Disaster Recovery

The natural disasters of 2008 prompted the designation of 88 Iowa counties to be presidentially declared disaster areas. IDED received, through two CDBG Disaster Recovery appropriations from Congress, totaling $882,828,814 to assist recovery efforts. Implementation began as soon as the first appropriation was approved by the president in anticipation of the receipt of these funds. A distribution system was quickly initiated through a combination of entitlement cities and merged Councils of Governments (COG) regions. Subsequently, allocation decisions for each activity were determined and distributed to these entities. A Duplication of Benefit process was designed, as required by the federal Stafford Act, and has been named a model program by the HUD disaster office. The first CDBG dollars were “on the street” within four months of HUD’s notification of funds availability to the state. In other disaster impacted states, funds did not flow for more than two years in many instances.

The Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED) is assisting with Disaster Recovery Assistance. Activities designed and coordinated with other state agencies and the Rebuild Iowa Office include:

• Jumpstart Housing - A program designed to provide funds to repair damaged homes, bring them up to building standards and meet lead safe housing requirements. A maximum of $60,000 per project was allowed.
• Jumpstart Express – A secondary housing repair program which provided funds to repair homes, bring them up to building standards without the abatement requirements of lead safe housing regulations. A maximum of $24,999 per project was allowed.
• Interim Mortgage Assistance - An activity was created to assist disaster victims with mortgage assistance dollars on their flood damaged home. Initially HUD allowed only three months of assistance but granted the state’s waiver request and extended this benefit to 20 months of assistance or time of buyout whichever came first.
• Homebuyer’s Assistance - This program provided up to $60,000 for disaster victims to use as down payment assistance on a replacement home and also to bring the replacement home up to building standards if necessary. 
• Rental Rehab Assistance – Landlords were the recipient of this activity as it provided up to $24,999 per unit damaged in the 2008 disasters. Units which were owner occupied were excluded.
• Single Family New Production - This program provided cities and COG regions with an allocation of funds to incent developers to build new single family homes by providing a 30 percent subsidy to the buyer of the home. The maximum home price allowed was $180,000 and the maximum subsidy was $54,000.
• Multi-Family New Production - An activity was designed to incent developers to build multi-family projects up to 12 units in disaster impacted communities to replace lost units. The program provided a subsidy of $60,000 per unit and required an affordability period of five years and restricted both rent levels on the units and tenant income levels of those who could live there.
• Infrastructure Repair and Replacement - An allocation of $122 million dollars was allocated to repair and replace damaged infrastructure in disaster impacted areas. Since limited dollars were available in contrast to the need, efforts focused on health and safety and flood mitigation projects. Program decision making process worked closely with I-JOBS and FEMA funded projects to leverage dollars further.
• Jumpstart Business - An activity designed to assist businesses to recover from the initial impact of the flood.   The award was based on physical or economic damages as the result of the disasters.  A maximum of $50,000 dollars per business was provided.
• Business Rental Assistance - A program created to enhance viability of disaster damaged commercial buildings by providing six months of rental assistance to businesses that continued to occupy or agreed to newly occupy disaster damaged commercial rental space. A maximum of $50,000 per business based on lease was allowed.
• Expanded Business Rental Assistance - Also for businesses who occupy disaster damaged rental space, this program provides assistance in the form of reimbursement for up to 75 percent of business expenses associated with the purchase of machinery and equipment, office equipment, furniture, supplies and inventory. Maximum award is $300,000 per business.
• Loan Interest Supplement Program – Provides assistance in the form of interest supplements to businesses who have obtained physical disaster loans or economic injury disaster loans from an eligible lender. Funds are provided for a maximum of three years, not to exceed $50,000 per business.
• Commercial Rental Revenue Gap Program – Provides assistance for commercial building owners to offset the loss of revenue from rental space that was physically damaged by the disaster. Awards may be up to $25,000 per unit.
• Residential Landlord Business Support – Provides assistance to residential landlords providing affordable housing, whose rental units were physically damaged by the disaster. Landlords are eligible to receive up to $15,000 per business tax identification number.
• Equipment Reimbursement Assistance Program – Provides equipment reimbursement to businesses that owned their building or leased rental space during the disaster. Businesses are eligible for 75% of expenses associated with the purchase of machinery and equipment, office equipment, furniture, supplies and inventory up to $300,000.
• Flood Insurance Reimbursement Program – Provides reimbursement for the cost of businesses flood/sewer back up and related business interruption insurance coverage. Reimbursement is for one year of coverage up to $5,000 per qualified business.
• Relocation Assistance Program – Provides relocation assistance to businesses located in the NW 1st Corridor who are now on the “wetside” of the proposed levee in Cedar Rapids. Eligible businesses will be reimbursed for the gap between the insurance proceeds/pre-flood property value and the actual cost to repair their business post disaster.
• Steam heat system retrofit program - A central steam plant in Cedar Rapids which provided heat for 150-200 businesses in the downtown core of Cedar Rapids was damaged beyond repair. Businesses dependent upon this system had to retrofit their buildings to provide their own internal mechanicals for heating their buildings. $16 million dollars was provided to assist businesses in the retrofit.
• Disaster Case Management Service for Businesses – This program is an adjunct to all of the business assistance program and provides disaster case managers to ensure access to the programs and assist with documentation. Case managers for businesses will plan, secure, coordinate, monitor and advocate for businesses affected by the disaster.
• A full time staff have been hired to administer this program in cooperation with the current IDED staff who are tenured employees at IDED with years of experience in CDBG, Housing, Environmental and Lead Safe Housing federal requirements. Many of these employees had been through the 1993 disasters and were able to provide guidance through this massive effort. As a result, the state was able to save tens of millions of dollars in consulting contracts that other states have used to administer the CDBG programs in disaster appropriations, which in turn provided more funds to survivors rather than to administration.