Governor John Bel Edwards has been in DC this week meeting with lawmakers in hopes of getting disaster relief funding for the state. He said it’s been a productive week and measures have been introduced in both chambers for disaster relief for the nation as a whole for 2020 and 2021.
“Part of that will ultimately come to Louisiana. First of all, the bill has to pass, then each agency at the federal level that is appropriated money has to figure out how much of that is going to get apportioned to which state,” said Edwards.
Edwards said there’s significant help in the bills and not just in Community Development Block Grant funding for housing needs, but also the Corps of Engineers, Department of Transportation for emergency work on highways and bridges, the Department of Commerce for fisheries disasters, and the USDA for crop and timber losses.
“And I can’t say right now that this will fully take care of our needs related to 2020. We’re going to keep working on that and we have meetings ongoing with HUD for example around the Community Development Block Grant portion,” said Edwards.
The governor said the main focus of this trip is to secure funding for unmet housing needs after the 2020 hurricanes and while there he’s also laying the foundation for Ida needs as well.
“But we think that we have well over $900-million in unmet need in housing alone for the 2020 storms in Louisiana,” said Edwards.
The governor has been meeting with decision-makers since Monday and today is his last day in DC.
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