LEALMAN, Fla. — All across Pinellas County, thousands of people are still rebuilding, recovering, and healing after Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Two of those people are Tim and Diane Vance.
“We lived in a one-story house,” Diane said. “We sold our big house to move close to the water, and it’s a one-story, and it got four feet of water.”
Right now, they are in the process of working with Elevate Florida to elevate and repair their Crystal Beach home, but it’s been six months of headaches and expenses.
“Oh, it’s very expensive, because we’re still making, you know, payments on everything: taxes, insurance, flood insurance, everything like that,” Diane said.
That’s why they and others attended a Monday night public input session in Lealman hosted by Pinellas County.
The county was recently awarded $813 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to alleviate unmet needs after the recent hurricanes.
“It’s really, really important that we get your input on how best we spend this money,” Commissioner Brian Scott told the room during the Monday meeting.
The community input will shape how the money is ultimately spent, but in the meeting, county staff presented some potential programs:
- $20 million toward homeowner repair reimbursement
- $57 million toward local landlord rental rehabilitation or reconstruction
- $500 million toward home rehabilitation or reconstruction
- $20 million toward a homeownership assistance program
- $32 million toward disaster relief payments
- $105 million to improve infrastructure
The money will be spent throughout the county except in the City of St. Petersburg, which got its own HUD money.
At least 70% of the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds must be spent on low- and moderate-income households and communities.
“If we prove we’ve met all the needs in that area, then we can apply for a waiver and then move that up into other income brackets,” Scott said.
According to Scott, Pinellas County hopes to start helping people with the funds in the fall, but it will take years to roll out all of the programs they’re considering.
The Vances would like to see the county budget funding toward elevating homes.
“Eventually, everybody with a ground floor home near the water is going to get flooded,” Tim Vance said.
An online survey is now live at this link. The county will host two more public input meetings in the coming days:
April 10
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
City of Dunedin, City Hall Commission Chambers
737 Louden Avenue, Dunedin
April 24
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Harbor Hall/White Chapel
1190 Georgia Avenue, Palm Harbor
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