How victims are coping 6 months after January floods

S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. Six months after the January 22nd flooding , there are still people and their families without a home. So today we're talking about resources and what's being done. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. While we are in fire season with hot and dry weather , there's still wreckage left from January's historic floods in San Diego. That includes property damage , emotional scarring and no place to call home for hundreds of San Diegans. Last week , KPBS reporter Andrew Bowen caught up with Emily Alvarenga about this. She's the San Diego Union-Tribune county government reporter. Here's that conversation.

S2: I want to start with your recent articles headline , which really gets at the crux of this issue. You say their homes flooded six months ago , stuck in red tape. They're still scrambling to find a place to sleep.

S3:

S2: For those who need a refresher. Can you remind us what exactly happened on January 22nd and how it got so bad ? Right.

S3: So on the 22nd , there was historic flooding , a thousand year storm as some city officials were calling it , where we got a record amount of rain down here in San Diego , and unfortunately there were some canals that couldn't withstand it. And so in some neighborhoods in San Diego and really across the county , Overall , a lot of homes were flooded and some areas were hit harder than others. Specifically , the city of San Diego was hit pretty hard and most of the flood victims were from that area.

S2: How many people were originally displaced by the floods , and do we know how many are still affected ? Yes.

S3: So at least over 2000 households were affected initially back in January. And when it comes to the numbers still affected , that really is in flux. Just because all of the families aren't talking with the government and with the cities. And so there are a lot of families who are falling through the cracks and might not know of services they need or the resources that are available to them. We know that at least 350 families were still participating in a county hotel voucher program as of the end of June , and of those , over 200 were from the city of San Diego. And most of those families , thankfully , have reported that they are in permanent or temporary stable housing , but a lot of families are still struggling to find somewhere to live.

S2: So you mentioned that a lot of these storm drains were just overwhelmed by the amount of water that was coming down. Some of the flood victims were saying , well , the city should have been maintaining them better. The city says , you know , we have too many storm drains to maintain and we can't. We just don't have the resources to keep them all in good condition.

S3: There's a property tax that residents pay where we are able to fix stormwater infrastructure , but it hasn't been raised since the 90s. And so there is a deficit of at least 2 billion , I believe , dollars in stormwater needs across the county So really they haven't been able to put together enough money to not only properly clear the canals , but also to repair anything that is now out of date.

S2: What kinds of services are being offered to folks who are displaced by these floods , and what barriers are they facing as they're trying to access those services ? Yeah.

S3: So like I mentioned , the county had had a hotel voucher program that was in place until end of June , which was housing these people for months and until their homes were repaired. But now that that's ended , families are looking for other financial assistance to either get their homes rebuilt or if they're tenants , they are looking for other housing or waiting for their homes to be rebuilt and needing a place to stay in the meantime. So there's a $4 million program that the San Diego Housing Commission started with the help of the county funding , to give families still in need of that assistance. Some stopgap funding And there is about 50 families as of end of June that had been approved for their funding , but only about $200,000 had been disbursed so far. And those barriers include a lot of documentation that's needed to verify if they are actual tenants , if they have a true lease , and if those landlords of theirs actually own the home and are actually affected by the floods. So with a lot of those documents , some of those which had been lost in the floods for many of these people , or if their landlords are not wanting to cooperate , then they are unable to get the financial assistance they need.

S2: So we've got these government resources that are being deployed if , if slowly.

S3: And since then , a lot of those orgs have stepped in to really aggregate the resources. So these community groups are now hosting volunteer days where where people are coming in to help muck out houses or start the rebuild process. And even now , six months later , a lot of these homes that were stalled , whether that be because of insurance claims or or waiting on financial assistance , still need to be mucked out and rebuilt. So these community groups are helping to bring together the community and whatever resources they may have. After a couple stories I've written , I've had people reach out with extra flooring that they have or extra resources that they might be willing to donate , and they've been helping to connect those people and those donors with families in need of assistance.

S1: This is KPBS Midday Edition. We're back after the break. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. KPBS reporter Andrew Bowen continues the conversation with Emily Alvarenga , county government reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

S2: For a while , some of the flood victims were being offered vouchers to stay in hotel rooms. What is the status of that program ? Have those folks found another place to stay , or are they just trying to figure it out for themselves ? Right.

S3: So that program ended on June 21st , and as of then , the community groups that were helping out , they helped to house about two dozen families who still at the end of the program , didn't have anywhere to go. And since then , a lot of those families have either been able to find a temporary place to go or have rented another room , whatever that may be. But there was at least 50 families that had , as of last month , been referred to homeless shelters and as of that month , according to the Housing Commission , 11 families still hadn't been placed due to a lack of available beds or units.

S2:

S3: A lot of the applications that the Housing Commission has received haven't been processed yet. I haven't gotten an update since last month , but there was only 50 of of the housing applications that they'd received. They'd received 500 applications for financial assistance. Fewer than half of those were deemed eligible , whether that be because they were duplicates or because they had received other aid that made them ineligible. But only 50 had been approved and only 50 had been approved , and 268,000 had been disbursed. So there's a lot more work to be done in that front as well.

S2:

S3: They were lucky enough to get a place in a shelter , the same day that they were planning on going to sleep in their car , after paying for a hotel out of pocket for a few nights , and now they are at a family shelter in Barrio Logan. Their oldest daughter and her two young kids are also at that family shelter , because they had been staying with her before the flood happened. There's also Carla Gomez , who had recently immigrated to San Diego from Mexico. She was in the process of getting her citizenship when the flood hit , so she had barely any credit built up or rental history and has been able to find anywhere that will accept her housing application. She was waiting for her landlord to rebuild , but had to switch gears just in the last month because she needed money in her bank account to show that she would be able to maybe find a different place to live because it was taking too long. She and her son , who's 14 , were sleeping in a tent on Imperial Beach. Emily.

S2: Emily. Zooming out a bit , are there any big takeaways that you have as to why six months after these floods , some people are still homeless. Definitely.

S3: Definitely. I feel like there's been a lot of miscommunication between different organizations trying to help , whether that be federal agencies , local agencies , city agencies , and a lot of red tape when it comes to how they can help and how they can tell people what resources is available to them. And on top of that , there's a lot of people who just aren't getting that information at all and are falling through the cracks , unable to get help because they don't even know it's there for them.

S2:

S3: I mentioned these community orgs are still hosting volunteer days. They're still looking for donations , some of them being the Harvey Family Foundation , the San Diego Foundation. They are still on the ground working to figure out what the ways to help these families are. So reaching out to them directly , you can , you know , donate or volunteer time , whatever , whatever is available to you.

S2: Emily , I know you'll be continuing to follow this story. KPBS will as well.

S3: Out of the 200 or so families that the San Diego Housing Commission had reached out to and connected with successfully , 50 of those families had been referred to homeless shelters. And that's a quarter of just 200. When there were over 2000 households affected and displaced by the floods back in January. So looking to see if we could figure out a little bit more about what data is available to us about these families and what has happened to them.

S1: That was Emily Alvarenga , County government reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune , speaking with KPBS reporter Andrew Bowen about the aftermath of January's historic floods in San Diego. That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose. Everyone.