So far on the road to housing recovery you've learned about FEMA assistance, state and local assistance programs, and the insurance and financial industries. Now you're ready to take the next leg of the journey. You may be planning to rent, to buy a property, or to repair or rebuild a house you already own. If that's the case, this website will provide a host of helpers that will make excellent travel companions along your road to housing recovery.
In the coming months, more resources will become available, and we will know better where rebuilding can take place and what you can do (or must do) to protect your home from future flooding. We'll also know more about new opportunities to get assistance with disaster recovery.
In this section we introduce you to additional members of your "roadside assistance crew” the websites, agencies and service providers who can help you. What they have to offer you today may be different from what they can offer you a week or a month from now. Check in with them regularly to see what's new.
I'm Ready To Go: Where Do I Start? is for people who have decided on the course they want to take for their housing recovery and who are looking for help in navigating that course. This section describes the agencies and organizations and their role in helping you with your housing issues. Most of these relate to housing, but clearly Hurricane Sandy caused other problems as well. At the end we introduce you to the types of organizations that can help you connect to other needed resources.
Stop by the Resource Guide
Don't forget to explore the New Jersey and New York Resource Guides. They will tell you how to contact the local agencies or organizations offering the assistance you need.
So many individual cities, towns and counties were affected by the storm that listing contact information for each would make this guide too long. Instead, we have chosen to list toll-free numbers, websites and other sources that can steer you to helpful information.
The road to housing recovery is not an easy one, but we hope this guide will help you plot the most direct route and avoid some hazards along the way. Good luck, and safe traveling!
Caution: Call Early for Help with Missed Mortgage Payments While housing counseling agencies can help you think about your options if you become delinquent on your house payment, the earlier you go to them the better. The longer you wait, the more options you give up. It is a little easier to develop a plan to pay back one or two missed payments. However, any missed payments over the course of a year add up to a lot of money and make it much harder to recover financially. Once your lender starts the foreclosure process, it is very difficult to stop it.
No matter where you live in the United States, you can call 888-995-HOPE, where trained counselors can help you work out delinquency and foreclosure issues.