September 6, 2016
Over 600 homeowners answered the City’s call for interest to be considered in the 2016 City of Houston (COH) Floodplain Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Home Elevation Grant application in May 2016. Unfortunately, all interested homeowners were not able to be included in the grant request. The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), on behalf of the COH, submitted four (4) applications to the Federal Emergency Management Administration’s (FEMA’s) FMA Grant Program in June 2016. The final applications included a total of 173 candidate properties and 422 qualified alternate properties.
FEMA has announced that one of the 2016 COH FMA grant applications has been selected for further review. This application requests funding for the elevation of 39 pre-selected flood-prone homes. This means that pending FEMA’s final review, this application has a chance of receiving an award. FEMA has not yet confirmed a schedule for awarding grant funds. This schedule is determined by FEMA and is not in the City’s Control.
FEMA also announced that the other three (3) 2016 COH FMA grant applications were not selected for funding. This means that the remaining 134 properties that were included in these applications, as candidates, will now be considered as alternates for the application that has been selected for further review. Alternate properties can only receive funding if candidate property owners choose not to proceed with the program when and if the City and TWDB receive the grant award from FEMA.
The City will send a letter to each participating homeowner clarifying the status of their property by September 15, 2016.
Please contact the Floodplain Management Office at (832) 394-8854 or [email protected] with your questions. Please continue to monitor www.houstonrecovers.org for general updates.