STATEN ISLAND, NY (PIX11) — They counted on the city to help them rebuild after Sandy, but nearly two years later, many residents on Staten Island are still fending for themselves.
“I blame the bureaucracy. We’re just the little people on the bottom,” said Midland Beach resident Maureen Childs, whose home took a beating.
She signed on with Build it Back last summer when then Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched the city program aimed at helping homeowners rebuild, repair, or get reimbursed for the construction.
Inspectors from Build it Back came to examine the damage to the grandmother’s home in May, and she says she never heard from them again. So Childs wound up paying, by supplementing her flood insurance money with the tens of thousands of dollars she saved up for her retirement.
Rep. Michael Grimm (R-Staten Island), called the system “completely broken.”
“The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing,” said Grimm.
The de Blasio administration says it stepped in a program that never got off the ground. Amy Peterson now heads up Build it Back.
“I’m frustrated and I meet with them every day, and tell them I’m frustrated,”said Peterson. “There’s no reason why almost 2 years after the storm they haven’t gotten the help they need. But we have taken steps to get them closer to that point and they see that.”
Mayor de Blasio set a goal of having construction started on 500 homes, and having 500 reimbursement checks gone out to residents by Labor Day.
As of Aug. 27, 536 checks were sent out, and construction on 411 homes is underway. Peterson says she’s confident that construction on the 89 other houses will have started by Labor Day.
