FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, September 10, 2015

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"Spotlight on Recovery" Congratulates Residents for Rebuilding, Taking Pride in Their Homes and Communities

Trenton, NJ – New Jersey residents who successfully recovered from Superstorm Sandy with the help of State-administered disaster assistance programs are the focus of a new ‘Spotlight on Recovery’ feature series launched by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA), which administers most of the State’s Sandy housing recovery assistance programs, including the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation (RREM) Program.

"These residents were driven from their homes by the worst natural disaster in our state’s history," said DCA Commissioner Charles Richman. "Because of the RREM Program, which is helping approximately 8,300 homeowners recover from Sandy, these families were able to return to their communities and to homes rebuilt to better withstand future storms."

"Every week, more and more people are moving into homes repaired or constructed through State recovery initiatives such as the RREM Program," Commissioner Richman added.

The stories also highlight recovery program staff such as RREM Housing Advisors who provided valuable assistance to get families home.

The ‘Spotlight on Recovery’ series is at http://www.renewjerseystronger.org/spotlight-on-recovery/ on the ReNewJerseyStronger.org website.

The Spotlight on Recovery stories feature:

"As we help thousands of our fellow New Jersey residents, we are finding that while Sandy confronted many with similar challenges, each family has a unique and moving story to tell of how they met and overcame these challenges with the critical financial support of the RREM Program to successfully recover from the natural disaster," said Deputy Commissioner David Reiner, who visited many of the families featured in the ‘Spotlight on Recovery’ series to offer personal congratulations. "We are proud of their efforts to rebuild their homes and their communities. We are also proud DCA played a role in helping them get back home."

DCA is the grantee under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program, and has been allocated more than $4.1 billion in federal funds to assist the State in recovering from Superstorm Sandy. These funds are being utilized for more than two dozen recovery programs to help homeowners, renters, businesses, and local governments.

CONTACT:
Lisa Ryan
(609) 292-6055