By Naeisha Rose
The Federal Emergency Management Agency extended assistance for 83 Puerto Rican families last week that survived Hurricane Maria in 2017 and were set to lose their shelter in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx April 21.
The May 14 extension came days after the island had a nearly nationwide blackout last week when a freak accident left almost 1.5 million customers of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority without electricity.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and other officials throughout New York welcomed the extension.
“Survivors of a natural disaster who have found temporary refuge in our city deserve nothing less,” said the mayor.
De Blasio had sent a letter to FEMA April 13 prior to the utility incident as the agency was preparing to rescind its Temporary Sheltering Assistance program to the hurricane victims that same day, but he said the island of 3.4 million was still in turmoil.
“The households impacted by the hurricanes of 2017 continue to face significant challenges, which are further complicated by their prolonged displacement from their area of origin,” de Blasio said. “The extension of FEMA’s TSA program is crucial to ensure that evacuees have a safe and stable place to stay as they continue to wait for electricity to come online and work to rebuild their homes in Puerto Rico.”
Hours before the April 18 blackout Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority announced it only had 3 percent of customers without energy, but an excavator working near a fallen 140-foot transmission tower got too close to a high-voltage line, leaving over a million peoplespread throughout the country without power, according to the NYT report.
“The fight is not over. We will continue to press FEMA to ensure these U.S. Citizens have roofs over their heads,” de Blasio said.
U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-Brooklyn), who represents parts of Maspeth, Ridgewood and Woodside and was born in Puerto Rico, had the same sentiments as the mayor. “Our fellow citizens from Puerto Rico — those temporarily relocated to the U.S. and those still residing on the Island — need our help,” said Velázquez. “We will continue pushing to ensure those Puerto Ricans forced from their home due to Maria have the support and help they need.”
Ridgewood has one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in Queens, according to www.city-
Congressman Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan) wanted FEMA to extend the program for a longer period.
“It could have been longer so we wouldn’t have to potentially go through this again,” said Espaillat. “I would have extended it to June…and the blackout shows there is still an energy crisis in Puerto Rico and that families are still hurting.”
Espaillat also wants to help people who almost lost out on the shelter program because they had a hard time establishing the right to their property on the island. On April 11 he introduced The Housing Victims of Major Disasters Act to come up with new ways to establish property rights for disaster victims.
“Property deeds were damaged during the hurricane,” said Espaillat. “We are looking for a new process for them to establish that this is where they live. We want them to be able to use credit card receipts, utility bills or their children school records to establish this is where they lived.”
“In Puerto Rico many homes are passed down from generation to generation, so there is no proof according to FEMA,” said the congressman. “I gathered all the members of Congress who are of Puerto Rican descent to support [the bill] as well as other members. I am very optimistic this bureaucratic hiccup could be fixed through the legislation.”
Reach reporter Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose
