Courtesy NASA
VENTNOR – Residents will gather in Ventnor Heights Oct. 29 to remember that seven years after Superstorm Sandy, there are still residents who are not back in their homes.
A community gathering will be held at noon Tuesday at 309 N. Cambridge Ave. to find solutions for struggling families, according to a release from the New Jersey Organizing Project, an organization that provides advocacy for struggling families.
While some families are still not back in their homes, those who are face the reality of grant clawbacks and the rising costs of flood insurance, NJ Organizing Project representative Alison Arne said in the release.
Nearly 11% percent of families in the RREM program still have not completed construction or elevation projects and 23% have not completed their close out.
Arne said community members are concerned it will become unaffordable to live in the homes they worked so hard to rebuild.
“Many families do not have enough funding to complete their recovery. If it were not for the Supplemental Funding program that Gov. Murphy and the New Jersey Organizing Project announced on the last anniversary, many would not make it home. It’s critical that as many families as possible get access to this funding as soon as possible so they can move forward,” she said.
Storm survivors are being asked to pay back insurance money, loans and grants because of an outdated and dysfunctional disaster recovery system, she said.
“The state took a major step forward when Gov. Murphy announced a freeze on clawbacks last year. But a freeze does not mean money is not owed, just that repayment is not due at this time,” Arne said.
Residents continue to question why they are being asked to repay funds when they did their best often with dysfunctional programs or incorrect information, she said.
While recovery efforts are ongoing, FEMA is preparing to update flood maps and flood insurance pricing, which could double the number of properties in designated flood zones and increase premium prices every four years.
Without effective mitigation that keeps insurance premiums down, caps on premium increases, and accountability and oversight over private insurers, that certainty becomes less clear, she said.
For more information, contact Alison Arne at 609-290-2425 or alison@newjerseyop.org.
