St. John,USVI - Long Term Recovery: Home Construct

A new year for the Resilient Housing Initiative (RHI) brings new challenges.   Two years and this as a collegue from Love City Strong, one of our partners puts it - is the longest running rebuild program in the territory.   To date the RHI Program has fixed or completely rebuilt 31 homes.  2 Homes are currently under construction and with have 9 more homes in the planning process.  

The programs has been an incredile success but not without facing many challenges.  The 9 homes in the planning process are some of our most difficult ones in terms of Disaster Case Management and Construction.   

Challenges include probate and deed issues with obtaining the proper building permits.  Most of these properties were passed down to family members generation to generation.  No one every questioned them if they owned their homes because they always lived there and everyone knew it.   Putting estates in probate is just something that was never considered and most of these families have little to no money to make ends meet make it happen.  One of our Disaster Case Managers received a deed written in Danish!  These issues ad to the all ready lengthy rebuild process.   

In terms of construction many of these nine homes are complete rebuilds - from the ground up. Some of these families have been renting homes since the storm and some have been living in tents and make shift 'shacks' to make ends meet.  Pulling together resources is what as St. Johnians we do best.  Funds from generous donors including an incredible 'in-kind' donation of shipping container homes give these families hope for their future.

The St. John Long Term Recovery Group is determined to seeing everyone get the help they need.  We have started a small jobs construction program to step in after the big rebuild programs to address safety and quality of life issues for seniors and disadvantaged members of our community.  With your help we can make a difference on St. John.

 Our partnership within the Resilient Housing Initiative continues to work on rebuilding homes for Seniors and those economically challenged within our community.    With 25 homes completed to date we are more than halfway to our goal of 42 homes.  We have 17 more homes under construction with 8 of those in the pre-planning / permitting stages.   

As the program continues to gain momentum our Disaster Case Management team sees new faces coming out from our community.  These individuals that have suffered through the storm and also suffered through the heart ache of trying to pick up the pieces themselves.   Stories of how difficult it is for Seniors to navigate federal aid programs and work with local contractors are plenty and we hear some stories of those that just give up trying.   Our Disaster Case Management team is constantly working to help fill the gaps with the unmet needs and assist our community with the referral services to help best.

This includes an emergency re-tarping program.  Our Disaster Case Management team in conjunction with the St. John - Long Term Recovery Group who supplied materials and  Love For Love City who brought in the labor - was able to get priority homes re-tarped for this years hurricane / rainy season.   This greatly helped relieve the anxiety of the seniors in our community, but we were not able to get to all of the homes.   There is still a great many people in our community that need your help!

We can not do this without your support!