HUD to unleash $200 million in recovery aid

Unlocking $200 million in federal money, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has given final approval to a state financing program designed to spur infrastructure improvements in hurricane-ravaged parishes. In authorizing the Long Term Community Recovery Program, HUD allowed the state to begin making payments on a project-by-project basis to parishes that submit rebuilding blueprints to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which divided the cash among 23 hurricane-affected parishes in line with their level of damage. Because federal law requires FEMA to pay the whole cost of repairing public infrastructure to its predisaster state, the money is not meant to finance rebuilding but to help parishes improve assets. Local officials, however, must designate specific uses for the money and cannot get the block-grant dollars as a one-time cash payment.

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