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Dominic Anthony Walsh\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n
Ronald Demery\u2019s Houston home was damaged by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Hurricane Beryl in 2024.<\/p>\n
Two years after the derecho wind event<\/a> and Hurricane Beryl<\/a> tore through Houston, city officials greenlit a $45 million repair and reconstruction program for single-family homes damaged by the storms. <\/p>\n Under the guidelines approved Wednesday, households earning 80% or less of the area median income<\/a> are eligible to apply for up to $100,000 in repairs or up to $300,000 for reconstruction. <\/p>\n “The derecho was considered the most damaging wind event to affect Houston in nearly 25 years,” the agenda item from the city’s housing department stated. “Hurricane Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, producing life-threatening floods. Both catastrophic weather events resulted in extensive damage to homes, infrastructure, and businesses.”<\/p>\n Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n The program’s funding comes from a $315 million award issued to the city by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) after the storms. <\/p>\n If not for advocacy by community members, housing advocates and Tiffany Thomas, chair of the city council’s housing committee, the program would not exist. <\/p>\n Mayor John Whitmire’s initial proposal<\/a> wouldn’t have allocated any of HUD’s funding toward housing. After pushback, he conceded to Thomas and raised the housing allocation to $100 million, including the single-family program along with a multi-family initiative. <\/p>\n RELATED: Houston City Council approves amended disaster recovery plan with $100 million for housing repairs<\/a><\/p>\n Still, that amount will alleviate but not erase the damage caused by the storms. In 2024, HUD estimated the city faced $229 million in necessary housing repair, reconstruction and property losses \u2014 with nearly 4,000 households found to have \u201cserious unmet housing needs.\u201d<\/p>\n If the funding flows entirely toward home reconstruction, less than 200 households could receive assistance through the newly approved program. Council member Julian Ramirez delayed the item last week. <\/p>\n “I think we should be getting more for our money and trying to help more families,” Ramirez said Wednesday, though he voted in favor of the program. “This is a philosophical difference with our housing leadership.”<\/p>\n The $315 million allocation is also supporting a large investment in backup power generators at city facilities, the operation of the city’s new residential service center for homeless people<\/a> and debris removal operations. <\/p>\n