After a two-year I-Team investigation, Rebuild Florida has repaired or replaced homes for an additional 3,000 victims of Hurricane Irma after the storm ravaged parts of Florida back in 2017.
When we first met Martia Ruiz-Arzola in April, she was living in a storm-rotted mobile home.
In 2017, Irma flooded the place, damaged the plumbing, pummeled the electricity, and left the 66-year-old with no air conditioning.
In 2021, Rebuild Florida, which collected over $615 million in federal funds to help Irma victims, approved a replacement mobile home for Ruiz-Arzola. Two years later, ABC Action News found her still waiting.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
- 4 years after Hurricane Irma, victims still wait for aid
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- Pinellas County man lives in dilapidated mobile home since Hurricane Irma in 2017
We contacted the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), which runs Rebuild Florida.
The state quickly put Ruiz-Arzola in a hotel room and began demolishing her trailer.
Earlier this month, ABC Action News met the retiree moments before she walked through the front door of her mobile home for the first time. “This is like heaven," she said.
It's the latest success story in an ongoing I-Team investigation that first exposed trouble with Rebuild Florida in 2021. We found dozens of uninsured and underinsured Hurricane Irma victims waiting years for the program to repair or replace their property.
Rebuild Florida was created with $515 million in federal funds. In 2021, our investigation released that the state had completed 570 of the more than 3,700 approved projects.
The program picked up speed after every inquiry we made. A spokesperson for DEO — now called Florida Commerce — told us in an email that they've completed 3,508 homes, and work is ongoing on the remaining 470 projects.
Ruiz-Arzola said she’s not sure where she would be right now had her case not been exposed.
“If you had not stepped in, probably my mobile home would still be here, and we would still be living here."
