Gillibrand Proposes Bill To Help Sandy Survivors' Finances

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand put forward a bill today that would protect Long Island homeowners who are being forced to pay back the federal assistance they received in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The bill, the Sandy Duplication of Benefits Fairness Act, would allow homeowners to keep the money they received through New York Rising and not repay it.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, FEMA told Long Islanders that in order to receive government assistance, they first had to apply for loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA).

Despite being advised to take out SBA loans in order to be eligible to receive additional federal assistance by officials, a federal rule prohibits disaster survivors from receiving “duplication of benefits.” This means that they are not allowed to also receive grant funding to rebuild their homes through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant for Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR) program, which was administered through the New York Rising program for households on Long Island.

New Yorkers who were approved for New York Rising funds and received the CDBG funding several years ago are now being told that they were not eligible for grant funding at the time and must now pay it back, Gillibrand said. The new law would waive the duplication of benefits rule for Sandy survivors, ensuring that New York families are not forced to pay back money that has already been spent to fund their recovery from the damage and destruction of Hurricane Sandy.

“Communities across Long Island are still recovering from the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy, even seven years after the storm hit," Gillibrand said. "Many homeowners on Long Island were advised by the federal government that they needed to apply for SBA loans in order to receive any disaster assistance, and are now learning that if they received additional grants, they have to pay that money back because of a technicality they were not warned about. This has blindsided many families, and homeowners caught under the ‘duplication of benefits’ rule are being forced to pay back the grant money they were depending on to recover from the storm.”

In addition to being told they need to repay the grant money they received, homeowners are also still repaying the SBA loans they took out. In many instances, homeowners are being told to pay back tens of thousands of dollars, according to Gillibrand. People may now be in danger of incurring additional debt on top of their Sandy losses and even potentially losing their homes.

Last year, Congress enacted legislation that waives the duplication of benefits restriction to allow SBA loan recipients to be eligible to receive disaster relief grants, like those administered by New York Rising, but only made the fix retroactive to 2016. Gillibrand’s legislation would make the duplication of benefits fix retroactive to Oct. 1, 2012 to make Sandy survivors eligible to keep the CDBG grant funding even if they also received an SBA loan.