The My Safe Florida Home program, provides homeowners with free inspections and grants up to $10,000 to make storm safety related improvements.

The $150 million dollar program is intended to allow homeowners to help harden their homes against future storms. The Florida Legislature passed the bill in May, but as of today, residents are still unable to apply.

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Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis who oversees the program is looking to remedy that and have the program expedited.

“The CFO directed the project be expedited, so the targeted deployment date is the end of October,” said spokesperson Devin Galetta.

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To qualify:

• Homeowners must have a homestead exemption.
• The home must have an insured value of $500,000 or less.
• The home must have undergone an acceptable hurricane mitigation inspection after July 1, 2008.
• The home must be located in what the Florida Building Code refers to as the “wind-borne debris region.”
• The building permit application for the initial construction of the home must have been made before July 1, 2008.
• The homeowner must agree to make his or her home available for inspection once a mitigation project is completed.

The program only has enough funds to upgrade 11,500 homes if each applicant receives the maximum $10,000 grant so funding will run out very quickly.

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