Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said Monday the city has landed on a revised plan to preserve millions of dollars in Hurricane Sally disaster-recovery funding for housing after the City Council rejected an earlier proposal that would have shifted the money to port infrastructure.
The $5.8 million award is part of the federal Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery program, known as CDBG-DR — U.S. Housing and Urban Development disaster dollars administered in Florida through the state Department of Commerce. The money was intended to help low- and moderate-income households repair or replace storm-damaged homes.
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Reeves told reporters the city was previously warned there was “0.0 chance” the state would grant more time to spend the money. But he said recent talks with state officials produced a new approach that he argued is both feasible under the deadline and more closely aligned with the grant’s original housing purpose.
“We’ve leveraged every connection we had in the Rolodex to see what we can salvage and most importantly, what we could execute,” Reeves said.
A revised split: housing, buyouts, rebuilds — and the port
Reeves said the new breakdown would keep $3.5 million of the $5.8 million in housing-related initiatives while sending $2.3 million to port infrastructure previously approved under the city’s Hurricane Sally recovery portfolio.
Under the plan Reeves described, $1 million would go to a home repair and rehabilitation program managed by the city’s housing department. Another $1 million would go to a voluntary home buyout program for properties in flood-prone areas. And $1.5 million would support Escambia County’s existing tear-down and rebuild program — a partnership Reeves said could fund about six rebuilds inside Pensacola city limits.
He said the city’s push to rework the funding was driven by basic implementation reality.
“The issue at hand with the $5.8 million was the inability to be able to execute ... on some of these very onerous requirements," Reeves said. "We would just merely not have the time."
Reeves also emphasized that disaster-recovery spending must meet federal requirements to benefit low-income residents — a standard he said applies to every project in the package, including port work.
“Every single dollar of any of these Hurricane Sally funds had to be proven that they are positively impacting low-income (residents),” Reeves said.
How the city got here
The revised plan comes after an emotionally charged City Council meeting in January, where residents described ongoing storm damage, displacement, and financial strain — and questioned why a housing repair program promoted as a major win for storm victims never materialized.
“We struggled to survive in this city — paying for a house we couldn’t live in, trying to give our children stability,” homeowner Sarah Brummet told council members during public comment.
At that meeting, Deputy City Administrator Amy Miller said the city never got the housing program operational as required planning work stalled amid turnover in the housing department.
“We realistically never got off first base,” Miller said.
With deadlines looming, Reeves proposed reallocating the full $5.8 million to storm-related road and rail improvements at the Port of Pensacola — infrastructure repairs that port officials said were tied to Hurricane Sally damage and served businesses located in low- and moderate-income areas.
But several council members said the late-stage shift amounted to a breach of public expectations and carried unavoidable political and ethical optics.
“I will not be supporting this bait and switch,” Councilman Charles Bare said.
The proposal failed on a 4-3 vote. The only yes votes came from Councilman Jared Moore and Council members Teniade Broughton and Casey Jones.
What’s changed — and what hasn’t
Reeves’ Monday update does not erase the core constraints that triggered the controversy: strict federal compliance requirements, limited time to spend the money, and the risk that unused funds could leave the community.
But the revised plan would redirect the bulk of the money back toward housing-related activity, rather than shifting all of it to infrastructure.
Councilwoman Jennifer Brahier, one of the members who opposed the earlier reallocation, said during the January debate that she wanted to exhaust every remaining option to use at least some of the grant for housing.
“I don’t want to touch it until I know for a fact there’s nothing else we can do,” Brahier said.
Council President Allison Patton framed the issue in January as a matter of trust and obligation to storm-affected residents.
“I think we’ve let folks down,” Patton said.
Reeves said Monday that the new breakdown is intended to keep housing dollars in play while meeting the reality of what can be executed before deadlines.
The road ahead
Reeves said the revised allocation would still require City Council approval.
“At the end of the day, this will be a council vote, as well,” he said.
He also described a remaining “punch list” of administrative work needed to move the plan forward, including hiring “one or two additional people” in the housing office and completing a “tier one environmental review” that he said could take “three to four months.”
In January, city officials told council members their options were constrained by the state’s administration of the program: return the money or reallocate it into other eligible disaster recovery activities already approved.
The plan Reeves outlined Monday attempts to thread the needle — preserving housing help while using existing pathways the city believes it can complete on time.
For residents who expected a straightforward home repair program, the revised approach represents a shift in how housing recovery might be delivered: fewer direct repairs through the city, more reliance on buyouts and rebuilds through existing structures.
Whether council members see the updated package as a workable compromise — and whether it can be executed before deadlines — will be the next test.
