Feds halt $1.95B in Harvey funding

The Department of Housing and Urban Development on Friday halted the distribution of $1.95 billion in aid awarded to Texas after Hurricane Harvey because it said the state has failed to send the federal agency required paperwork detailing its plans to spend it.

The delay is the latest in a series of hold-ups; almost four years after Congress approved $4.3 billion in HUD aid for Texas, about half of it remains unallocated.

HUD said in a statement that its formal action gives the Texas General Land Office 45 days to submit the missing document, which the agency said is an analysis explaining how the state’s proposed list of disaster mitigation projects helps the most vulnerable residents.

“We look forward to receiving and reviewing Texas’s submission of the additional information needed for approval,” the HUD statement said. “We are hopeful that Texas will take the steps needed to begin much-needed, forward-looking mitigation projects in the state.”

The decision prevents Texas from distributing $1.2 billion in flood mitigation grants to local governments it had selected through a funding competition, as well as $750 million to Harris County, which was awarded nothing from that contest.

HUD in 2020 signed off on the GLO’s plan for the funding competition, which selected 81 projects, and said it welcomed the subsequent proposal for Harris County. The agency on Friday, however, said moving forward with those plans depends on whether GLO provides the missing report.

Brittany Eck, spokeswoman for Land Commissioner George P. Bush, blasted HUD’s announcement as a “purely political move.” She noted that the agency previously had approved the GLO’s plan for the money and said GLO already has completed a 628-page analysis that fulfills the HUD requirement.

“The partisan political game being played by the Biden administration is putting Texans at risk,” Eck said. “HUD must approve this funding now, before the next storm hits.”

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she looked forward to GLO completing the paperwork. She said county staff are prepared to answer any questions from HUD about how its planned projects will help vulnerable residents. Hidalgo still is hoping for additional aid.

“This $750 million is a start, but more is needed since Harris County and the city of Houston took over 50 percent of the damage from Hurricane Harvey, and because millions of residents remain vulnerable to natural disasters,” Hidalgo said.

Mayor Sylvester Turner raised the same point about the unequal distribution of aid. He said he was pleased with HUD’s action Friday, and awaits the response from the General Land Office.

Federal, state and local leaders have bickered over the HUD aid package since Congress approved it in 2018. Of the total Texas received, $2.1 billion is for mitigating future disasters. HUD made the 23 counties hardest hit by Harvey eligible for the aid, including Harris; Texas added 26 counties.

GLO held a funding competition for a $1 billion tranche of the aid, inviting local governments to submit applications that would be scored using criteria the state developed. Houston and Harris County received $0 from the contest, despite suffering more deaths and flooded homes during Harvey than the other eligible counties combined.

A Houston Chronicle investigation revealed that GLO had used criteria on the 105-point scale that discriminated against populous areas, effectively dooming the city and county’s chances of winning. The most problematic, engineers who reviewed the competition said, was a 10-point category that divided the number of residents a project would benefit by the total population of the applying entity.

This meant that even the proposed Brays Bayou project that would benefit 774,000 people — more people than even live in any other eligible county — would score less than 1 point.

Houston and Harris County’s proposals received five of a maximum 10 points in the social vulnerability category that identifies an area’s wealth using 14 social factors, including poverty, access to transportation and education levels. The criterion, however, considers the city or county as a whole rather than the area being served by a particular project.

That meant, for example, the Heights neighborhood along White Oak Bayou, which has a median household income of $108,000, was averaged together with east Houston along Halls Bayou, which has a median household income of $29,000.

The newspaper investigation also found that counties with a higher risk of natural disasters, per the state’s own metric, were less likely to receive the disaster mitigation aid.

After rare bipartisan outcry over the snub, Bush said he would seek HUD’s permission to award $750 million to Harris County. Houston, however, would still receive nothing. zach.despart@chron.com