IN APPROPRIATIONS HEARING, MURPHY TOUTS CONNECTICUT SANDY RECOVERY, URGES HUD SECRETARY CASTRO TO TOUR BRIDGEPORT

Murphy to Sec. Castro: Come and see how important federal resources are to Connecticut communities

WASHINGTON – March 12, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — Yesterday, during the U.S. Senate Appropriations Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the FY16 HUD Budget request, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) highlighted the Resilient Bridgeport plan – an innovative resiliency project in Bridgeport, Connecticut proposed in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Rebuild by Design competition. Senator Murphy encouraged Secretary Castro to visit Bridgeport to view the project’s progress. Last year, Bridgeport was awarded a $10 million grant from HUD’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery Program to help implement Resilient Bridgeport.

The text of Murphy’s remarks is below:

Murphy: My second question is to a subject that you and I had a chance to talk about as well privately, as well, and that’s the Rebuild by Design program. Connecticut wasn’t officially one of the winners, but HUD did allocate as part of that round of awards, $10 million to Bridgeport, Connecticut for a really remarkable project. Bridgeport is a city of only slightly more than 100,000, but you’ve got tens of thousands of America’s lowest-income families living right on the precipice of disaster. The Long Island Sound, right now, is not very well guarded or sheltered from storm, and we’ve done an unprecedented process of bringing together stakeholders in and around Bridgeport to put together an application. I know that HUD views is that way because it was funded, but I have sort of two questions. Are there any plans for new rounds of funding through Rebuild by Design? We got the lowest of all the awards that were made. And second, a very personal request, I would love to ask you to come to Connecticut – come to Bridgeport – to take a look at what we’re doing with this sizable grant, though smaller than the others, just to get a sense of the imperative of the state and federal partnership in very poor, small cities, like Bridgeport, to get them to where they need to be on these rebuilding plans.

Castro: Terrific. Well, to the last question, I would be happy, at some point in the future, to get out there and to see it. We’re very proud of Rebuild by Design because it took an innovative approach to helping communities rebuild and prepare for the kinds of climate events that we saw with Superstorm Sandy and a whole bunch of others between 2011 and 2013.