Legislation to stop DOB from penalizing disaster victims

From Sheepshead Bites:

City Councilman Mark Treyger has introduced a bill to block the Department of Buildings from penalizing homeowners and tenants who are trying to recover from natural disasters.

“Nobody should be left worse off by the recovery process than if they never participated in it at all, and the onus should be on the city and contractors to comply with rules and regulations related to Sandy Recovery work, not residents,” Treyger said in a press release. ” It undermines the public’s trust, faith and willingness to participate in recovery programs.”

Treyger cited several examples of Sandy victims being penalized by the DOB while awaiting long-overdue assistance from storm recovery programs. He highlighted the story of a Brooklyn resident received a $500 penalty for failing to repair his Sandy-damaged property. The man testified at a hearing that Build it Back had investigated the damage and he was “was waiting for promised financial relief and advised not to make any repairs until he received it.”

Stumped in Brooklyn

I saw this last week when I was waiting for a bus in Brooklyn. The front of the truck says "disaster relief" and the Caterpillar on the back hails from Louisiana Machinery.  I guess what struck me the most about this scene is that there apparently are tree stumps being removed somewhere in the city, but I don't know where.  Certainly not from city streets.

Behold the Sea Box

From the NY Observer:

For the past five years, the Bloomberg administration has been quietly developing a first-of-its-kind disaster housing program, creating modular apartments uniquely designed for the challenges of urban living. Carved out of shipping containers, these LEGO-like, stackable apartments offer all the amenities of home. Or more, since they are bigger, and brighter, than the typical Manhattan studio. It’s the FEMA trailer of the future, built with the Dwell reader in mind.

“It’s nicer than my apartment,” David Burney, commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction, said in a phone interview last week. Along with the city’s Office of Emergency Management and at least a dozen other city, state and federal agencies and private contractors, Mr. Burney has been trying to figure out how best to house the tens or even hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who could find themselves without a home following a major disaster.

Like Hurricane Sandy. Initial estimates of those forced into long-term homelessness—from months to years—are 20,000 in the five boroughs alone. Over the weekend, Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri told the Times that at least 400 homes would have to be demolished along the coast, with 500 more still to be evaluated.

“There’s nobody who wouldn’t like to see a deployable solution available now,” said Lance Jay Brown, an architecture professor at CUNY who has been advising the city on its plans. “But nobody has this, nobody. I think the Japanese are working on something, given all they’ve gone through, but I can tell you, New York is really ahead of the curve when it comes to long-term disaster housing.”

FEMA can't handle housing displaced victims

From Eyewitness News:

There is little to no temporary housing for thousands of people who can't live in their homes after Sandy.

While FEMA has approved thousands of people for rental assistance, the supply of available apartments does not come close to matching the demand.

And, 15 days into this recovery, the agency that stumbled so badly during Katrina is still without a concrete housing plan.

FEMA's slow housing response in the aftermath of Sandy was forewarned in this Congressional investigation following Katrina.

It faulted FEMA for lacking ''clear guidance on specific temporary housing options" and warned that without those guidelines, future "disaster victims (would be) at risk of not receiving temporary housing as quickly as possible."

"We concluded that they had not fully implemented our recommendations," said Dan Garcia-Diaz, of the Government Accountability Office.

The head of that 2009 investigation says FEMA has yet to come up with the temporary housing guidelines.

"To the extent that those recommendations have not been implemented and incorporated into their operations, certainly FEMA will experience challenges," Garcia-Diaz said.

Sure enough, 15 days into the recovery, FEMA still seems to have few solutions to finding temporary housing for tens of thousands of storm victims, especially in Staten Island.

FEMA trailers ready to house homeless

From Crains:

The federal government is moving manufactured housing into areas in New York and New Jersey that were hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday.

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said the disaster relief agency has several hundred mobile homes in its inventory of emergency supplies and has started moving some of them to disaster zone. He said it is unclear yet if FEMA will need to order more of the temporary homes.

He told reporters Thursday that officials still don't know "what total demand would be."

Since the storm hit last week, more than 317,000 people have registered with FEMA for financial help and the agency has approved more than $300 million in emergency aid. In New York and New Jersey, FEMA has determined that more than 101,000 people are eligible for temporary housing at hotels or motels in the region but it's unclear exactly how many people are taking advantage of that option.

More than 56,000 people have also been ruled eligible for FEMA's individual and households program, which provides money for renting a new place or housing repairs.

Mr. Fugate said some people who have been forced out of their homes have sought shelter at hotels as far away as Albany.

If you lost your job due to Sandy, there's help

From CBS:

Federal disaster unemployment assistance is now available to all New Yorkers who lost their jobs as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement Friday. Disaster unemployment benefits are available to provide financial support to anyone who has lost their job and live or work in the Bronx, Kings, New York, Richmond, Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties.

This unemployment assistance will supplement New York’s existing unemployment insurance system and will expand eligibility to include individuals who might otherwise not be covered. The United States Department of Labor has committed to providing additional assistance if needed.

Anyone unemployed due to Hurricane Sandy is immediately eligible and can submit a claim to the Department of Labor. The criterion for collecting disaster assistance is broader than for collecting regular unemployment benefits. Specifically, an individual can collect disaster assistance in any of the following cases:

· Injured in the disaster and unable to work, whether the person is an employee or self-employed.
· Workplace is damaged, or destroyed, or the person cannot work because of the disaster.
· Transportation to work is not available because of the disaster.
· Cannot get to work because must travel through the affected area, which is impossible due to disaster.
· Planned to begin working, but cannot because of the disaster.
· Derived most of income from areas affected by the disaster, and business is closed or inoperable because of the disaster.

Examples of self-employment include small business owners, independent taxi drivers, vendors, independent commercial fisherman, and farmers.

What life is like in the Rockaways

Bloomberg: "What, me worry?"

From the NY Observer:

With Hurricane Irene still affecting New York—clean-up continues, the sun is only now shining, the Hudson runs red with upstate clay—the city is making preparations and procedural changes to prepare for the next disaster. Yet with evacuations being one of the biggest effects of the storm, so far no action has been taken to address neighborhoods in low-lying areas, the now-well-known Zone As of the city.

At yesterday’s World Trade Center progress press conference, with no real news about progress at the site—it was more of an update for the media outlets of the world that are only now tuning in and have not been obsessing over ground zero for the past decade—The Observer asked the mayor if any changes would be made to the waterfront redevelopment plans his administration has led, which have revitalized these areas but have also put them in harm’s way. (The Village Voice dedicated its cover to the irony of building in flood-prone areas four years ago.)

In a word, no. “It’s the waterfront that makes this city,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “You may have to, if you think about it, build a little higher, but if the oceans do rise, as many climatologists predict, you may have to raise the barriers around buildings or the coast lines.”

It sounds as though that responsibility lies with the developers who are building in these areas more than with the city. In a follow-up, spokesman Andrew Brent acknowledged that “no plans for walls” or other construction or development mandates have been discussed since the hurricane.

FEMA funding running dry

From Fox News:

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has money trouble.It has less than $800-million dollars on hand to get through the end of the fiscal year, when ends September 30th. In the federal government's ledger books, that's not much, especially when you consider that the cost of Hurricane Irene may exceed $10-billion, and the federal government will subsidize part of that.

Irene is estimated to top the list of a year of destructive and expensive disasters this year.There were $9-billion in total losses after tornadoes hit the Southeast/Ohio Valley/Midwest states on April 25-30th. Joplin, Missouri was particularly hard hit in that disaster. About a month later, more tornadoes hit the Midwest/Southeast states causing $7-billion. And then the Southern Plains/Southwest states experience drought, a heatwave, and wildfires in the spring and summer of 2011 costing well over $5-billion.

After assisting with those and other disasters this year, FEMA says it is going to have to postpone some projects that have not been approved for previous disaster clean-up.

FEMA head Craig Fugate said earlier this week, "Going into September, being the peak part of hurricane season, and with Irene, we didn't want to get to the point where we would not have the funds to continue to support the previous impacted survivors as well as respond to the next disaster."

One senior Capitol Hill aide tells Fox that the Obama administration likely will have to ask Congress for more money to fund FEMA's expenses through the end of this fiscal year. And with the economy so tight, that may not be an easy sell.

Feds deny relief to Brooklyn, Bronx & Queens

From NY1:

President Barack Obama declared Friday that New York State was a "disaster area" following December's blizzard, allowing certain areas of the state to get federal recovery money.

Staten Island and Long Island's Nassau and Suffolk Counties will get federal aid to repair damage from the blizzard of December 26-27, 2010.

The declaration paves the way for the city to get reimbursed for the money it had to spend for snow removal and emergency measures, including overtime, equipment rental and temporary labor during the blizzard.

The state's application also sought funds for the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, but those petitions were denied.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he appreciated the money, but felt the other boroughs also deserved to be on the list.