Still have hurricane damage? Free Manatee County program could repair your home

Starting May 1, Manatee County residents whose homes are still damaged from the 2024 hurricane season can apply for no-cost repairs.

The county is prepared to approve up to $75 million in home repair requests through the Lasting Manatee program, which county officials created last year to administer and distribute $252 million in disaster recovery grant funds awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) following 2024’s devastating hurricane season.

The $75 million Home Recovery Program will fund “rehabilitation, reconstruction and elevation of storm-damaged homes.” The program is for owner-occupied, single-family and manufactured homes, though county officials noted that some condominiums may qualify.

Applicants will be prioritized by income, age and disability status, according to the grant Action Plan. Homeowners are eligible to receive up to $250,000 for repairs and up to $450,000 for reconstruction or elevation, according to the plan.

The funds will be distributed as a five-year, forgivable loan, with no payments due as long as the home remains the applicant’s primary residence.

“We are ensuring that homeowners come first,” said Odugo Ohizu, communications coordinator for Lasting Manatee, at a meeting of the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday. “The Home Recovery Program is the largest of the housing budget allocation, and we’re dedicated to getting you into restored, safe housing as a priority.”

Manatee County to offer hurricane repair relief

Ohizu urged interested residents to apply immediately starting May 1 by visiting LastingManatee.org.

The process will start with a pre-application survey that asks homeowners to answer 13 mostly yes-or-no questions, including location, building type, income and mortgage information.

Staff provided the following timeline for the program:

• May 1: Pre-application opens
• June 1: Application opens
• June 30: Pre-application closes
• July 31: Application closes
• August to December 2026: Manatee County Government will verify documents, inspect homes and award funding to qualifying homeowners. Those homeowners will get to select from a list of pre-approved vendors provided by the county, staff said.
• January to April 2027: Home rehab construction begins, with completion in 2027. Some residents will have to temporarily relocate while work is completed.

Will grant program offer reimbursements?

For now, the Home Recovery Program will not offer reimbursements to residents who have already completed repairs to their homes.

At the board meeting, commissioners asked staff if that could be added as an option.

“If we get to a certain point ... and figure out that many or most residents have made those repairs on their own ... will we have the ability to kind of pivot and ... move to a reimbursement model to the extent that we need to?” Commissioner Amanda Ballard asked.

Staff said that would be possible, but it would require an amendment to the county’s Action Plan for the grant and approval by HUD — a process they estimate would take about a month.

Commissioner Tal Siddique motioned for staff to start developing a potential amendment to the plan to allow reimbursements, and the board voted unanimously in support.

“The reimbursement idea is just to give us options at the end of the day,” Siddique said. “The reality is in all of our districts on the coast ... there are hundreds of people that are affected that are looking to us and saying, ‘Well where’s my piece? Why am I not getting that? I spent all this money on the things that I would have qualified for had government not taken forever.’”

“This is about giving us the options to be able to respond to them,” Siddique added.

What’s next?

Ohizu encouraged residents to visit LastingManatee.org now to familiarize themselves with the website and sign up for email alerts ahead of the May 1 application opening.

“I want to underscore again that we’re working to serve residents and repair homes until every program dollar is spent,” Ohizu said.

At $75 million, the Home Recovery Program received the second-biggest piece of Manatee County’s funding from HUD. The biggest chunk of the grant money, $125 million, is set aside for the Infrastructure Recovery & Resiliency Program.

Ohizu said the grant team will return to present updates on the infrastructure portion of the grant at the public meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 19 in the Patricia M. Glass Chambers, 1112 Manatee Ave. W., Bradenton.