HOUSTON - Saturday's wet weather did not stop hundreds of volunteers from heading to the Independence Heights neighborhood.
The volunteers spent their day sanding, painting and repairing homes in the community around the intersection of Yale Street and Crosstimbers Street.
A $6 million dollar donation from CITGO Petroleum Corporation to Rebuilding Together Houston will help repair up to 300 homes in Houston’s Independence Heights community over the next three years, in addition to longer-term recovery efforts.
The Independence Heights "Home After Harvey” recovery program will evaluate affected homes with a goal of transforming 100 houses per year.
"When you drive down streets in Houston, you don’t see the piles of debris that we saw in the weeks immediately following the storm, so you might think it’s over," said Christine Holland, CEO of Rebuilding Together Houston. "But when you really look at the houses, what you end up seeing is, many of them are empty. People are not living in them."
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told an audience of volunteers more than 4,000 Houstonians continue to live in hotels five months after the August storm.
"Houston is still standing and Houston is strong. And that’s the good news," said Turner. "Literally, the city is being rebuilt one house, one house at a time. One neighborhood at a time."