{"id":77645,"date":"2025-12-09T23:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/77645\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T23:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:18:13","slug":"residents-can-soon-apply-for-sunrise-st-pete-disaster-recovery-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/77645\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents can soon apply for Sunrise St. Pete disaster recovery funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s been a long road to recovery for neighbors in Shore Acres trying to bounce back after recent storms.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout as bad as it can be,\u201d said Ivan Smerznak, whose home was damaged after Hurricane Helene.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Residents can soon apply for Sunrise St. Pete disaster recovery funds<\/p>\n

Residents can soon apply for Sunrise St. Pete disaster recovery funds<\/p>\n

Smerznak shared pictures and video with Tampa Bay 28, showing a home in ruins and an unrecognizable neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor at least two months afterwards, the entire neighborhood smelled like sewage,\u201d said Smerznak. “You couldn\u2019t even see the yards because it was piles of people\u2019s personal belongings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the city is looking to give neighbors a lifeline.<\/p>\n

\"pic<\/p>\n

Ivan Smerznak<\/p>\n

Applications for the Sunrise St. Pete <\/a>disaster recovery funds will open soon.<\/p>\n

The City of St. Pete got nearly $160 million from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. It\u2019s meant to support the long-term recovery efforts from Hurricanes Idalia and Helene.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing some type of program that actually aims to help residents is a huge step and certainly happy about that, going to look into it,\u201d said Smerznak.<\/p>\n

\"pic<\/p>\n

Ivan Smerznak<\/p>\n

The funds will be used to help rebuild homes, give rental and mortgage assistance, among other needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number one thing that would help us is to elevate it just because we had four feet of water in the house,\u201d said Smerznak. “If we were elevated, it would still be bad, but we wouldn\u2019t have to be out of the house, and we could actually not worry every hurricane season about whether we could stay there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just down the road, Charlie Ann Turner was dealt a similar deck of problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cEta really wasn\u2019t that bad. It was a couple inches, and then Idalia was 16, and then Helene was four,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"pic<\/p>\n

Ivan Smerznak<\/p>\n

Turner grew up in the neighborhood, which she calls a hidden gem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still need help,\u201d said Turner. “Personally, my house has not been touched since Helene, so we\u2019re working on going into the second year, and I haven\u2019t even been able to start construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

City leaders want people to know the program is designed to help after all other assistance has been exhausted.<\/p>\n

People can apply for assistance starting Monday, Dec. 15.<\/p>\n

\"pic<\/p>\n

Ivan Smerznak<\/p>\n

Share Your Story with Mary

Mary O\u2019Connell has a primary focus on education-related stories for Tampa Bay 28. But she also keeps an eye on public health concerns and the always-changing car insurance market. Reach out to Mary to share any of your questions or concerns.
.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Victims identified from Sunday shooting outside Clearwater sports bar<\/p>\n

Officials said the incident happened just before 8 p.m. on Dec. 7 when multiple calls came in about gunfire near the South Highland Avenue business.<\/p>\n

Clearwater mourns man killed in sports bar shooting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s been a long road to recovery for neighbors in Shore Acres trying to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[205,43618,43619,43620,26619,596,43621,202,204,203,199,201,200,11392,3670,208],"class_list":["post-77645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-abc-action-news","tag-disaster-recovery-funds-st-pete","tag-hurricane-helene-damange","tag-hurricane-idalia-damage","tag-mayor-ken-welch","tag-pinellas-county","tag-shore-acres-flooding","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-sunrise-st-pete","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}