Starr County hunts funds for flood relief
RIO GRANDE CITY — Starr County has $500,000 to help seven or eight homeowners repair and rebuild their houses after severe flooding damaged or destroyed them in 2008. But there are still more than 100 families still on the waiting list.
"The residents of Starr County experienced a major disaster … and it is important that the state help restore its housing stock in the wake of this flooding," said state Sen. Judith Zaffirini. "This type of assistance is crucial to rural Texas, particularly because many homeowners do not have the funds to make the necessary repairs themselves."
The Starr County Department of Federal and State Programs already selected four of the households and still has to select three or four more houses — depending on how much money is needed for repairs — said Janie Alvarez, senior projects manager.
"Depending on the damages that we encounter out there, if there are more people with greater damage, then probably we will only be able assist three, but if we find a little less damaged homes, we can divide the money," Alvarez said.
The families have been waiting for help since torrential rains fell across South Texas in August 2008.
Some of the families had partially collapsed roofs, water stains and mold.
"It is very hard, but the only thing we could have done for them was to put them in communication with the churches and organizations that were giving out supplies to clean and did minor repairs to their homes. It was very hard because the county doesn’t have any programs that we could help people in the quantities that we had back then," Alvarez said.
Low-income families who do not pay their taxes or have several homes in undivided lots did not qualify.
The delay on the federal funding was due to the circumstances of some of the houses.
"Now we have a far better grasp of what has to be done if there are liens on the property that cannot be dealt with or moved out of or signed off of those liens, we have to move to the following applicant, we can’t waste time on that because if it is a matter of a legal issue, we will do the assessment as soon as we can an move to the next (on the list)," Alvarez said.
The county needs more money but it could only apply for one grant at that time.
