Notice: Test mode is enabled. While in test mode no live donations are processed.
Round Two Investments
$1.5 Million Invested in Home Repair Grants to Nonprofits
Data-informed grants from the Severe Weather & Derecho Recovery Fund to help households most impacted by recent storms
July 2, 2024 – The Disaster Alliance is investing $1,516,000 from the Severe Weather & Derecho Recovery Fund in grants to help area neighbors who are struggling to recover from severe weather that impacted the region over the past several months. impacted the region. The second round of grants will aid impacted homeowners in the City of Houston and Harris, Montgomery and Waller counties with home repair services in collaboration with nonprofit partners who specialize in these services.
To move quickly and efficiently in getting aid to those in need, grants are distributed through a trusted network of nonprofit partners based on capability to provide needed services and geographical reach to affected communities in the City of Houston and Harris, Montgomery and Waller counties.
Round Two Nonprofit Partners
- Hope Disaster Recovery ($350,000)
- Houston Habitat for Humanity ($325,000)
- Rebuilding Together Houston ($175,000)
- Tejano Center for Community Concerns ($175,000)
- The Restoration Team ($175,000)
- West Street Recovery ($200,000)
- A systems coordination grant was provided to Connective ($116,000) to support access to home repair services.
Greater Houston Disaster Alliance invited nonprofits that provide home repair services for populations in the hardest hit zip codes in our region to submit Round 2 grant applications.
Who Qualifies for Assistance?
Individuals seeking home repair assistance must:
- Live in the City of Houston or Harris, Montgomery, and Waller counties.
- Complete the Connective Needs Assessment at ConnectiveSurvey.org.
- File a claim with FEMA.
Households who are ineligible for FEMA and public assistance, i.e. undocumented or mixed status households, are not required to apply for FEMA to apply for and receive home repair services.
Due to limited philanthropic resources, home repair services will focus on supporting the most critically in need, specifically targeting vulnerable low-income households. Anyone in need of assistance other than home repair through this grant should call the 211 Texas/United Way HELPLINE, the community’s key 24/7 information source during times of disaster.
Data Sources
- Individual State of Texas Assessment Tool (iSTAT) – a tool developed for TDEM to assess and manage disaster response efforts within Texas iSTAT.
- 211 Calls for Assistance – United Way of Greater Houston’s 211 call center received disaster-related calls from April 26 – May 21 from Harris, Montgomery, and Waller counties, with food pantries/basic needs, shelters, FEMA and other resource navigation assistance, and disaster-related financial assistance as the primary services requested.
- ALICE Households – ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) households earn just above the Federal Poverty Level but less than what it costs to make ends meet. These measurements provide a broader picture of financial insecurity than traditional federal poverty guidelines and are key to understanding how many people in our community struggle to get by. The data come from United for ALICE, a research initiative by United Way of Greater Houston, and are reflective of household status by ZIP code in the region in 2022.
- Households Living at/below Poverty – The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) provides the percentage of households whose income falls at/below the poverty threshold.
- Social Vulnerability Index – SVI is a tool that uses U.S. census data to identify communities most vulnerable to external stresses on human health, including natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and other emergencies, by assessing various socioeconomic and demographic factors.
Other trusted data sources used to inform our understanding of local need include:
- FEMA Individual Assistance Registrants
Priority Zip Codes
A comprehensive analysis of zip codes was conducted using the above sources, resulting in the identification of 31 unique zip codes that span across the City of Houston and surrounding counties, including Harris, Montgomery, and Waller.
For Round 2 grantmaking, updated data from Connective with iSTAT surveys were combined to identify the most impacted zip codes based on reports of home damage and where at least 50% of households were considered ALICE or below (including living at/below the poverty line). The top 10 priority zip codes for Round 2, outlined in the orange box below, are low-to-moderate income areas with at least 15 homes reported as damaged. One exception was made for Montgomery County’s 77372 zip code, a low-to-moderate income zip code with 11 homes reported as damaged.
This resulted in 10 priority zip codes for service for Round 2 grantmaking from the Severe Weather & Derecho Recovery Fund.
