PALMETTO, Fla. — A Palmetto resident displaced after the 2024 hurricanes flooded her Rubonia home is seeking help from Manatee County’s Lasting Manatee Home Recovery Program, a disaster relief initiative funded by a $252 million HUD grant.
The next pop-up event for residents to attend and learn more will be Thursday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Myakka Community Center, at 10060 Wauchula Road in Myakka City.
Veronica McCrea said she has been moving from place to place for the past year and a half after more than three feet of water flooded the home where she had lived for 40 years.
“Yeah. This is my new home. Temporary home,” McCrea said after moving into an apartment two weeks ago.
McCrea said the displacement has been difficult. She is on dialysis, was evicted from her previous apartment and said living on a $1,700 monthly disability check has been challenging.
“I’m worried about being kicked out on the street because my phone is running out, and I have to eat as well,” McCrea said. “I have to pay my doctor’s payments and stuff like that. So it’s hard. I’m struggling right now, and that’s why I just need to be in one stable place.”
McCrea applied last month to the Lasting Manatee Home Recovery Program. She hopes the program can help repair her house, which has been vacant since the flooding.
“This is my humble, flooded house,” McCrea said while standing at the damaged home. “Hoping that I get some help soon.”
Other homes near McCrea’s street still have sandbags in front of them and tarps over roofs. Nearby, some homes are being rebuilt, a possibility McCrea hopes the program can provide for her home.
Odugo Ohizu, communications coordinator for Lasting Manatee, said the program is reviewing McCrea’s income documents to determine whether she is eligible. If she qualifies, the program would conduct a home inspection to assess the storm damage.
“With that, we’ll be able to see how much construction assistance we can offer her, possibly up to our max of $250,000 for repairs or $450,000 for home replacement and elevation,” Ohizu said.
Ohizu said if McCrea is approved, reconstruction of her home would start later this year or in 2027.
McCrea is one of many people applying to the program. Ohizu said Lasting Manatee expects the number of applicants could reach 3,000 by the end of the application period.
McCrea said she is eager for a decision as she hopes to return to the home she lived in for four decades.
“And then I know I’m home,” McCrea said. “These are my roots. I got to stay with my roots to be grounded.”
Julia Hazel
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