Donna Gibson is case manager and supervisor for disaster recovery for a number of faith-based groups in the Valley.

EDINBURG, Jan. 28 - A workshop will be held involving Hidalgo County Commissioners and Valley Interfaith on Friday to see if their differences over how Hurricane Dolly relief funds should be distributed can be settled.

The commissioners say they want to help because they have been allocated $2 million from FEMA and if they do not use the money it will have to be returned to Washington, D.C.

Valley Interfaith says the county has unilaterally imposed rules for the distribution of the funds that make it almost impossible for residents to successfully apply for help.

“Our first disaster was Hurricane Dolly. Our second disaster was Hidalgo County,” said Sister Maria Sanchez, a Valley Interfaith leader from McAllen.

“The county has been imposing barriers to deny families assistance to prevent them from applying before the state approves any guidelines.”

Gilberto Hinojosa and his partner Charlene King of Edcouch joined Sanchez at commissioners’ court on Tuesday to protest the rules the county has imposed for distributing Hurricane Dolly relief funds. The couple has a ten year old son who is severely disabled. Their home was badly damaged by Dolly and they have applied four times to FEMA for assistance but without success.

“Our house shifted, the floorboards bowed, the walls cracked, and the roof was damaged. We got rained out,” Hinojosa told the Guardian, after the meeting. “We applied to FEMA and they said we were not residents of Texas. That was because I was a migrant worker when Hurricane Dolly hit. They wanted us to bring an affidavit to show we were citizens and still we were turned down.”

Hinojosa and King say the cost of the damage to their home due to Dolly is in the region of $20,000. “I fixed up what I could but it still needs a lot of work. I am trying to make it livable for my family,” said Hinojosa, who has now given up migrant work to become a meter reader for the City of Edcouch. He said he hopes the county will be more sympathetic to his family’s plight than FEMA.

Hidalgo County Commissioner Oscar Garza said he is sympathetic to the plight of residents whose homes were damaged by Dolly. It was Garza who called for Friday’s workshop.

“There are some local rules that might be conflicting with the federal rules so we are going to have a workshop on Friday to see if we can accommodate more households. That could also mean that the cap could be lowered but a little help is better than no help. Hopefully we will be able to accommodate 40 to 100 families, maybe more,” Garza said.

Garza said county commissioners were not certain they would receive the $2 million for Dolly relief. “We have never had this windfall of money before so this is going to be a separate program where we are going to look at the criteria closely. Now that we have got it we feel we can work with these families. This is a small window and if we do not utilize it correctly the federal government is going to take that money and send it to Haiti. We are going to do our best to accommodate the families that need help here in the Valley,” he said.

Valley Interfaith presented county commissioners with a list of the 12 criteria set out by the county that residents applying for relief must satisfy. Alongside the 12 criteria, the group added its own comments.

Against the first criteria, which said that everyone in the home must be a U.S. citizen to qualify for help, Valley Interfaith wrote: “According to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, this is not a requirement of federal or state statutes.”

The second criteria is that an applicant must have warranty deed under the applicant’s name. “During the 2009 legislative session, HB 2450 made it a violation of state law to require a warranty deed or fee,” Valley Interfaith responded.

The third criteria is that there must be no liens on the property. “While this may be a county standard for assistance under other programs, no additional restriction to housing recovery should be imposed that is not mandated by the State,” Valley Interfaith responded.

Donna Gibson is case manager and supervisor for disaster recovery for a number of faith-based groups in the Valley. Gibson told the Guardian that Hidalgo County’s distribution of disaster relief funds contrasts sharply with Cameron and Willacy counties. In those counties, she said, non-profits have been asked to to do the case management of applications.

“The applicants have been told you can only have one dwelling on your property and for some of our families you have grandma living in another home. We have cases where some nice homes have been damaged and in order to get assistance they would have to tear down aunt’s house or grandma’s house in order to qualify,” Gibson said.

Sanchez said of the 50-plus families that sought to apply for disaster assistance, only three families were allowed to.

“By not allowing families to apply the county is setting itself up for legal action based on violations of HUD’s fair housing requirements,” Sanchez said. “We are here to ask commissioners’ court to immediately suspend any pre-application screening and remove any restrictions on the use of housing repair dollars that is not mandated by the state. Since the state has not published those restrictions, we should not be disqualifying families or discouraging them from applying.”

Write Steve Taylor

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