New Jersey

$1.3 Billion Remains in New Jersey's Superstorm Sandy Fund As Homeowners Still Wait

Nearly one in five homeowners who suffered damage to their homes in Superstorm Sandy six years ago are still living with that massive storm. 

How can they forget? They still haven't been able to completely repair the destruction wrought.

"You feel like you can't get on with your life," one Ocean County homeowner, Nancy Caira, told NBC10 in an interview. "It's this low-grade anxiety all the time. You feel trapped."

The super-slow recovery for thousands in New Jersey is made all the more painful by the fact that state agencies are still sitting on $1.3 billion in federal recovery funds.

And the clock is ticking, as it has for six years.

Six years after Sandy, homeowners are still waiting for funding to finish rebuilding their homes as New Jersey sits on recovery cash. And the money needs to be spent soon. The NBC10 Investigators ask leaders what’s going on.

The state of New Jersey has until 2022 to allocate and spend that balance. In total, the state received nearly $4.2 billion in a federal grant. It has spent just slightly more than $2.8 billion.

The purpose of that money is "intended to address unmet needs not satisfied by private insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), or other sources."

Some programs funded by the grant money have doled out nearly all the cash allotted. But others have nearly all the money still unspent. 

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