Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas coast on August 25, 2017, and the Texas General Land Office (GLO) has spent the years since administering the state’s federal disaster recovery funds (CDBG-DR) for the storm. That work is now moving toward closeout. Harvey contracts had faced a February 28, 2027 deadline, and on September 28 the GLO announced that HUD approved one final extension of one year for existing infrastructure and mitigation contracts that document a need for more time. As older programs close out, the money they leave unspent moves into a single program for reallocation.
On September 1, TAAHP filed comments with the GLO on Amendment 22 to the Harvey action plan. The amendment shapes how the last of the Harvey rental dollars will be spent and how much notice the public receives when funds are moved.
The Affordable Rental Program
The Affordable Rental Program (ARP) was the Harvey plan’s dedicated source of funding for income-restricted multifamily housing. With a budget of about $584 million, it contracted $566.5 million across 75 developments, producing 5,754 rental homes, 4,423 of them income restricted. The program was open to for-profit and nonprofit developers as well as housing authorities and local governments, and it divided its funds among regional councils of government at the outset so each region began with a defined share. Southeast Texas received the most, with $171.4 million across 15 developments, including Trinity Grove in Beaumont at $25 million. The Houston-Galveston region followed with 28 developments across its eastern and western counties, including Huntington at Kemah and Huntington at Richmond. The ARP is now closed to new applications.
The Disaster Recovery Reallocation Program
The GLO created the Disaster Recovery Reallocation Program (DRRP) in September 2024 to collect funds left unspent as older programs close out and award them competitively. It held one call for projects, from October 21 to November 21, 2024, which drew more than $1.4 billion in requests for about $140 million available across six disaster grants. Only local governments, Indian Tribes, and public housing authorities may apply, so private and nonprofit developers cannot apply on their own behalf. Every award since has come from the ranked list assembled during that 30-day window.
Housing has received one round of DRRP funding. On May 19, 2025, the GLO made 15 affordable multifamily awards totaling $45.2 million, all to public housing authorities. Five came from the Harvey grant and total $21.8 million, including $10 million for Bernicia Place, a 120-unit senior development by the Harris County Housing Authority, and repair awards for public housing in Galveston and Port Arthur. The six rounds since then have funded infrastructure only. The program’s scoring awards no points for what a project builds, so an affordable housing development and a drainage project compete on the same terms.
What Amendment 22 Changes
Amendment 22 reduces the ARP by $2,356,277 and moves the savings to housing project delivery costs. It also provides that deobligated funds moved into the DRRP do not count as a substantial amendment, and it replaces the percentage-based trigger with a fixed $25 million threshold. Together, these changes remove the automatic public comment period when significant amounts of money shift into the DRRP. With the ARP closed, the DRRP is now the only path left to new affordable housing awards under the Harvey plan.
TAAHP’s Requests to the GLO
- Set aside a minimum share of newly deobligated Harvey DRRP funds for affordable multifamily housing.
- Commit to an expedited supplemental call for projects if the existing ranked list cannot use available funds before federal spending deadlines.
- Open any supplemental call to for-profit and nonprofit housing developers, as the ARP did, while allowing the GLO to give preference to governmental and public housing authority applicants.
- Notify affordable housing stakeholders of DRRP funding adjustments above $10 million, even when an adjustment does not trigger a substantial amendment.
The set-aside is the request with the most direct effect on members, since the DRRP has not funded a housing project since May 2025.