PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The City of Appleton announced Wednesday a local resource guide for those whose homes were damaged by floods last month.
The flooding recovery resource list is filled with local community partners willing to lend a hand to those impacted and is available on the United Way Fox Cities’ 211 website. The list includes directories for help with mental health, damage cleanup, and financial coaching.
The list comes as the city also announced that no government assistance is available to those homeowners.
Appleton Mayor Jake Woodford explained that the city and county don’t have individual assistance programs for disaster recovery, meaning they can’t provide any financial assistance to those with damage.
That’s when Woodford said they reached out to the state next.
“We connected with Wisconsin Emergency Management and the state of Wisconsin also does not have an individual assistance program for disaster recovery which came as a surprise to me, I was under the impression they would have some sort of resource available. As I understand it some states do but Wisconsin does not,” Woodford said Wednesday.
Although Governor Evers included Appleton in his disaster declaration for the state at that time, Woodford said they still didn’t make the cut for help.
“To qualify for that kind of resource from the state, which would come directly to the municipal government to help take care of things like infrastructure damage and providing emergency services to the community, we would’ve had to incur a loss as a municipal government of $347,000, so even the city couldn’t qualify for support from the state government.”
It’s the same issue with FEMA, too, he added.
“For individual assistance, you have to have a minimum of 500 homes that have reached FEMA’s definition of majorly damaged or destroyed.”
Wednesday, Woodford reiterated no blockages in the system were found at that time of the storm, but all claims filed with the city are being investigated.
But Diane Schefke, a neighbor whose basement was completely ruined, says her claim has been denied.
“I would say in less than a half hour, we had over 4 feet of sewer water down there,” she said. “They had to tear out the walls, I had paneling carpeting, and furniture, I had pictures galore. they had to pull everything out because of course it’s contaminated.”
Schefke and other homeowners have said the city’s maintenance of its storm and sewer system contributed to the flooding. Mayor Jake Woodford has said that was not the case.
“Not one person from the city has even come out since July 5 to show an interest in what anybody is left with, it’s just ‘no, we’re not responsible, not even 1 percent responsible for what happened to you,'” Schefke added.
Woodford says because of the threat of litigation, he and other city leaders couldn’t meet with community members.
“Despite this, we continued to work and the community partners we pulled together in that work is evidence of the effort we’ve tried to put in as a city,” he said. “But at the same time, I recognize that people haven’t been seeing me out and I wish it wasn’t that way but that’s what we have to do in this case, as painful as it is.”
In a news release Wednesday, the city pointed out that the American Red Cross and Outagamie County Community Emergency Response Team helped with shelter operations and provided free cleanup kits. Rebuilding Together Fox Valley and the St. Vincent de Paul Society have also been helping.
“While the City of Appleton had hoped to secure individual financial support through the extensive governmental and non-governmental outreach conducted over the last several weeks, we are grateful to the many partners who have offered assistance and support in the ways that they could,” the release said.
“Many people in our community are dealing with very real challenges to personal finances, homes, and to having lost things that cannot be replaced and no effort on our part, no resource guide not even financial assistance can make that whole, and that is something that we sit with every day as a community,” Woodford added. “So, we’re doing our best to try to show up for people in ways that we can.”
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