Gov. Ron DeSantis announced in Southwest Florida, the region of landfall for Hurricane Ian, that Florida will pay $25 million of its own money for emergency relief in light of FEMA denying the state’s request for federal aid.
“Unfortunately, we got word last week that FEMA had denied our request for funding our state-led housing initiatives, citing their quote ‘limited authority.’ But we’re not just gonna sit there and take no for an answer. We wanna cut through bureaucracy. We wanna bring relief to impacted Floridians regardless of whether FEMA wants to be a part of that.”
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The Governor continued to give the details of the funding plan.
“So today I’m announcing Florida will be providing up to 25 million dollars through state funds to purchase building materials and provide those materials to verified non-profit organizations to restore damaged homes to livable conditions so that Floridians can move back into their own homes.”
"We're not just gonna sit there and take no for an answer […] We're gonna figure out what we can do […] We wanna cut through bureaucracy." pic.twitter.com/NmgwV9RGnc
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) December 5, 2022
FEMA’s refusal came in a December 2nd letter, claiming that its authority was too limited and that it could not determine if Florida’s recovery plan would work.
Due to the limited authorities FEMA has to approve and pay for this type of work, as well as our inability to confirm that authorizing this policy expansion would achieve the intended outcomes for disaster survivors, your request is denied.
For context, Florida’s recovery plans up until this point have been wildly successful, most notably rebuilding collapsed bridges in just days. It should also be noted that FEMA already approved funding for other efforts in the Sunshine State, just not the plan to get Floridians back to their homes.
The 25 million will be directed to baseline repairs that make homes liveable again while more permanent repairs are made in the meantime. The GOvernor committed 35.2 million to these more permanent repairs, funded by the Florida Disaster Fund. established by Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis before Ian made landfall.
The First Lady said that Florida State would have to team up with the 17 vetted non-profits to compensate for the FEMA refusal.
“It’s not a government go-at it alone. It’s really everybody uniting for the benefit of everybody here who were affected by the hurricane. We’re not stopping, I know there’s a lot more money that can be raised.”
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