FEMA changes policy, allows condo boards to seek hurricane aid
FEMA changes policy, allows condo boards to seek hurricane aid
By Joe Kollin
Staff Writer
January 4, 2006
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Staff Writer
January 4, 2006
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is taking applications from condo associations needing financial assistance to repair roofs and other commonly owned property destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Wilma, reversing an earlier refusal to offer such aid.
But the application deadline is midnight Thursday night--the same time that everyone, even those not in condos, must apply -- warned Florida Condo Ombudsman Virgil Rizzo. He urged condo boards to move quickly.
Jim Homstad, Orlando-based spokesman for FEMA, said an elected member of an association's board must apply on behalf of the association. If qualified, associations would be referred to the Small Business Administration for low-interest loans. The loans would let associations avoid imposing huge one-time special assessments on owners.
Individual condo owners with uninsured damage to the interior property, such as furniture, should also apply, even if they don't want a loan.
"Just because you apply doesn't mean you have to take the loan, but if you don't apply you may not be eligible for any government money," Homstad said.
Inundated with complaints that condo owners couldn't get help to replace and repair roofs and walls, Rizzo two weeks ago met with FEMA, state and county officials in Fort Lauderdale to find out the reason.
"People from all over were coming to me because they couldn't get help just because they lived in a condo, and that to me was outrageous," said Rizzo.
He was especially concerned with retirement communities, such as the 8,000-apartment Sunrise Lakes complex in Sunrise, where many buildings were uninhabitable and associations couldn't get money to rebuild.
It turned out that associations couldn't get assistance because they technically are corporations and FEMA has a rule against assisting corporations.
"It didn't matter that the unit owners owned the corporations, which aren't for profit," Rizzo said. "FEMA just saw them as corporations that they couldn't aid. I explained that in order to help the people they must help the corporations."
He said FEMA then understood.
"They were willing to give people money for their individual roofs but not a condo association," he said. "You can't have 30 or 60 individual owners in a condo building repairing their roof. One roof covers the entire building"
He also took FEMA representatives to see condo buildings damaged so extensively that local authorities weren't letting owners live in them, yet owners couldn't get federal aid for repairs.
Unit owners in condemned buildings especially should benefit from FEMA's decision to aid associations, said state Rep. Franklin Sands, D-Weston, whose district includes Sunrise Lakes.
"People have been paying what amounts to double rent -- the cost of maintaining their condo while paying for another place to live," he said. "This will help offset some of that."
But the application deadline is midnight Thursday night--the same time that everyone, even those not in condos, must apply -- warned Florida Condo Ombudsman Virgil Rizzo. He urged condo boards to move quickly.
Jim Homstad, Orlando-based spokesman for FEMA, said an elected member of an association's board must apply on behalf of the association. If qualified, associations would be referred to the Small Business Administration for low-interest loans. The loans would let associations avoid imposing huge one-time special assessments on owners.
Individual condo owners with uninsured damage to the interior property, such as furniture, should also apply, even if they don't want a loan.
"Just because you apply doesn't mean you have to take the loan, but if you don't apply you may not be eligible for any government money," Homstad said.
Inundated with complaints that condo owners couldn't get help to replace and repair roofs and walls, Rizzo two weeks ago met with FEMA, state and county officials in Fort Lauderdale to find out the reason.
"People from all over were coming to me because they couldn't get help just because they lived in a condo, and that to me was outrageous," said Rizzo.
He was especially concerned with retirement communities, such as the 8,000-apartment Sunrise Lakes complex in Sunrise, where many buildings were uninhabitable and associations couldn't get money to rebuild.
It turned out that associations couldn't get assistance because they technically are corporations and FEMA has a rule against assisting corporations.
"It didn't matter that the unit owners owned the corporations, which aren't for profit," Rizzo said. "FEMA just saw them as corporations that they couldn't aid. I explained that in order to help the people they must help the corporations."
He said FEMA then understood.
"They were willing to give people money for their individual roofs but not a condo association," he said. "You can't have 30 or 60 individual owners in a condo building repairing their roof. One roof covers the entire building"
He also took FEMA representatives to see condo buildings damaged so extensively that local authorities weren't letting owners live in them, yet owners couldn't get federal aid for repairs.
Unit owners in condemned buildings especially should benefit from FEMA's decision to aid associations, said state Rep. Franklin Sands, D-Weston, whose district includes Sunrise Lakes.
"People have been paying what amounts to double rent -- the cost of maintaining their condo while paying for another place to live," he said. "This will help offset some of that."
posted by James Haft at 4:13 PM
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