Rebuild Florida’s Mitigation Program

CDBG-MIT

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that $633 million in first-of-its-kind funding would be available to the state of Florida for disaster mitigation projects in areas impacted by presidentially declared disasters in 2016 and 2017. These funds are available through HUD's newly created Community Development Block Grant - Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) program and will be used to fund disaster mitigation projects to better protect Florida from future disasters.

CDBG-MIT Fact Sheet

State Action Plan
The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity will lead the state's efforts in creating the federally required State Action Plan that will provide a high-level strategy for how the funding will be used to address eligible communities' disaster mitigation needs. The State Action Plan will be developed in partnership with state agencies working on resiliency efforts,  as well as with input from local communities and stakeholders to determine Florida's most critical disaster mitigation needs. A completed plan must be submitted to HUD for review no later than February 3, 2020. 

Community Workshops
As part of the development of the State Action Plan, DEO will host a series of regional public workshops across Florida to seek feedback and input for the use of CDBG-MIT funds. Times and locations for the first three workshops in this series are shown below. More workshops will be announced shortly.

Mitigation Survey
DEO has been actively working with local, state and federal partners to gather feedback and input on the type of mitigation projects that would best serve those impacted by recent hurricanes. DEO launched an online survey in May 2019 in an effort to gather feedback from Florida communities on their mitigation priorities in anticipation of the need for information to develop the State Action Plan. That survey is still available, and community partners are encouraged to submit their responses before the federally mandated deadline.

Statewide Webinar
To provide more information on the state’s new mitigation program as well as next steps on the development of the State Action Plan, DEO hosted a statewide webinar on Wednesday, October 16.  The webinar and its transcript are posted below.



Transcript - CDBG-Mitigation Statewide Webinar October 16, 2019

Timeline

April 11, 2018 – HUD announced state of Florida would receive $633,485,000 for mitigation activities in Florida communities that experienced major declared disaster events during 2016 and 2017.

April 11, 2019 - One-year anniversary of HUD announcing state of Florida would receive $633,485,000 for mitigation activities. The required Federal Register outlining rules governing the use of mitigation dollars had yet to be published.

August 23, 2019 - HUD published the Federal Register necessary for DEO to work with partners to develop the federally required State Mitigation Action Plan.

February 3, 2020 - State Mitigation Action Plan to be submitted by state to HUD. Components of the action plan development process include:

• Consultation with stakeholders, including impacted local governments, Indian tribes, and public housing authorities (a process started by DEO prior to issuance federal guidance and currently ongoing).
• Translation of action plan in to various languages required by HUD. Translation services can take a month or longer for some languages.
• A 45-day public comment period is required prior to submitting the action plan to HUD. DEO's Office of Disaster Recovery must then respond to all public comments received to include when submitting the state action plan to HUD for approval.
• Once submitted, HUD has 60 days to review the action plan and approve or reject plan with comments.