St. Louis' top officials are working with members of Missouri's congressional delegation to get more than $1 billion in federal grant funding for post-tornado rebuilding.
Mayor Cara Spencer said last week that she's seeking $1 billion to $1.5 billion in Community Development Block Grant Relief Funds. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program helps communities deal with some of the longer-term effects of natural disasters – especially when it comes to housing needs.
The program, known as CDBG DR, could supplement state and local funds that are repairing residential areas and rebuilding commercial thoroughfares, Spencer said.
"We are confident in working with our delegation that there will be considerable Community Disaster Relief Funds to the city of St. Louis," Spencer said. "When that happens is not something I can predict, but it's something that we are consistently working with the delegation to move that ball forward."
One of the reasons Spencer is unsure on the timeline is that obtaining the grants works differently from the process for other federal money.
Congress must pass legislation sending funds to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which then must enter into an agreement about how the money is going to be used.
During an appearance Friday on "The Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air," Sarah Labowitz of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that Congress hasn't passed a bill funding the Community Development Block Grant Relief-Disaster Relief program since December 2024. She added that it's not just St. Louis that could benefit from the program.
"It's just one of the most painful parts of recovery that it takes so long to get the CDBG dollars moving," Labowitz said. "Every time there's a disaster, Congress has to create this pot of money, and then HUD has to write the rules for it, and lately that's been taking a really long time."
Houston as an example
Labowitz used to work for the Houston Housing and Development Department. That community benefited from roughly $10 billion in CDBG disaster funds allocated to Texas in 2017 after Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding.
She said that money helped cultivate more rental housing that was desperately needed in the wake of the storm.
"We stacked that money with other kinds of money and built 4,000 units of long-term affordable rental housing," Labowitz said. "So that was something that was really important to our community. We also did programs for homelessness, for low-income homeowners and single family home repair. So there's a kind of menu of programs that communities can choose from with those CDBG-DR dollars."
One of the benefits of the program compared to others from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Labowitz said, is that affected communities have more autonomy to figure out what they're going to do with the money.
"One of the downsides of CDBG is that it takes a long time to get to communities, but one of the good things about that pot of money is that it's designated usually for people who have low and moderate incomes," Labowitz said. "And it can provide more help to people who need more help to recover, whose insurance didn't cover their recovery, or who didn't have the private resources to recover."
But she said there are practical limitations. For instance, Labowitz said a single-family home repair program is difficult to run, partly because of contractor capacity issues but also because affected homes often require specific types of work.
"You have to honor what people need and want in their home," Labowitz said.
Slow going
Spencer said she's been working with U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt's office to obtain Community Development Block Grant Disaster Relief funds. Schmitt, R-Missouri, is close with President Donald Trump, who oversees the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"Since last year's catastrophic tornado, I've been working closely with Mayor Spencer, Governor Kehoe, and the Trump Administration to get St. Louisans close to $200 million in critical recovery resources from FEMA, the Small Business Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and have been advocating for a CDBG-DR allocation with the Department of Housing and Urban Development," Schmitt said in a statement. "Disasters like this leave lasting scars that cannot be healed overnight, and we are all committed to working together to help St. Louis build back stronger."
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, is also supportive of obtaining the funds for St. Louis. He said getting it done will require Congress to act.
"I have already indicated, both to our leadership here and to the administration, I think that we should do this for St. Louis," Hawley said. "We haven't passed any disaster relief since the St. Louis storms a year ago for anybody in the country, we have not done any disaster relief at all. I think that's a mistake. St. Louis needs it. There are other parts of the country that probably need it too. But I have been advocating for months to do a disaster relief bill, and this would be part of that."
U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell, whose district includes parts of St. Louis that the tornado destroyed, said GOP leaders who control both chambers of Congress need to act.
"If we can't get Republicans to join us, then you know what? There's a good chance we're going to be in the majority," said Bell, D-St. Louis County. "We're going to keep pushing until we reimagine the way disaster release relief looks. Because it's not just St. Louis, there's other places as well."
Making it permanent?
Some lawmakers from both parties have suggested making the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Relief program permanent, meaning that it would not be dependent on supplemental appropriations to function.
"This has been an issue for a long time," Labowitz said. "I just don't think that it's had the political will in the past. I think what we are seeing now is that disasters are so much more frequent, so much more intense, more costly, that there's a bigger constituency of people and communities who are affected by disasters."
Earlier this year, the Senate passed a multifaceted housing bill that includes permanent authorization of the program. Both Hawley and Schmitt voted for that legislation.
But that idea received pushback from members of the House Financial Services Committee, who have contended that the money is often not spent quickly or efficiently.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, R-Arkansas, said last week that the program "lacks permanent authorization, clear objectives, and consistent program rules."
"When disaster strikes, federal assistance programs should deliver timely, transparent, and effective support," Hill said during a recent committee hearing. "Unfortunately, in my view, HUD's CDBG-DR program has fallen short of that high standard."
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City, is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and a supporter of making the CDBG-DR funds permanent. He said he "will continue working with my colleagues to resolve disagreements and find consensus on the details of the program's design and implementation until the reforms needed are enacted into law."
"While the administration and Republicans in Congress can always find tax dollars for the president's vanity projects and slush funds, they have not yet approved CDBG-DR funding for any of the major disasters declared in 2025," Cleaver said. "The best way to support communities devastated by natural disasters like St. Louis is for the administration to work with Congress to immediately pass supplemental funding, providing the certainty necessary for state and local governments to plan and execute recovery efforts."
"The aftermath in St. Louis is a prime example of the harms of a delayed and disjointed federal response," Cleaver added.
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