The state announced Jan. 17 that the federal government approved New Jersey’s Action Plan, laying out how to distribute $228 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds to support households and communities impacted by Hurricane Ida.

The Action Plan was developed in consultation with residents, county and municipal officials, nonprofit organizations, and other stakeholders in addition to input received from an online survey.

The funding will be used to restore Ida-damaged homes, provide rental assistance to people impacted by the storm, support hardest-hit and financially strained communities, buy out homes in communities vulnerable to flooding, and to finance resilient infrastructure projects to protect against future storms in the Garden State.

In November, it was announced New Jersey would receive another $149.2 million in federal funding. An amendment to the Action Plan is being drafted to detail how that allotment will be used, which is expected to be posted for public comment later this year.

“The State of New Jersey thanks HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] for its review and approval of our Ida Action Plan and for partnering with us in a collective working relationship as we continue recovering from Hurricane Ida,” said Gov. Phil Murphy in a press release. “New Jersey’s communities are still dealing with the effects Hurricane Ida left behind. But with federal approval of our Action Plan, we will continue moving forward with the job of repairing from Ida and building more resilient communities, preparing us for the next storm.”

The administering of the federal funds will be overseen by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) via the Division of Disaster Recovery and Mitigation.

“There are still many people who are not fully back on their feet from Hurricane Ida,” said Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, who also serves as DCA commissioner. “With HUD’s approval of our Action Plan, we can put these disaster recovery funds to use to get families back into their homes as quickly as possible and find opportunities to help communities build back even stronger.”

At least 70% of the HUD-approved plan will benefit low- to moderate-income persons or households with $153 million slated to be spent to support Ida-impacted homeowners and renters.

Some of the toplines of what the Action Plan calls for include:

• $68.9 million for the Homeowner Assistance and Recovery Program (HARP) to provide grants for work to restore Ida-damaged homes
• $30 million for Smart Move to subsidize affordable housing development in lower flood risk areas
• $20 million for the Small Rental Repair Program to provide zero-interest, forgivable loans to owners of rental properties that need to be rehabbed from Ida damage
• $16 million for the Blue Acres Program, which provides voluntary buyouts of properties located in floodways and floodplains
• $15 million for the Tenant-Based Rental Assistance Program to provide rental assistance to low-income households impacted by Ida
• $3 million for Housing Counseling and Legal Services
• $54 million for the Resilient Communities Program to provide funding to local governments most impacted by Ida for infrastructure projects
• $4 million for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Non-Federal Cost Share to fund the non-federal cost share faced by state and local governments to rehabilitate damaged public infrastructure systems and/or build new systems
• $5 million for the Resilient New Jersey Program, which will make direct allocations to units comprised of local governments, regional teams, and consultant teams to support local and regional resilience planning
• $1 million to develop a Statewide Housing Mitigation Strategy Tool to assess the housing stock in disaster-impacted and at-risk areas, particularly low- to moderate-income communities

DCA says it will launch the programs in the coming months.

More details about the New Jersey Action Plan can be found here.