Nonprofit groups check homes still damaged 4 years after Hurricane Harvey

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Hurricane Harvey slammed the Houston area more than four years ago, but some people are still living with the impacts.

Recently, the government halted a distribution in mitigation and relief funds, which really hurt communities like Kashmere Gardens and Settegast.

"Plenty of us still need to get the proper repairs, so that they can live safely in their homes," said resident Carolyn Rivera.

Longtime Houstonians and members of Coalition for Environment Equity and Resilience (CEER) gathered on Wednesday to strategize and visit some of the properties that still need to be fixed up from Harvey.

"The funds are there. The community is ready to work and we are here just to facilitate and connect," Carmen Cavezza with CEER said.

Most of the homeowners on Wednesday's stops were elderly or have some kind of medical condition, so any help goes a long way. Last week, we told you how HUD deemed 628 pages of the Texas General Land office's action plan "insufficient", and halted the distribution of $1.2 billion approved for flood mitigation projects in Texas following Harvey.

The GLO told ABC13 they submitted their plan for approval in July 2021, but are just now finding out there's allegedly a problem. They went on to add that "the partisan political game being played by the Biden administration is putting Texans at risk."

Locals said they don't care who's responsible for helping them rebuild - the city of Houston, GLO or the U.S. government, but someone needs to get involved fast.

"We're suffering. While that ping pong ball going back and forth, and they forgetting to look down at us. I (have) a good idea. Let them come stay in our houses, and we come stay in their houses and we're going to see how fast it gets done then," Sandra Edwards said.

HUD said the GLO has 45 days to give them detailed paperwork detailing how their money would be spent to help communities and people at risk of natural disasters and climate change.

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