“Restore Louisiana” project re-launched for homes damaged in Laura and Delta

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - The “Restore Louisiana” project is being re-launched by the Louisiana Office of Community Development (OCD) in the hopes of providing additional assistance to low-to-moderate income residents who had their homes damaged in Hurricanes Laura and Delta.

“We all know that the folks in Southwest Louisiana have been waiting for well over a year now for some kind of assistance,” Executive Director of Louisiana Office of Community Development Pat Forbes said. “We are glad that it’s finally here, albeit late, but it can be huge.”

The program is for anyone who:

Owned and occupied their home as a primary residence at the time of the disaster
Is still the owner of the home
Received a major/severe damage determination by FEMA
Have low-to-moderate income.

The project’s survey is the first step in applying for program assistance. After you complete the initial survey, the program will provide periodic text and email updates regarding program launch, application availability, and any next steps required.

You can find a link to the survey HERE.

OCD’s “Restore Louisiana” project is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through federal appropriations of Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds. While the project was initially established to help homeowners that were impacted by the March and August 2016 Floods, it has now been expanded to federally declared disasters in 2020 and 2021.

While HUD funds have only been allocated to assist with homes damaged in Hurricanes Laura and Delta, the OCD is encouraging anyone who had their home damaged in the following disasters to fill out their survey as well:

Hurricane Zeta (2020)
Severe Winter Storms (February 2021)
Severe Storms, Tornadoes, and Flooding (May 2021)
Hurricane Ida (2021)

“We’ve now got to go through a series of steps that are defined by HUD to make the funds available,” Forbes said. “It’s important that folks know - we don’t have the funds available right now, our best case scenario is late Spring.”

In October 2021, HUD announced that nearly $600 million would be allocated to Louisiana and a portion of those funds can be used to assist homeowners impacted by Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta. Additional funds are expected for other storm events from 2020 and 2021, but the timeline is unknown.

At this time, there are still several federally required steps that must be completed before federal funds can be provided to the state for the “Restore Louisiana” project.

While the state awaits funding approval from HUD, the initial program survey has been launched to help avoid future delays in making program applications available and providing homeowners with the federal funds for their recovery.

If you need assistance in completing the survey, you can call 866-735-2001 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.