NEW YORK - Nearly half a million families battered by Hurricane Sandy are approved for more than $1 billion in disaster assistance grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency so far, according to FEMA's most recent tally this week.
In New York more than 90 percent of the more than $719 million in approved disaster grants is for housing, according to FEMA. That includes emergency grants to help make immediate repairs to homes to make them safe and livable, or money to rent temporary living space.
"Thirty days after the storm, we still have survivors without power or heat," said FEMA Federal Coordinating Officer Michael Byrne via a spokesman. "That's a huge problem."
Initial grants for two-month rental assistance can be extended for up to 18 months if necessary, FEMA spokesman Ed Conley said in an email. The maximum grant amount is $31,900.
Disaster grants similarly skewed toward emergency housing needs in New Jersey, where more than 90 percent of $268 million in approved relief funding is going toward housing, agency spokesman Ryan Ike said. The agency is still receiving hundreds of new applications per day, and officials say they're unable to pin down how many requests for assistance are pending or how long families have to wait to receive their assistance.
FEMA says it has completed more than 95 percent of its housing inspections for people who already have registered with the agency in New York, and more than 98 percent of inspections for FEMA-registered New Jersey families. Still, those figures mean there are some 16,000 families in New York and New Jersey who have applied for assistance and still are waiting for a home inspection.
"This number pending is difficult to determine at this time because we are still early in the process," Conley said. "For instance, we are still working with some families to schedule their inspection. Some families may need to finalize their insurance determination before we can assist them as, by law, FEMA cannot duplicate insurance."
Both states also reported receiving some incomplete applications, which delays the grant assistance process. Getting money in the hands of hurricane survivors is "the name of the game," FEMA's Dan Watson said. The agency says it provides direct deposit in many cases. It also relied on aerial and satellite photos of damaged houses to fast-track payments in some of the hardest hit areas and prioritized a response that meant "going big and going early," even before it became clear how destructive the storm would be. That's a departure from the way FEMA operated during Hurricane Katrina, after which the agency was criticized for lagging in its response.
"The president declared major disaster areas in New York and New Jersey before the wind had stopped blowing," Watson said. "The storm was still going on and people could already register for assistance."
At the same time, FEMA is cracking down on fraudulent claims since Katrina. That entails a more robust inspection process among those who register for assistance. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the agency reported an "improper payment error rate" of 14 percent. That number was down to less than 1 percent two years ago, according to October 2011 testimony from FEMA Deputy Administrator Richard Serino. The agency now runs Social Security numbers through a commercial data service provider to check for duplicate requests, or to see if someone is using the identity of a person who has died to ask for government money. FEMA also requires on-site inspections before giving any disaster-grant money.
FEMA has contracted 458 inspectors in New York and 161 in New Jersey to determine eligibility. An inspector working in New York who was reached by phone Monday declined to comment about the process, saying FEMA instructed contractors not to speak with reporters. Though there are more than 600 inspectors working across two densely populated states hit hardest by Sandy, officials say technology - like relying on geospatial imagery of neighborhoods that sustained a direct hit form the storm - has helped keep the process running smoothly.
"We'll be continuing to work with people who have registered to make sure we are providing all the assistance they are eligible for," Conley said. "We expect the dollar amount to continue to grow."
Meantime, FEMA's Byrne says the agency is trying to gather as much information as possible about what it can do to better serve disaster victims.
"When people have prolems, concerns frustrations, they need us to listen," Byrne said in an email. "We are not going anywhere."