September Monthly Report

September was a good month. We have had one group of volunteers this month from Cape Coral. Grace Ministries UMC sent 2 volunteers to work on September 1, 2007. This group completed work on Oscar’s home. They hung paneling and finished the repairs to the ceiling. This group will be returning October 6, 2007. They have been coming about one day a month for quite some time. The total number of volunteers’ hours; 8. Total In Kind donation; $148.00.

As of September 30th in Hendry County 228 cases have been assigned to case managers who have updated recovery plans in 85 of these cases or are in the process of completion. In Glades County, 10 cases have been assigned to case managers and 10 of these have updated recovery plans completed or in the process of completion. In September 28 cases have been closed in Hendry County. With all clients needs being met or clients refusal of services. 6 cases in Glades County are closed with all clients’ needs being met or client’s refusal of services. To date there are 0 unassigned cases. This department currently has 3 full time and 2 half time case managers that are reviewing case information. Case managers are updating the needs of approximately 5 clients a day. 1 case manager who is reviewing and completing Means to Recovery Applications, writing reports and tracking our FEMA grant funds. The partnership between Means to Recovery (Red Cross) has been a slow process and we have currently received approval of funding for 15 clients and received actual checks to pay vendors for 6 of those clients. One of our USDA referral clients is close to receiving her mobile home after a year of work with USDA and CREW. For those clients that are not able to get out to our CREW office in Clewiston, we are set up in our Labelle office, every second Tuesday of each month and the Moore Haven office, every Tuesday from the hours of 9-12.

Our new office space is meeting all of our needs and is a blessing for the added space. 2 We are currently in need of a shredder that can handle the amount of shredding necessary to keep our clients information confidential.


During the month of September the Construction Coordinator, completed four reassessments, three new assessments, and, worked on nine different invoices, two in Glades County, and the rest in Hendry Country. Volunteers were not available during this month, so we used this time to address several ongoing problems we have been having in these areas: permitting and engineering, inventory, and material logistics. In the permitting area we have started a filing system for material specification worksheets, that will be available to clients seeking permits. Building and zoning from Counties and Cities were contacted and met with to facilitate more effective procedures in these areas. Our current inventory groups, tools and materials into one inventory, this creates problems because tools are hopefully long term items and materials come in and go out much more rapidly. To simplify we are creating two separate inventories for these areas. In addressing the material logistics problem, Jim White, of 1294 Davidson Rd. has agreed to allow us to use his large three-car garage area to gather and stage materials for upcoming jobs and for storing leftover materials from jobs completed. Kristy Seiler, for John Del La Cruz, donated another donation of shell rock for a mobile home pad. The approximate value of these donations was: $450.00.

In working with The Empowerment Alliance of South West Florida, we have provided 40 clients with credit counseling and budget planning. We conducted one Home Buyer Education Workshops in Clewiston, Labelle, and Immokalee. We worked on a fundraiser and attended the Housing Coalition as well. Our staff representative is working on attending core curriculum classes to get certified through the Florida Housing Coalition.

For the FEMA Close out project, all families listed on FEMA close out grant with open cases are currently in the CAN system. Assistance through this grant will be used to help families reach the long-term recovery goal of permanent housing solutions. In most cases, this involves the purchase, tie down, set up, permitting and connecting of mobile homes bought through FEMA’s modified and direct sales programs. Services provided to families this month required licensed contractors. Therefore, no volunteer services were used. In total C.R.E.W. has utilized 14 volunteers working a cumulative total of 70 hours during this project. In addition to the funding received from The Volunteer Florida Foundation C.R.E.W. receives funding from United Way of Lee, Hendry, and Glades Counties; UMCOR; PDA; and the Empowerment Alliance of Southwest Florida that assist with paying salaries to C.R.E.W. employees. C.R.E.W. has started to receive funding from The American Red Cross’s Means to Recovery Fund. During the month of September, C.R.E.W. received funding in the amount of $70,310.38 to assist with the cost of fully connecting client’s mobile homes. (This brings total funding received from American Red Cross to $126,867). It is important to note that funding received from American Red Cross is received as checks made directly to service providers and professional vendors and is considered in kind donations. At no time is this money deposited into C.R.E.W. accounts. Additionally, C.R.E.W. has used money received from another contract through the Volunteer Florida Foundation to assist four other families with total set up and connections of there newly purchased trailers. The amount used to help the afore mentioned families totals $69,00. Finally, the City of Clewiston has approved funding to assist residence living on non-conforming mobile home parks inside the city limits. As per the minutes of the April City Council meeting, the city has set aside $30,000 to be distributed on a case-by-case basis to these families. C.R.E.W. is in the process of writing a proposal for individual families and presenting it to the city. It is planned that this proposal will be presented by September 12, 2007. Links to the Volunteer Florida Foundation are posted on both our blog spot: huricanerecovery.blogspot.com and our website: home.earthlink.net~hurricanerecovery FEMA provided C.R.E.W. with a total of 65 clients who were in need of services. Additionally, the City of Clewiston also named over 20 families living on non-conforming lots inside the city limits that may be in need of services. The later 20 families may still be in need of services even though they are considered “closed cases” by FEMA. During the month of August, one family has been assisted with rental assistance and is waiting on the permitting process to be complete before they can move into their newly purchased mobile home. Eighteen families are in the process of obtaining permits to set up their mobile homes or certificates of occupancy for their mobile homes. However, in Hendry County it is taking over one to two months to receive a permit and approximately a week in some cases to schedule final inspection. Thus, even though funding has been secured and services have been ordered, families are still waiting on approvals through the county/city before completing their recovery plans. On family has had their trailer completely set up, but is waiting on the air conditioning contractor to complete services before they can reach a permanent housing solution. Because of the lack of and high demand of service providers in Hendry County, it has taken a while for this family to be scheduled with the service provider. Another family will be closed the middle of September; however, numerous complication arose with achieving a final Certificate of Occupancy from the City of Clewiston. These complications ranged from finding the sewer line to completing a “tie in survey” which was a new requirement that was only brought to C.R.E.W’s attention when the final inspection was called. These complications have added an additional month to the family reaching there permanent housing solution. One family’s case was closed due to non-compliance and failure to respond to a final notice. Of the clients working with C.R.E.W. nineteen are on course for the month in implementing their revised exit plan. It is anticipated that these nineteen families will be able to reach their goal of a permanent housing solution with in the next month and half given that the permitting process goes smoothly. The remaining families working with C.R.E.W. are in the process of bringing in required documentation needed to move their Means to Recovery application forward. These families have been notified and are aware of what is needed to proceed. The majority of the remaining families are residing in a non conforming trailer park in the City of Clewiston. C.R.E.W. caseworkers have contacted these families in order to notify them of the City deadline for removing trailers off of non conforming lots. Along with the request for case by case funding that C.R.E.W. is presenting with the family, C.R.E.W. is working with the City to help develop communication and other forms of assistance that may be available to these families. C.R.E.W. has two families awaiting approval from the American Red Cross Means to Recovery Program. Another six families will be presented to our local American Red Cross Representative with in the next two weeks. These families have been slow to turn in the paperwork needed to complete application. The exact date that these applications will be turned in will be dependant upon the date that the Red Cross Representative will be able to visit C.R.E.W.’s office. Hendry County’s Director of Building and Zoning who had only been working for the past few months resigned. It is unknown how the change in the administration will affect the permitting process. C.R.E.W. speaks with FEMA representative Deanna Poland on a daily basis to exchange updated information. Moreover, the FEMA field worker, Tracy, has also met with C.R.E.W. he has contact information relating to which service contractors are working with which clients. He is working closely with C.R.E.W. and contractors to arrange logistics of moving and setting up trailers. C.R.E.W. can always use money to assist with the administrative cost of running the office. C.R.E.W. has volunteers willing to rebuild a new home for clients who own their own land. Although families in need and labor have been identified for at least three rebuilds, the families are in need of building supplies. The supplies are estimated to be $50, 000 to complete one rebuild.

In the month of September the mitigation program has received a great response.
We received a total 22 new applicants for mitigation, 17 have been enter into the Hurricane Relief Database and 5 are on hold for completion of paperwork. A total of 9 inspection reports have been received and 1 of those marked ineligible for income reasons. There are now 15 clients certified to receive mitigation. There are 4 clients awaiting contractor estimates. 3 homes are in progress with Lifestyle Shutters (Norman Smith, Henderson Trammell and Joseph Mitchell). 8 homes are in progress with Glades Roofing (Shauntee Parnell, Mary Williams, Helena Reid, Wilhelmenia Cobb, Mae Francis Hill, Llewelyn Brissett, John Samples and Patricia Smalls). The completion date for the above home owners is set for October 15, 2007. An initial deposit of $3460.00 has been made to lifestyle Shutters for 3 homes and $9201.73 to Glades Roofing for the other 8 homes. The total cost of these projects will be $28830.46. There are a total of 62 Clients entered in the Hurricane Relief Database and 5 on hold awaiting completion of clients paperwork. There has been advertisement by radio (WAFC FM @ 99.5) and newspaper (Clewiston News) as well as flyers. This will help in our effort to gather more clients for mitigation. An appointment has been set to advertise on the Spanish radio station (Radiofiesta @ 590 AM) to reach a broader clientele. C.R.E.W. will also be meeting with S.H.I.P. of Hendry and Glades counties to inquire about mitigating their homes.

Our Executive Director serves as a Board Member for the Florida VOAD and is on their case management committee, participating in a quarterly meeting in St. Petersburg this month, and weekly phone conferences for the case management committee. She also met with Frank Perez from the Florida Equal Justice Center who came to our offices to see if he could assist us in any way in working with FEMA or getting those in FEMA trailers the assistance they need. She also serves as a member on the local Homeless Coalition Board and attended meetings with them this month as well. This month also saw a two-day monitoring from Volunteer Florida Foundation in which we made some paperwork changes. Our blog site is being regularly (often daily) updated, and celebrated National First Responders Day this month. Grant writing and searching for new available grants is also a daily task for our Executive Director.

Our finances as of September 30th are as follows. There is $90,122.15 in our account, including all grant funds. This includes the following accounts.

1. CRWRC spent $942.90 this month.
2. VFF-Mitigation grant spent $19,999.21 for a balance of $14,298.33.
3. VFF-FEMA Close out grant has balance of -$2,242.48.
4. VFF-FEMA Private funds has balance of -$2,713.09
5. UMCOR funds has balance of $16,196.51.
6. PDA funds has balance of -$3,156.66