For the first time in nearly six years a Houston victim of Hurricane Harvey is waking up in her own bed in a brand new home.
It wasn’t just the floodwaters that kept Julia Benjamin from getting back home. A $39,000 City of Houston water bill almost kept her from getting the new home she qualified for from the Texas General Land office.
Investigative reporter Amy Davis was there as she walked through the door for the first time.
“It’s hard to even remember what your old house looked like now,” said Amy Davis.
“I know. I know,” said Benjamin. “I don’t even want to remember it now. I just want to start from day one on.”
She doesn’t want to remember the struggle and stress of begging the city of Houston for help with a $39,000 water bill. The bill was for water she didn’t use.
She wasn’t even living in the home. The home was flooded by Hurricane Harvey but a leak outside flowed for months. The city charging her for hundreds of thousands of gallons of water month after month.
The water company had the power to cut off. They could have cut it off the first month. When she called KPRC 2 she had been trying with no luck for two years to get the city to lower the bill.
But when she got a call from the General Land Office (GLO) letting her know she was next in line for a new home from the Hurricane Harvey homeowner assistance program she knew she couldn’t wait on the water department another minute. But they could not work on the house because of the outstanding water bill.
One call to the GLO in turn got the city’s attention. They resolved her bill and the GLO started planning Benjamin’s new home.
In December crews demolished the old home where she raised her children. And in two months we joined Benjamin for the big reveal.
“This house doesn’t look like nothing I dreamed of, nothing,” said Benjamin. “It’s more than what I dreamed of. I’m gonna decorate it up real nice. "
The home has two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, wood laminate flooring throughout a kitchen with a gas stovetop and all the appliances.
“We were able to come in here and build a safe and resilient, an elevated home that will not flood. We have built this two feet above base flood elevation,” said Birttany Eck, General Land Office.
Benjamin’s home is just one of 12,000 homes rebuilt by the General Land Office in 49 counties impacted by Hurricane Harvey.
Federal help she almost missed when the Houston water department demanded payment.
“You know you stepped up to the plate for me and I am so, so grateful for that! You know that somebody came to my rescue. And I can’t thank you enough,” said Benjamin.
KPRC 2 Investigates reported last fall that the city of Houston didn’t just clear Benjamin’s $38,000 water bill. The water department used federal funds intended to help low-income families with their water bills to pay themselves.
And we checked. In total, the city of Houston received $4 million from that utility assistance fund for 4,356 families.
RELATED: How you can get help paying for a very large water bill
