KERRVILLE, Texas – Since the July 4 floods, people around the world have donated to the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country nonprofit.
Last week, the organization announced $40 million of its donations would be going toward housing for the people whose homes were affected during the floods.
This week, KSAT got an invite to sit down with two people leading this effort in Kerrville.
The amount was determined by a volunteer committee of housing experts, including an appraiser, an insurance agent, a realtor, an affordable housing expert, a CEO of a company and two bankers who do home loans.
“We base that on FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) data, data from the state of Texas and our own needs assessment, where we’ve heard from over 300 households so far through our needs assessment,” said Community Foundation CEO Austin Dickson.
Dickson said there are five different priorities and strategies for housing relief:
- Temporary housing
- Home repair
- Home rebuild
- RV repair/rebuild
- Down payment assistance for a new home
Since day one, the foundation has been asking for survivors to contact them through the Rebuild Kerr website, where they can do an intake assessment and be assigned a case worker to help with their needs.
“Then those case managers meet with each individual family to figure out what is the solution that they best need. Do they need temporary housing? Do they’re need their home repaired? Do they a need a whole home rebuild? Or do they just need a car to get to and from work,” Dickson said.
Though he said the bulk of the $40 million will be spent on rebuilding and repairing homes, there is an immediate need for temporary housing. That’s why they also pledged a separate $1.6 million to Airbnb’s nonprofit foundation Airbnb.org.
The foundation offers free Airbnb stays to people during natural disasters or other large crises.
“We’ve responded to 41 disasters already just this year on a global basis, and so the team is good at working very quickly to open up the Airbnb networks, which exists already. So there are many Airbnb’s in Texas Hill Country that we could activate immediately on July 4th when the floods happen,” said Airbnb.org Executive Director Christoph Gorder.
Airbnb.org used its own funds to house over 380 people since the July 4 floods. When that money ran out, the Community Foundation offered them the $1.6 million to continue long-term housing options for flood survivors.
“We issue credits out to them into their Airbnb account, and they can choose whatever Airbnb that they want. This gives them agency to pick a new home, a temporary home, close to their kids’ school, close to the jobs that meets the specific needs of their family,” Gorder said.
With those credits, the Airbnb host is paid, meaning the money goes back into the local economy, helping many renters who have told KSAT people are still canceling reservations because of the flood.
Some people will only need to stay in their Airbnb a few weeks. Others will be able to stay up to a year, until the funding runs out.
They estimate it will be about 60 families they will fund long term, but that number could change based on the need.
“We’ll be working much more closely with them, almost like their travel agent, to help them find an Airbnb that’s going to work for them,” Gorder said.
Dickson wants the community to know the plan is to help them long term, whatever they need.
“The $40 million pledge was just a start. We feel confident that $40 million is going to help a lot of people to get into temporary housing, to help repair and rebuild homes and rebuild lives. But if it turns out that we need to find more money for that, we will absolutely meet the moment,” Dickson said.
They are encouraging any flood survivors to head to the Rebuild Kerr website and fill out an application. While they’ve already received 300, they expect hundreds more families need help.
Dickson also reminds the public that they can still donate to the fund to help long-term recovery on the Community Foundation website.
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