N.J.: A third of Sandy housing aid distributed

Advocacy groups say funds allocated at a too-slow pace

Published: November 13, 2013
By The Associated Press

New Jersey officials said Tuesday that they have distributed just over one-third of the federal aid allocated for housing for families affected by superstorm Sandy.

The state Department of Community Affairs released the figure, which contradicts an analysis released earlier Tuesday by two housing advocacy groups that are critical of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration’s storm recovery effort when it comes to housing.

They found the figure was just 24 percent.

The figures cited in the report by the Housing and Community Development Network and Fair Share Housing Center relied on information provided by the state through open-records requests and news releases.

None of the factors was current, though, and some were more than a month old.

Fair Share received its data only after suing the state, saying there was no response to its open-records request for information about federal Sandy recovery grants. The group says it’s trying to understand the grants and the way they have been distributed.

The housing groups say the state has not moved quickly enough to distribute the $1.16 billion in housing aid the federal government awarded it in May as part of a $50 billion storm recovery package approved by Congress in January.

“Too many of our neighbors are still couch-surfing or struggling to live in homes that need to be repaired. They deserve better. The money has been allocated through programs that had prior approval from the federal government. We don’t understand why the Christie administration is not releasing the funds,” Staci Berger, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Network, said in a statement.

Lisa Ryan, a Community Affairs spokeswoman, said the state should not be blamed for moving slowly.

“We’ve always said that congressional inaction on the front end approving the disaster recovery funds would lead to delays on the back end,” she said in a statement. Congress did not approve storm aid until three months after Sandy hit on Oct. 29, 2012.

Ryan also said federal protocols for distributing money have slowed the process. She said the state is trying to get housing assistance to people who need it.

The housing money the state was awarded in May is to be the first of three installments of government aid for the state.