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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"> <font
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href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/fema-has-either-denied-or-not-approved-most-appeals-housing-n891716">https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/fema-has-either-denied-or-not-approved-most-appeals-housing-n891716</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">FEMA has either denied or not approved
most appeals for housing aid in Puerto Rico</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time"><span
class="inlineAuthor___sgwQx">by Nicole Acevedo / </span><span
class="pubDate___21qBX"><span><time
class="pubDate___3OViw" datetime="Tue Jul 17 2018
21:39:46 GMT+0000 (UTC)">Jul.17.2018</time></span></span></div>
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<p>After hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans were
denied FEMA assistance to rebuild their homes after
Hurricane Maria, most of the families who have appealed
the agency's decision have not received aid.</p>
<p>FEMA has either denied or not answered 79 percent —
almost eight-in-ten — of the appeals, leaving residents
and officials worried about the fate of their dwellings
as the island faces another hurricane season.</p>
<p>After denying at least<a
href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/no-deeds-no-aid-rebuild-homes-puerto-rico-s-reconstruction-n868396">
335,748 applications </a>from thousands of Puerto
Ricans asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) for disaster assistance to fix their
hurricane-ravaged homes, many decided to appeal the
agency's decision to not grant them aid.</p>
<p>As of July 12, “there have been more than 43,000
appealed cases from survivors of Hurricane Maria in
Puerto Rico. Of those, more than 7,500 have been
approved and more than 34,000 have been deemed
ineligible,” said Lenisha Smith, a FEMA spokesperson, in
a statement to NBC News.</p>
<section></section>
<p>According to FEMA, applicants can be “deemed
ineligible” if they were not able to prove sufficient
damage, or if the applicant could not be contacted for
an inspection — which is required to receive aid — or if
the agency was unable to prove the applicant's identity,
occupancy or the home ownership status.</p>
<p>One of the biggest issues after the hurricane w<a
href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/no-deeds-no-aid-rebuild-homes-puerto-rico-s-reconstruction-n868396">as
proving ownership among families who lacked a title or
deeds to their home.</a></p>
<p>Ramón A. Paez Marte, 44, who lives in the Comunidad
Valle Hill in the town of Canóvanas, provided FEMA with
a letter from town officials acknowledging that he owns
his home and has lived there for roughly 20 years.</p>
<p>“The last letter we got from them [FEMA] said that we
haven’t demonstrated that we are the owners [of the
home],” he said about his appeal case.</p>
<p>He said FEMA can bring "federal agents, the DEA, FBI,
all the people you want" to investigate if he owns his
property. "The truth is that we’re here because this is
ours and the only document proving that is that letter
from the mayor’s office,” Paez Marte said.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Paez Marte's house still has a part of
its roof missing as well as a broken door.</p>
<p>Aside from issues with property deeds, FEMA's Smith
cited other reasons for denials or delays.</p>
<p>“Please keep in mind that there may be factors to
consider like the duplicate registrations per
household,” Smith said. “Another thing to consider is
that we could be waiting for further documentation from
survivors to complete the application before determining
eligibility.”</p>
<p>However, if an applicant does “not hold a formal title
to the residence and pays no rent, but is responsible
for the payment of taxes or maintenance of the
residence,” FEMA can still be able to verify their
ownership status, according to <a
href="https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1483567080828-1201b6eebf9fbbd7c8a070fddb308971/FEMAIHPUG_CoverEdit_December2016.pdf">agency
guidelines.</a></p>
<h3>"Inconsistent," say advocates about approvals, denials</h3>
<p>Adi Martínez Román, lawyer and executive director of <a
href="https://fundacionfondoaccesoalajusticia.org/">Fundación
Fondo de Acceso a la Justicia,</a> a nonprofit that
provides legal assistance in civil cases for people in
need, said she found FEMA’s way of denying and granting
aid to be highly inconsistent. Even when FEMA
regulations do not require formal title papers,
sometimes even having a property title didn't guarantee
FEMA aid to applicants.</p>
<p>Martínez Román saw cases in which FEMA denied aid to
people with deeds.</p>
<section></section>
<p>“There were people who had the formal deed of property
title,” she said. “This document doesn't necessarily
identify the property with a specific address. They read
something like, the property defined in the north by the
boundary with the property of the family so and so, and
to the south… Addresses were not traditionally used in
property title deeds.”</p>
<p>Martínez Román explained that this became a problem
when FEMA would cross reference information about the
home: electricity bills, phone bills, etc. “They would
say, but wait a minute, this information doesn’t match.
And the lawyers would have to step in and explain to
them how these documents worked differently.”</p>
<p>In other cases, she saw FEMA grant aid to applicants
who had no formal title deeds to their property but were
able to present other types of documents such as a sworn
Affidavit that describes how long they have been living
at the disaster-damaged home, that they are in charge of
the maintenance cost of the property, and an explanation
as to why the formal documents are unavailable or other
type of evidence.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.elnuevodia.com/english/english/nota/mostrequestsforfemaassistancehavebeendenied-2435549/">According
to an article in El Nuevo Día,</a> Puerto Rico's
largest newspaper, attorneys and families also cited
issues around FEMA's inspection practices, a process
necessary for the agency to verify ownership. Some claim
inspectors didn't speak Spanish, did not go inside the
homes or did not come back if the homeowners weren't
there.</p>
<p>During what FEMA described as a <a
href="https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2018/07/12/fema-releases-2017-hurricane-season-fema-after-action-report">“record
breaking”</a> hurricane season, the agency counted
with a smaller total budget compared to the year before.
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s<a
href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/DHS%20FY18%20BIB%20Final.pdf">
budget brief for fiscal year 2018</a>, the president’s
budget for FEMA was $15,552,106,000. The amount shows a
3.7 percent decrease — equal to $599,645,000 — from in
fiscal year 2017.</p>
<p>As Puerto Rico grapples with hundreds of thousands of
families who have not received any FEMA assistance for
their damaged homes, the island and the federal
government have announced other initiatives to address
the issue of housing and rebuilding.</p>
<p>The Puerto Rico Department of Housing is developing a <a
href="http://www.cdbg-dr.pr.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Z_3-Public-Comment-Answers.pdf">disaster
recovery action plan</a> to put community development
programs in place with the help of the Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) agency that would help rebuild
neighborhoods and existing infrastructure. If HUD
approves the plan, Puerto Rican officials estimate that
the programs will begin in September.</p>
<p>In May, HUD gave Puerto Rico an <a
href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/hud-announces-puerto-rico-funding-rebuild-hurricane-damaged-housing-infrastructure-n864961">$18.5
billion grant</a>, the largest single amount of
disaster recovery assistance awarded in the agency's
history. It also allocated $1.5 billion to the island in
February — bringing the agency's total investment in
Puerto Rico’s recovery to $20 billion.</p>
<p>“These public funds could be used to deal with the
issues caused by floods and the issues around property
titles,” Jeniffer González, Puerto Rico’s nonvoting
representative in Congress, said during the
announcement.</p>
<p>Puerto Rican officials have to comply with a strict
protocol that includes public hearings and clear public
plans in order for HUD to disburse the funds, meaning
that it will be several months before Puerto Rico can
actually spend the money in reconstruction efforts.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Paez Marte said that, with the help of
lawyers from <a
href="https://fundacionfondoaccesoalajusticia.org/">Fundación
Fondo de Acceso a la Justicia</a>, he's going to
resend his home documentation with a new letter and “try
again because this is not fair.”</p>
<p>“I don’t live here because I want to,” Paez Marte said.
“No one that lives here, lives here willingly. We’re
here because we truly have nowhere else to go.”</p>
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