeowners whose primary residences suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge have been approved for elevation grants. The assistance, sourced from a federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) package approved for Mississippi’s Hurricane Katrina recovery, helps homeowners defray costs associated with elevating their homes to meet new federal flood requirements. “As MDA tracks the progress of all CDBG approvals and disbursals, we’ve seen dramatic progress in the Elevation Grant Program since April when we began check disbursals under this program,” Jon Mabry, Chief Operations Officer for MDA’s Disaster Recovery Division said. “At this rate, we’re about halfway through determining eligibility for more than 2,000 total applicants, and we’ll easily reach our goal of finishing all elevation grant award approvals by year’s end, along with the broader Homeowners Assistance Program (HAP) initiative.” To apply for the HAP elevation grant supplement, an applicant must have closed a Phase I or Phase II HAP grant and face a federal requirement that their rebuilt home be elevated to higher FEMA standards. “We’re now averaging more than 100 environmental review clearances per week, which is a first step elevation grant site inspection that comes at no cost to the applicants,” Mabry continued. “Applicants should expect to continue seeing environmental inspection teams from URS Corporation, the state’s environmental inspection contractor, conducting site inspections along the Gulf Coast.” With over $30 million in elevation grants approved, disbursed, or scheduled for disbursement, MDA’s elevation grant program administrators continue to emphasize what applicants must submit. These documents include recent building permits from local building officials, a current elevation certificate from a licensed surveyor, and/ or a certificate of occupancy from local building officials. Each $30,000 grant is disbursed to applicants only if they have submitted all necessary documents including the building permit, elevation certificate, and certificate of occupancy. To date the larger HAP program has disbursed more than 1.7 billion to individual homeowners in Mississippi’s Coastal counties whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina’s unprecedented storm surge. MDA estimates all HAP approvals will be complete by year’s end with more than 2 billion distributed to about 25,000 homeowners. For more information about their pending elevation grant application, applicants can call: 866-369-6302 or visit one of three MDA Service Centers: Jackson County: Harrison County: Hancock County:
|
