By FELICIA MELLO | CalMatters
After floodwaters from heavy rains inundated two small farmworker towns in January 2023, California set aside $20 million each so the communities could rebuild.
Nearly two years later, four-fifths of that aid has yet to be distributed to flood victims in Planada, Merced County, and even less in Pajaro, Monterey County.
While county officials and nonprofit workers say the slow pace stems from a deliberative planning process and state rules requiring verification of recipient residency and losses, a new atmospheric river soaking the Northern California is causing anxiety among residents who have already seen their neighborhoods destroyed.
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Rainy days in January 2023 caused canals and streams to overflow in both communities, hitting many residents with a triple whammy: displaced from their homes, their belongings destroyed, their working hours in the fields reduced. State lawmakers awarded the relief funds in the fall of 2023. Counties divided them into multiple pots to cover property and payroll reimbursements, home repairs, business losses and infrastructure improvements to meet their needs. prepare for the next storm.
As of this month, about $4 million of the $20 million in state aid intended for Planada had been spent, most of it in direct payments to families, said Merced County spokesman Mike North. In Pajaro, county officials working with nonprofits have distributed about $1.3 million of their $20 million share: $450,000 in grocery store gift cards to residents whose food needs is damaged in the floods, plus about $800,000 more to people and businesses with greater losses not covered by the federal disaster. private assistance or insurance.
Angela DiNovella, executive director of the Diocese of Monterey Catholic Charities — one of two organizations contracted with Monterey County to help Pajaro residents apply for funds — said her organization’s three social workers distribute in average $30,000 per week to families.
One of the main challenges, she explained, was verifying the eligibility of families who did not have a permanent address or who lived in crowded conditions, such as when three families share one apartment. Some people also had difficulty documenting how much they had lost, so caseworkers did the painstaking work of reviewing photographs and trying to estimate the monetary value of each item.
“The reality is that this is public funding that comes with a lot of requirements,” she said. “Our job is to be creative with families and stand with them, but even that takes time. »
Monterey County set up an assistance center at a community park last spring to help residents apply for the aid, DiNovella said. But Danielle Rivera, a professor of environmental planning at UC Berkeley who is conducting field work in the region, said many community members remain confused about where state aid goes and how to get it. ‘benefit from it. And some, she said, may have moved before receiving help.
“People were displaced because of the flooding – they were renting and the landlord said, ‘This unit is out of service.’ Then that household tries to find housing elsewhere and maybe they moved back to Pajaro, maybe they went to Watsonville, maybe they just left the Pajaro Valley altogether,” a- she declared.
Residents of both communities who were undocumented were also eligible for a statewide Storm Immigrant Assistance program, aimed at helping California flood victims who were not eligible for federal emergency aid. The $95 million statewide program for storm victims offered a flat-rate benefit of $1,500 per eligible adult.
Millions in additional aid from philanthropic groups, private insurance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have also flowed into Pajaro since the flooding, county officials said — although residents’ ability to access this assistance varied depending on whether they were homeowners or legal residents of the United States.
In Planada, North said the county has almost finished distributing funds for replacement of lost vehicles, personal property and business assets, and will now help with repairs to homes. This work “takes more time because it depends on some detailed inspections for issues such as mold, foundation damage, asbestos testing and may require structural engineering in some cases,” he said. email.
Infrastructure projects are also moving forward, North said, although more slowly. The county replaced a backup generator for the local community services district that failed during flooding and commissioned a study on how to prevent future flooding.
Half of Pajaro’s $20 million is earmarked for infrastructure and emergency preparedness projects, and Monterey County spokesman Nick Pasculli said the county has requested bids for about half of the projects.
DiNovella, whose organization also worked with families displaced by the 2020 fires in the Santa Cruz Mountains, said communities often take years to recover from disasters and the pace of aid in Pajaro, although slow, is unfortunately normal. The latest batch of aid, although delayed, will give families a boost during the slow winter season, when many farmworkers struggle to survive, she said.
Jesús Padilla, a Pajaro resident who received state aid, has lived in the town for 25 years and works in the strawberry and blackberry harvests. When the floods hit, he and his family had just enough time to collect the birth certificates of the three children and escape. They lost everything: furniture, clothes, kitchen utensils.
Today, it is the physical and mental health of his family that worries him the most. Every time it rains, his children ask him: “If it continues to rain, where will we go?”
His family had already replaced many of their belongings, but the state grant that Catholic Charities helped them secure reimbursed some of their expenses. He has friends who are still waiting for help.
He tells them to be patient: “It seems like the process is working. Just slowly.
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