The Galveston County Daily News
Homeowners face losing Ike-damaged property
By Rhiannon Meyers
The Daily News
Published October 4, 2009
Manuel Chavez Jr. sleeps on a mattress on the floor of a house Hurricane Ike flooded a year ago. There are holes in the roof where a tree fell through, leaving blackened tufts of insulation poking through the ceiling. There is a spider-web pattern of fissures in the floor where an uprooted tree cracked the concrete foundation. Drywall hidden behind a layer of gray stucco is moldy and rotten. The air-conditioning doesn’t work. Kemah city officials told Chavez he can’t live in these shabby conditions. He must repair his house and elevate it — or he must leave. Officials in Kemah and Clear Lake Shores warned the owners of at least seven other storm-damaged houses they must repair or demolish their properties.
But Chavez and others said they can’t afford the repairs. The flood of federal dollars that was supposed to help needy people repair and rebuild their hurricane-damaged houses haven’t arrived. Though the federal government set aside $3 billion to aid recovery from hurricanes Ike and Dolly, some people who need help the most can’t get it.
Coming To A Head
In the past year, officials in Kemah and Clear Lake Shores have allowed people to live in conditions the city never would have permitted before Hurricane Ike. But some people have done nothing to repair their houses. The situation is coming to a head, building inspector Jack Fryday said. Clear Lake Shores officials notified the owners of two houses they are living in substandard conditions, Fryday said.
In Kemah, at least six Spanish-speaking families, including Chavez and his elderly parents, have sought help from Lone Star Legal Aid to try and hold onto their houses, which they have been unable to repair or raise, Fryday said. Kemah eventually will set a firm deadline by which residents must repair, and in some cases elevate, their houses or must demolish them, City Manager Bill Kerber said. Kerber said he knows not all Kemah families can afford the repairs. Kemah referred residents who asked for help to area charities or church groups, but some residents never asked for help, he said.
Besides, they should have had flood insurance before Hurricane Ike, Kerber said.“The federal money is slow coming in — we understand that,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is that these people, whoever they are, decided to build in a flood plain and build in an area that is below base flood elevation and they got caught up in the system … and it’s unfortunate.”
Not Targeting Poor
Some people might not be able to afford to meet those standards and won’t be able to afford to live in Kemah, but the city is not trying to force out its poor, Kerber said.“I’m so tired of that crap — I really am,” he said. “It’s like we’re the bad guys. We’ve done everything in the world to try to help these people. I’m sorry they’re poor. I’m sorry that they don’t have any means. We tried to guide them in the right direction to those programs that are, unfortunately, late.
“But everybody wants to put the bad-guy thing on us. Like we don’t want the poor Mexicans or the poor blacks, and we only want the rich people and the Tilman Fertittas. That is absolutely ludicrous.” Fertitta is the CEO of Landry’s, which has invested millions in the city, including its landmark Boardwalk. A city is not protecting residents if it allows them to live in substandard and unsafe conditions, Kerber said. But Chavez said he doesn’t know what he’ll do if the city gives him the ultimatum to demolish. He already applied for a demolition permit for his house to buy time with the city. The permit expires in January. After that, the city could start condemnation procedures, or it could give residents more time to repair and rebuild their houses. That decision will be left to the city council, Kerber said.But, he added, Kemah can’t wait forever for those repairs to happen.
Help Slow To Arrive
In the meantime, there is a “major lack of resources” in Galveston County to help the neediest victims of Hurricane Ike, Brittany Rodriguez, Recovery for Ike Survivors Enterprise spokeswoman, said. The organization, which is operated by Lutheran Social Services, has been charged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency with finding Gulf Coast hurricane victims and connecting them with services or resources near their homes. The case management program is a first for FEMA. The agency gave Lutheran Social Services, which is based in Austin, and other organizations $24.3 million to hire case managers from area charitable organizations, including several in Galveston County. The case managers so far have found 548 Galveston County people who need help with everything from patching a hole in a roof to building an entirely new house, Rodriguez said. New cases come in daily, she said.Unfortunately, financial help in Galveston County is scarce, Rodriguez said.Local charities are stretched thin, she said. Federal dollars that are supposed to help people repair their homes won’t arrive for months.“One of the hardest things for case managers to do is having to contact people and say, ‘We’ve got your case, but there’s nothing we can do for you,’ which I’m sure is frustrating to people,” she said. “We want to help everybody. Our goal is to help everybody get back to their pre-disaster lives, but the resources aren’t there.”The situation should improve when the first round of federal Community Development Block Grant money — $1.3 billion already approved by the state — trickles down to Galveston County, Rodriguez said. The city of Galveston, which has hired a consultant to divide the money among needy homeowners and renters, could start helping people make repairs by January or February, city spokeswoman Alicia Cahill said.Galveston County may not be able to help people make repairs until the spring at the earliest.
They Must Leave
Every day that ticks by without help, Mark Holland inches closer to losing his childhood home in Clear Lake Shores. He collected $15,000 in insurance money, but it wasn’t enough to repair the brick home that filled with 5 feet of water during Hurricane Ike. He said he’s fighting the insurance company for more money. Holland lived with his brother in a travel trailer in front of his home until Clear Lake Shores told the brothers the trailer had to go. Leaders of the small town, taking pity on the Hollands, allowed them to keep the trailer until Oct. 31, but the brothers moved out anyway, City Manager Paul Shelley said. Since they couldn’t afford to repair the house, Holland built a temporary house — a small plywood storage shed with a loft and enough room for two beds, a desk and a few chairs. Without windows, the shed is stuffy and hot, even with the wide barn doors flung open. There’s no bathroom, so the brothers trek inside to use the moldy shower or the toilet.The air is thick, and it smells like rot and mold inside the darkened house. When neighbors complained about the noise from the generator the Hollands use to power a computer and cell phone chargers, the brothers muffled the sound by operating the gas-powered machine inside the gutted house. Every time they have to use the bathroom, they run inside, shut off the generator and throw open the doors of the house to ventilate the carbon monoxide.“I’ve got to tell them to leave,” Fryday, the inspector for both Kemah and Clear Lake Shores, said. “They’re just one step above being under a bridge.”
No Solutions
But, Holland said he can’t afford the repairs. He said he called the program run by Lutheran Social Services for help, but he hasn’t heard back. Rodriguez said while the organization’s goal is to contact clients within one or two weeks after they call, some case managers, especially in Galveston County, have been taking up to six weeks to return calls. The organization is working on fixing that lag time, she said. But even if the Hollands were assigned a case manager, the help they need to rebuild the house isn’t available.Fryday said he explained to the Hollands the city can’t continue to allow them to live in such unhealthy and substandard conditions.“What kind of solution do you have?” Fryday asked Holland.“The only solution I have is to put a bullet in my head,” Holland answered.
