Officials with United Way of Greater Houston and the Houston Disaster Alliance announced Monday they are opening a Hurricane Beryl Recovery Fund to help residents with storm recovery.
The fund will go toward helping the most vulnerable residents in Houston and Harris, Waller, Montgomery and Fort Bend Counties with emergency financial assistance, home repairs and resource navigation services.
So far, the fund has accumulated more than $3 million. H-E-B has donated $1 million, the Sarofim Foundation has donated $1 million and CenterPoint Energy Foundation has donated another $1 million. Wells Fargo and Shell have also contributed, but it’s unclear how much.
Those funds will be distributed to nonprofit organizations that have worked with United Way and are on the ground in their communities to identify those who are in need, and will complement state and federal efforts to rebuild after the storm.
“When disaster strikes, we’re reminded that no one organization can do it all,” said Bob Harvey, vice chair and chair-elect of the Greater Houston Community Foundation.
Hidalgo said that so far, more than 68,000 Harris County residents have reported damage to their homes, and that 142 of those reports are about homes that are completely destroyed.
“This support in the Beryl fund is a big, big opportunity, because we can never have enough,” Hidalgo said. “We can never make people whole, with the federal aid, with all the work that we try to do with government.”
Whitmire said that what everyone was witnessing was “Houston’s greatness.”
“There’s no other community in Texas or the nation that comes together during a crisis and can bring the different diverse groups, united groups to be able to accomplish what is being proposed today in the Beryl fund,” the mayor said.
As frustration mounts against CenterPoint over ongoing power outages after the storm, some linemen who are in town to fix the issue have been subject to threats. Whitmire echoed calls to end those threats, but also hammered on the bottom line of residents’ growing concerns.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I did not say thank you to CenterPoint and their foundation for their financial contribution, but what we really need is our power turned on,” Whitmire said.
Those who are in need of assistance and want to seek out funding from the Hurricane Beryl Recovery fund should call 211.
