It’s been two years since the January 2024 storms but the damage inflicted is still being felt by San Diego residents. 

One of San Diego’s historic floods displaced more than 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes and the community is still struggling to repair all the harm the storm has done. However, California’s new financial assistance program, ReCoverCA, is taking initiatives to provide support. 

The ReCoverCA program is aimed at low or moderate income homeowners to help rebuild and recover single family homes after disasters. The program will serve individuals that owned a home at the time of the disaster that have been negatively impacted by the flood, but have remaining needs. Whether it is rebuilding parts of the home that was destroyed or in need of repairs, this is a part of the Federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program to bring houses back to safe conditions. 

To be part of the program, one has to go through an application process that will verify their eligibility to be part of the program. This will gauge the cost and what services will need to be provided. The criteria for this program requires the individual to be identified as a homeowner, the property destroyed to be in a qualified disaster area, and have a specific household income below 120% of Area Median Income. 

“Here we are two and a half years later and people still don’t have the help that they need and they’ve been asking for the resources,” said Maziar Movassaghi, Assistant Deputy Director for the Federal Recovery Program. “It’s not intended to be an initial program offered by FEMA or the Small Business Administration in the early stages of the disaster. This is intended to cover gaps in their recovery needs.” 

From July 7 to 9, in-person workshops are held at the Mountain View/Beckwourth Library to offer one-on-one help with applications. On Wednesday, NBC San Diego was the only one who showed up at the in-person workshop. While there might be a lack of awareness, some residents affected believe that these relief programs are not enough. 

“It’s a waste of time. Every program we tried to get, the answer is no, no, no,” flood victim Blanca Murillo said. “They don’t give us any money. Only FEMA was the only thing that we got since, then no more.”

Starting from scratch is not an option regardless of the amount of money it costs to repair the flood damage. For Murillo, the only choice was to eliminate one room because her household couldn’t afford to fix it even with insurance and FEMA. 

“We lost everything. To come home and see everything was like a tornado,” Murillo said. “My fridge was close to the door, you cannot even open it. The TV was all flipped down, all over by dogs under the fridge. Everything went so bad. Every memory is only them, because they were my babies.”

According to Murillo, it would take at least $50,000 to fix all of the damage caused. The funds given are still not life-changing to make an impact in recovery. The city should pay the affected residents back, Murillo said. 

“There’s a lot of homelessness, there was a lot of trash, people were being left behind and they never did nothing,” Murillo said. 

Regardless of certain obstacles, Movassaghi urges people to take advantage of the ReCoverCA program. Workshops will continue from July 7 to 9 and California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) will be hosting ongoing in-person application assistance twice a week at the Malcolm X Branch Library through the end of July.

“We really encourage folks to apply, to come in and talk to us to see what you’re eligible for because everybody’s recovery path is very different,” Movassaghi said.