Fewer Louisiana homeowners than expected seek flood aid

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana expects to spend $649 million on homeowner rebuilding aid after the 2016 floods, only about half the federal money the state set aside for the effort.

The Advocate reported 44 percent fewer households than anticipated are expected to access money allocated for homeowners in the Restore Louisiana program.

Despite heavy publicity, a new state report said more than 20,000 south Louisiana households with significant damage never took the first step to tap into the $1.3 billion in assistance.

All they had to do at first was fill out a fiveminute damage survey.

“There is definitely a group of people in Louisiana who, because they went and got their house rebuilt, they’re resilient, whatever, their son-in-law came and helped, they never asked us for money,” said Pat Forbes, director of the Office of Community Development, which oversees flood recovery. “There’s just a population in Louisiana that’s like that. They don’t want help.”

In addition, more homeowners than expected withdrew from the recovery program. Also, higher-than-expected numbers had a potential award canceled out by U.S. Small Business Administration loans, flood insurance and other grants.

Nearly 54,000 households filled out damage surveys before a July 20 deadline. So far, 13,324 of those households have been awarded nearly $438 million in grant money.