10/15/17 — Meeting to address funding, resources for those struggling to recover from Hurricane Matthew

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Meeting to address funding, resources for those struggling to recover from Hurricane Matthew

By Steve Herring
Published in News on October 15, 2017 1:45 AM

Residents still struggling to recover from Hurricane Matthew are being encouraged to attend a Wednesday workshop that will cover some of the various resources, including funding, housing and legal assistance, available to them.

The Hurricane Matthew Recovery Workshop will be held from 4 to 7:30 p.m. in the WAGES training room, 601 Royall Ave.

It is being conducted by Legal Aid of N.C.-Wilson and the N.C. Association of Community Development Corporations and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"When a natural disaster occurs most people don't realize that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency )is not set up to make the hurricane survivor whole," said Yolanda Taylor, managing attorney for Legal Aid of N.C.-Wilson. "So various other funding sources have to come into play. Within your community you have a single-family loan pool disaster recovery administered by the city (of Goldsboro)." On top of that Wayne County has been awarded a nearly $17 million Community Development Block Grant for disaster recovery. The total could increase to $25 million over the next three years.

However, residents have already been devastated and perhaps do not have the time or the ability to understand the nuances of what is needed to be done, she said.

"The purpose (of the meeting) is to highlight these various funding sources and help people understand what the requirements are and parameters are because these funding sources, and this is a little bit unfortunate, have different requirements," she said.

"Long term, it is frustrating if you are sitting there, and cannot get into your home and you are trying to hang on and believe that something is going to happen. So it (workshop) is to encourage people, but it is also to inform them about what is available."

Legal Aid is a nonprofit law firm that provides some legal services in civil matters for low-income residents in order to ensure equal access to justice, Taylor said.

It has a lot of components to bring the crisis, she said including consumer legal assistance which does not receive a lot of publicity.

"We are also are engaged in removing legal barriers to economic opportunities," Taylor said. "So we have lawyers that work on community economic development matters in North Carolina. To be a community lawyer we represent nonprofit organizations. We partner with organizations like the North Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations, and we partner with nonprofit housing developers in order to assist the low (income) population communities that exist in eastern North Carolina.

"Disaster relief is a big part of our community development work because as we know that usually a natural disaster has the biggest impact on communities that are in low-lying plains. Typically those communities are minority communities or low-income communities who are more vulnerable to these natural disasters."

Last year the agency helped hurricane survivors access FEMA benefits, helped them understand their insurance claims, helped with home repair and contractors, in replacing valuable legal documents like wills, she said.

There were many survivors who can no longer live in their damaged homes, she said. Also, people may have problems because they lost their jobs because the workplace was destroyed, she said.

"But there were landlords who were still trying to charge them rent during the months that the hurricane occurred," Taylor said. "We had a lot of landlord-tenant advice and work that we had to do. As far as mortgage foreclosure type consumer work, we represented clients who were displaced from their homes, living hotels, but still having to pay a mortgage.

"We have a mortgage foreclosure prevention project within Legal Aid that comes up with strategies going to use help post disaster."

The agency also works with federal Housing and Urban Development counselors and provides education about fair housing laws and what they mean, she said.

One option to save a home from foreclosure is a Chapter 13 bankruptcy -- a way to reorganize debt, she said.

Work is done as well to educate people about consumer scams, what to look out for, she said.

"You know when there is a disaster the scammers come out," Taylor said.

Eastern North Carolina has been devastated, but a very unique opportunity exists because there is more money on the table in the region for a range of rebuilding activities than there has been in quite some time, said Susan Cole with the N.C. Association of Community Development Corporations.

"This could help the area reposition itself in terms of economic and community advancement. That is the first thing that I wanted to say," she said.

The workshop is sponsored by USDA Rural Development that has a range of product lines for rural communities -- everything from infrastructure to housing, Cole said.

Rebuilding communities does not happen overnight, it takes a period of years, Cole said.

"After we witnessed the devastation in the Caribbean, and in Texas and in Florida, I think we have a deeper meaningful appreciation of what these super storms era we are in is doing to our communities and how long it is going to take for us to recover," she said.

"We are hopeful that communities are thinking strategically, thinking from a resilience perspective on how they can use the money."

For more information, contact Savannah Copeland at 252-443-4659 or email ljoyner@ncacdc.org. The Legal Aid Helpline is 866-219-5262.