Letter to Shaun Donovan, Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development - Additional HUD Flood Recovery Funds

Letter

January 24, 2014

Dear Secretary Donovan:

We write to request the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) make a second allocation of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds in 2014 for Colorado to help finance urgently needed flood recovery projects in our state.

First, we want to express our appreciation for your work and the work of HUD staff in support of communities working to recover from the floods that struck our state this past fall. As you know, HUD recently allocated $62.8 million in CDBG-DR funds to finance ongoing flood recovery work in Colorado. State officials are working to implement a plan to use these dollars to help Colorado families, businesses and municipalities rebuild flooded homes and damaged infrastructure.

We also want to highlight the substantial unmet need our state continues to face in the wake of the historic September, 2013 floods. Coloradans continue to face significant challenges in the rebuilding and recovery effort. As you saw during your recent visit, the scale of the damage is overwhelming. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Small Business Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies are all providing substantial assistance to help Colorado homeowners, businesses, and local governments repair the damage. These resources, however, cannot completely meet the needs our residents face.

The state's initial assessment of housing damage, farm and business damage, and public infrastructure damage all far exceed, by hundreds of millions of dollars, the total amount federal agencies have identified as eligible for reimbursement under existing federal funding streams. Months after the flood waters receded, state and local recovery officials continue to grapple with a long list of incomplete projects to repair ditches, dams and stream gages, or rechannel waterways across the Colorado Front Range. In many cases, no federal funding is currently available to support these projects. Cumulatively, Colorado still faces an enormous shortfall in total flood recovery resources. This shortage underscores the need for additional CDBG-DR funding.

We understand HUD currently has over $3 billion in unallocated CDBG-DR funds. Given Colorado's ongoing challenges, we request that HUD allocate additional CDBG-DR funds to the state this year.

Thank you again for your support and your consideration.