Eastern Kentucky organizations helping people recover from the 2022 flooding were awarded roughly $9 million in funding to build new homes and make repairs. Rural Housing Trust Fund Awards were announced last week by Governor Andy Beshear.
One organization, the Housing Development Alliance, was awarded more than $2 million to help those in Breathitt, Knott, and Perry counties. Their Executive Director, Scott McReynolds, said it was not easy to get the funding, but they are glad to have it.
“It’s being administered by Kentucky Housing Corporation, and so they had a competitive round, and we submitted an application, and we’re fortunate to get $2.5 million,” McReynolds said.
The housing director also said they are going to help as many families as they can with the money they’ve been given.
“That’s at least 17 new homes and at least 15 repair projects. You know, if we can stretch them and do a few more that’ll be great. The total cost of the recovery is somewhere between $450 and $950 million depending on whether you repair a lot of houses or actually replace a lot of houses in places that don’t flood.”
While McReynolds is very appreciative of the funds his agency has been given, he said there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make eastern Kentucky whole after all the damage.
“While they allocated $10 million to eastern Kentucky and that’s great, and that will help a whole lot of folks, but it’s really just a drop in the bucket compared to the level of the need,” said McReynolds.
Rowan County’s Frontier Housing Inc. was awarded around $1.8 million to help with disaster relief efforts in Breathitt, Floyd, Magoffin, and Martin counties.