Build it Back Meets its Goals for Sandy Recovery

Roughly four months after Mayor Bill de Blasio reshaped his Superstorm Sandy recovery team, and approaching two years since the storm devastated large swaths of New York City, the adminstration announced today that it has exceeded its goals to start construction on 500 homes and hand out 500 reimbursement checks to Sandy victims by Labor Day.

The Build it Back program, previously maligned for its glacial pace in repairing homes and critical infrastructure damaged by Sandy, has accelerated the rebuilding process since March, when the mayor appointed several new individuals to take the helm of the city's Sandy recovery apparatus. Since then, the city has approved the start of construction on 535 new homes, 68 of which are already complete. Of the 535 construction starts, 255 were completed in Staten Island, 151 in Queens, 125 in Brooklyn, and four in the Bronx. The program includes full rebuilds, elevations and repairs. 

The 543 distributed checks reflect over $9 million in reimbursements that have gone out to homeowners who completed repairs themselves, with 206 distributed to impacted residents in Queens, 202 to Staten Island, 131 in Brooklyn, and four in the Bronx. 

“It was simply unacceptable that not a single homeowner had gotten relief as of the beginning of this year,” de Blasio said in a statement. “We committed to putting Build it Back back on track, and that’s exactly what we’ve done, exceeding our Labor Day goals with 535 construction starts and 543 reimbursement checks. But we know there’s much more work ahead—and we’re committed to continuing to speed up recovery so that every homeowner gets the relief they need.”

Despite the administration's success in reaching its goal, the construction starts and checks distributed represent aid to nearly 4 percent of the city's estimated 15,000 Build it Back applicants.

At the time of the mayor's commitment to reaching the 500 milestone, there were many who were skeptical that the city would be able to ramp up their recovery programs in time, especially given myriad concerns about the levels of red tape that Sandy-impacted New Yorkers had to cut through to get the help they needed, and a lack of synergy between the federal, state and city governments in distributing financial aid. 

In March, Amy Peterson, the director of the Sandy housing recovery office, revealed during a City Council hearing that of the 15,000 applicants to the Build it Back program, only six had broken ground on new homes, and a mere $100,000 in reimbursement money had been handed, all of it to just three applicants. At the time, Peterson indicated that the recovery process put in place by the Bloomberg administration did little to alleviate the levels of bureaucracy that Sandy victims were encountering.

Despite these issues under de Blasio's predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, former deputy mayor Howard Wolfson released a statement attempting to share some credit with de Blasio for the initial work that the Bloomberg administration did under the Rapid Repairs program, a pilot program that provided free government assistance to thousands of homeowners left without heat, power and hot water after Sandy.

"The [Rapid Repairs] program was unprecedented in its scope and speed in the U.S., and more than 70 percent of the homeowners who signed up for Build It Back already had one round of construction work completed through Rapid Repairs," Wolfson said. "Altogether, Rapid Repairs injected approximately $640 million directly into the repair of homes damaged by Sandy."

While Build it Back, designed to complete long-term repairs, was largely inactive under Bloomberg, Peterson and her colleagues Bill Goldstein, senior advisor to the mayor for recovery, resiliency, and infrastructure, and Daniel Zarrilli, director of the Office of Recovery and Resiliency, have taken several steps to ensure that construction will start on at least 50 homes per week. Their efforts includes expanding Build it Back's staff and launching a web portal to track the status of repairs, among other changes.

Councilman Mark Treyger, who represents parts of Coney Island, Sea Gate and Brighton Beach, neighborhoods in Brooklyn severely flooded by the storm, had previously told City & State that even with the changes in leadership, the improvements on the ground were slow to come. In a statement, he praised the administration's Sandy recovery progress, while pledging to continue to keep the pressure on the administration until all Sandy victims are back on their feet.

"While we appreciate hitting this milestone, we must not lose sight of the thousands of New Yorkers still needing vital assistance. I plan to continue working with the Mayor to ensure that the recovery effort continues to move forward and that no Sandy victim or neighborhood is left behind,” Treyger said.