Thursday night, employees of a Hazard nonprofit will be recognized for their work in four eastern Kentucky counties after last July’s floods. The East Kentucky Leadership Association award will be presented to the Housing Development Alliance, which helped people in Knott, Leslie, Breathitt and Perry counties clean up flooded homes and find new places to live. Scott McReynolds is the group’s executive director.
“There's a database called Crisis Cleanup that helped organize all of the outside groups that would come in. And we took a list that the county had of a couple of 100 folks who had called in for help. And we contacted them and got them entered into that database.”
McReynolds said Housing Development Alliance employees mucked out 42 homes, some of which the owners were able to salvage. He said their work continues.
“We have, through a partnership with the Foundation for Appalachia, Kentucky and Homes Incorporated, what what's been dubbed Housing Can’t Wait. We've got six folks in a brand new house already. There are six families back in their home and completed 31 repairs.”
McReynolds said before the flood, the Housing Development Alliance had 30 employees. They have more than 40 staffers now.
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