Their Home Is Fixed, but They’re Barely Staying Afloat

HOUSTON — Her house is dry now. The flood is long gone from her living room. But several times a month, Kris Ford-Amofa’s phone sounds a warning that her family is still underwater.

“We’re paycheck to paycheck now,” she said. “Swimming.”

This is the hidden financial storm that lingers for thousands of middle-class families across southeast Texas, long after they pounded in the last new floorboard and rolled on the last coat of paint to reclaim flood-scarred homes.

On the surface, it looks like they’ve recovered. Inside, nothing is the same.

Only 20 percent of the homes damaged by Harvey were covered by flood insurance, and homeowner payouts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency averaged about $4,400. The federal payments, which were not aimed at making people whole, often fell far short of the real cost required to remodel entire homes and keep pace with skyrocketing construction costs after the storm, which caused $125 billion in economic damage. Families plundered their savings and retirement accounts to span the gap.

Now, mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates are edging higher around Houston, according to real estate and legal aid groups. Many families who suffered damage in the Aug. 25 storm say they are borrowing money from relatives, living off credit cards and falling behind on bills. A survey last month of Harvey survivors found that nearly 25 percent of people who suffered damage or lost income in the storm said they were in worse financial shape today than a year ago.

“They were just pouring all the money they had into living,” said Jon-Ross Trevino, a staff attorney with the Foreclosure Prevention Project of Lone Star Legal Aid. “It goes fast.”

This time a year ago, Ford-Amofa, who was 43, was sitting in her sister’s kitchen, dialing and redialing two phones to get through to a rental-car company and FEMA. Her husband, Yaw Amofa, 47, was back at their house, tearing out soaked wallboard with a dull bread knife. The family had fled when floodwaters reached as high as their three children’s chests, ruining the first floor of their home.

They had been desperate to start rebuilding. Their two-story house in the new subdivision of Evergreen Villas was the first home the Amofas had ever owned. When they bought it, Ford-Amofa said, they were told not to bother with flood insurance. Even the federal government said the area was a “minimal hazard” for flooding. But then Harvey upended expectations, delivering $125 billion in damages and more than 40 inches of rain in some areas.

After weeks of missed appointments and back-and-forth with FEMA, the agency awarded the Amofas $9,000 to repair damage that estimates showed would cost much more than that. With no insurance, they would have to find the rest.

Demand for contractors surged after the storm, and the Amofas hired a friend of a friend who had no license but promised to do most of the extra repair work for $6,000 if the family bought all the material and supplies. They paid half upfront, then went to Home Depot to buy every tool, tile, nail, cabinet, floorboard and molding strip they would need to rebuild their kitchen, living room and dining room.

But the work, they said, was shoddy. The walls were patchy and badly painted. The doors needed replacement. The cabinets were ruined by a spray of wall texturing. One of the workers knocked over a granite countertop, shearing it in two.

Their 18-year-old son, Jason, who has autism and could not walk until he was 6, stumbled over the creaky, uneven floorboards.

“It was a mess,” Kris Ford-Amofa said.

They started over. They found a new contractor and headed back to Home Depot to buy everything all over again. In all, they spent about $20,000 — $11,000 above what FEMA had paid for.

“I can be so mad,” Yaw Amofa said. “They see you at your neediest, and that’s when they try to take advantage.”

The family spent four months living upstairs while their first floor was a construction zone. Ford-Amofa turned her bedroom into a makeshift kitchen. She scrambled eggs in an electric skillet and set out cold cuts, cheese and bread for “Subway nights.” The three teenage children sprawled on their parents’ bed to eat and watch television.

Since then, there’s been no money left.

Amofa now has to ask his wife for gas money to drive to the middle school where he teaches Texas history. Ford-Amofa, who works in hospital billing, had always clipped coupons and shopped clearance to avoid debt. Now she pays the minimum on their credit cards, though sometimes she finds an extra $10 or $15 to pay down the principal.

The parents try not to burden their children with money woes, but Joshua, 12, and Raechel, 13, sometimes ask why the family doesn’t take trips to San Antonio or Sea World anymore. Amofa tells them they’ll go at the right time. The storm’s toll went beyond finances. The children struggled with ping-ponging school schedules. When they temporarily transferred to a new middle school because theirs was flooded, students on the new bus made fun of Raechel, an effusive teenager who loves theater and sings in her church choir. Joshua, a whiz at math who dreams up home experiments to test saltwater evaporation, started bringing home C’s on his report card.

The children are back at their old middle school and on a regular schedule this year, and they were gushing about their first week of classes. Joshua wants to do track and basketball. Raechel is excited for eighth-grade prom next spring. Ford-Amofa is already wearily saving up.

The Amofas and their neighbors also worry about Harvey’s dislocating effect on their quiet street. Investors bought up patches of homes as rental properties after the storm, and neighbors have reported car break-ins in the past few months. One night after dinner, a spray of police lights washed over the living room.

Ford-Amofa peered out through the front blinds. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

Their nightmares about the storm have faded, but Harvey’s invisible wounds still flare up with the weather. Ford-Amofa watches the forecast every day on the local news. During one storm, she found Joshua awake in bed and staring at the ceiling. He asked whether the house was going to get destroyed again.

A few weeks ago, it rained so hard that ponds spread on their street. Amofa assured his wife that they were fine, that it wouldn’t flood again, but she paced the halls nonetheless, staring out the windows of their rebuilt home, waiting for the rain to end.