logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

No Deeds Means No Dollars for Owners of Hurricane-Damaged Puerto Rico Homes

Marian Conway
May 14, 2018
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
By Ashley Andujar (This image is from the FEMA Photo Library.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

May 8, 2018; NBC News

In order for a homeowner to receive FEMA benefits after a disaster, they must produce a valid deed to the home, or an approved alternative:

FEMA verifies ownership through inspection, automated public and government records or submitted documents such as:

  • Deed, title or lease.
  • Bill of sale or land installment contract.
  • Mortgage payment booklet, property tax receipt or property tax bill.
  • Last will and testament (along with a death certificate) naming applicant heir to the property.
  • Real property structure insurance.

As a last resort, FEMA may accept a self-declaration, which includes a complete explanation of the history of the home for the applicant, length of time at the residence, and why there is no documentation. However, some residents of Puerto Rico have not been able to prove through any of these means that they own the houses where they have lived for decades.

Maria Medina, for instance, has a couple of walls with no roof after the damage done by Hurricane Maria about eight months ago. She bought the land about 20 years ago for $1,500. Medina and her husband built the house, but she has no title. She has been denied FEMA assistance over and over again, as she waits in an apartment with no power and no water within sight of the skeleton of her home.

Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans are in the same boat.

As of May 1, “FEMA has received 1,118,862 million registrations for disaster assistance,” said FEMA spokesperson Ron Roth in a statement to NBC News. “The number of approved registrations for FEMA grants totals 452,290. The number of registrations deemed ineligible is 335,748.”

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Estimates of the number of homes without proper documentation that may have been built informally or illegally in communities of lower income range from 260,000 to 700,000.

“In rural areas, sometimes you have a grandpa who owned a land that was passed down generation after generation and they never registered the property,” said Michelle Sugden-Castillo, a housing nonprofit consultant in Puerto Rico. A lot of these pieces of property go by a family’s name, but they still lack the proper paperwork.

The ability to provide a declaration to FEMA has aided some homeowners, but even those changes have not helped so many. Some communities were originally squatter settlements, formed on public land over 80 years ago after another storm, Hurricane San Ciprian.

Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo Rosselló, and housing secretary Fernando Gil Enseñat have provided 300 lease subsidies and 62 titles to property, but these have not put a dent in the need for homeowners whose homes have been destroyed.

In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, disaster case managers spent months attempting to bring a combination of grant money and state and federal benefits to homeowners with and without proper documentation. Funding was stalled for such causes as an absentee landlord, or a homeowner who had another relative on the deed who died, or a family member on the deed who would not sign off for NY Rising funds. These were dozens of cases, not hundreds of thousands of cases, as Puerto Rico is facing.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has supplied the island with the largest award for disaster recovery in its history—a $18.5 billion grant, which NPQ will cover in greater detail tomorrow—along with a separate distribution of $1.5 billion in February. HUD has tight rules and protocols that much be adhered to before money is distributed. Plans and public hearings must happen first, which means that there won’t be any money to spend for months.

Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans continue to sit in the dark.—Marian Conway

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Marian Conway

Marian Conway, the executive director of the NY Community Bank Foundation, has a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies, Writing and a Ph.D. in Public Policy, Nonprofit Management. She has discovered that her job and education have made her a popular person with nonprofits and a prime candidate for their boards. Marian keeps things in perspective, not allowing all that to go to her head, but it is difficult to say no to a challenge, especially participating in change, in remaking a board. She is currently on eleven boards of various sizes and has learned to say no.

More about: government grantsNonprofit NewsPolicyPuerto Rico

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
The Human Impact of the Global Refugee Crisis Must Be Understood—And Acted Upon
Anmol Irfan
Achieving Climate Resilience in Puerto Rico Requires Self-Determination
Iris Crawford
Five Years after Hurricane Maria, Energy Justice in Puerto Rico Gains Ground
Jonathan Castillo Palanco and Ruth Santiago

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of...
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.