Hill Heat

This hearing will examine the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program and its effectiveness in addressing unmet local recovery needs.

Hearing memo

Witnesses:

• Joseph V. Jaroscak, Analyst in Economic Development Policy, Congressional Research Service
• Pat Cave, Senior Vice President of Policy, Enterprise Community Partners
• Heather Lagrone, Senior Deputy Director, Texas General Land Office
• Stephanie McGarrah, Deputy Secretary, North Carolina Department of Commerce

The CDBG-DR program is the supplemental disaster recovery assistance grant program administered by HUD through its traditional Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) framework. Unlike the traditional program, the DR sub-program of CDBG is not permanently authorized and lacks statutory codification. Thus, funding for CDBG-DR only takes place when Congress enacts a specific appropriation for that purpose. The first use of CDBG-DR funding took place in FY1993 when Congress voted to appropriate $85 million to assist the victims recovering from Hurricanes Andrew, Iniki, and Typhoon Omar. Since then, Congress has voted more than 30 times to appropriate more than $111 billion in CDBG-DR funds, including roughly $65 billion since FY2016.2 Congress has intended this funding to be used by the communities that receive it to address long-term disaster needs that remain unmet after other sources of assistance such as grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or loans made available by the Small Business Administration. CDBG-DR funding recipients are typically areas subject to federal disaster declarations under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and can include states, localities, U.S. territories, and federally recognized tribes.