While southeast Louisiana is in dire need of power, fuel, and housing for displaced residents, it’s been more than a year now for southwest Louisiana residents who still need permanent housing after hurricanes Laura and Delta. Governor Edwards said Community Block Grant Disaster Recovery assistance has yet to be approved by Congress.
“But what they need is permanent housing and that money has not yet been appropriated, by Congress so that HUD can give us the CBGD funding that we need,” said Edwards.
President Biden said he will include that block grant funding in his federal budget that will be voted on by Congress before the next fiscal year begins October first.
Hurricane Ida has not only jolted southeast Louisiana, but its journey north has also claimed close to 50 lives in New Jersey and New York. With national attention on the hurricane, Edwards hopes it will rally Congress to approve funding for both areas of the state.
“But we know the nation is focused on Louisiana right now for Ida, and we’re going to take advantage of that and see if we can’t turn that into a very speedy appropriation in Congress,” said Edwards.
Edwards said the state has supported southwest Louisiana as much as fiscally possible but the bulk of the funding the area desperately needs for permanent housing must be approved by Congress.
“First of all, we’re going to take care of the people in southwest Louisiana it’s just going to be later than it needed to be, and I don’t want people to think that we haven’t been working for southwest Louisiana,” said Edwards.
Ida is now the fifth hurricane to impact the Bayou State during the pandemic and the fifth most powerful hurricane to hit the U-S.
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