A new fortified roof grant program aims to help lower-income homeowners
5th February 2024 · 0 Comments
By Khalil Gillon
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — A new federally funded grant program in town aims at helping New Orleans homeowners struggling to afford the cost of upgrading their roofs.
People’s Housing Plus, a nonprofit affordable housing developer and community development group, is working with homeowners to secure $15,000 grants to fortify their roofs. The ultimate goal is to help residents lower their steep property insurance rates.
In Louisiana, property insurance premiums have reached exorbitant levels in recent years due to repeated hurricanes and the subsequent failures of insurance companies struggling to keep up.
As one solution, Louisiana introduced its own program subsidizing roof upgrades for homeowners. The state’s program gave out $10,000 grants to 3,000 homeowners through a lottery process, and homeowners had to pay a $500 inspection fee.
But the grants disproportionately went to higher-income parts of the state, with the costs of roof fortification often exceeding the grant amount, according to an analysis by the Times-Picayune.
The program People’s Housing Plus is using, which is separate from the state program, targets lower-income homeowners by using income to determine eligibility.
People’s Housing Plus worked with the Federal Home Bank of Dallas to administer the grants that are targeted toward homeowners in lower-income brackets. Homeowners whose household income doesn’t exceed $82,000, the median family income for the New Orleans metropolitan area, are eligible.
“Insurance has been a real burden for folks and it puts people at risk of being able to keep their homes,” said Oji Alexander, CEO of People’s Housing Plus, in an interview. “One of the things we love about this fortified program is it is one of the few programs out there that actually results in direct discounts for people’s insurance premiums.”
Louisiana homeowners have among the highest insurance price tags in the country with an average cost of around $5,000 annually – which is more than three times the average national rate of $1,428, according to one 2023 news report.
Brenda Brossett pays more than $5,000 annually to insure her home in Gentilly. Affording insurance has become difficult, Brossett said, given that she is retired and on a fixed income. Upgrading a roof to try to bring those insurance costs down can be expensive, too.
“To find that big lump sum like this, it’s hard,” she said.
Brossett received a grant of $14,883 to have her roof fortified last month through People’s Housing Plus. Brossett, first found out about the program through a picnic in August where she met People Housing Plus stewardship manager Erania Ellis.
“She told us about the different credentials we needed to apply,” Brossett said. “I went to get my application online, I went to the library and made copies of my different papers I had to give her to be qualified and that was it.”
Brossett’s fortified roof was completed in December, and she paid no out-of-pocket costs, she said.
People’s Housing Plus began working with the Federal Home Bank of Dallas on the roof fortification grants last fall. The group received $257,984 from the bank to fortify 20 roofs. This year, the bank has allocated $500,000 more to People’s Housing Plus to fortify about 25 more roofs, Alexander said.
Homeowners who are already People’s Housing Plus clients can apply for a grant through People’s Housing Plus by calling or visiting its office on 6323 Franklin Avenue in Gentilly. Representatives from People’s Housing Plus will then apply for the grant on behalf of eligible owners through the Federal Home Bank of Dallas and assign contractors to complete the job.
This article originally published in the February 5, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
