AUSTIN — On Friday, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) announced that the City of Corpus Christi's grant application for $1,319,559, to be used to conduct a buyout program that targets homes that are the most vulnerable to flooding, has been approved by the GLO. The City of Corpus Christi may use these funds to buyout or acquire eligible homes at a pre-storm or post-storm fair market value to move homeowners out of harm’s way to a lower-risk area.

The GLO allocated $275 million to the Local Buyout and Acquisition Program from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR). The GLO allocated the funds to regional Council of Governments’ (COGs) based on a HUD approved needs assessment. The locally-led COGs then conducted methods of distribution (MODs) for determining buyout and acquisition amounts for cities and counties within each jurisdiction.

This past session, Hurricane Harvey was a priority and the Texas Legislature passed several bills related to funding flood mitigation projects. As Vice Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa was instrumental in securing funding to help local communities plan for future flood events. Senator Hinojosa was a co-author of Senate Bill 500, which authorized a one-time transfer of $793 million from the "Rainy Day" Fund to the Flood Infrastructure Fund created under another bill also co-authored by Senator Hinojosa, Senate Bill 7.

Senator Hinojosa released the following statement:

"I commend the City of Corpus Christi Mayor Joe McComb, the Corpus Christi City Council, and all city staff for applying for this grant. It takes teamwork and requires our local, state, and federal leaders working together to find solutions and be better prepared for future flooding events. These funds will improve safety and protect what is usually a person's biggest investment, their home, by giving the selected families an opportunity to sell and move from an area that is vulnerable to flooding to somewhere less at risk.

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