Housing cancels CDBG-MIT reconstructions in Villa Esperanza, Toa Alta

On July 27, 2026, Radio Isla reports that the mayor of Toa Alta, Clemente Agosto, comes out in defense of Villa Esperanza families who qualified to rebuild under the CDBG-MIT program. He demands of the Department of Housing, the program administrator, and LUMA Energy that those approvals be honored and that neighbors in the same conditions be qualified. They met requirements, submitted documents, and the program itself approved their reconstruction, he says. He will not allow a technicality to take from them what they were promised.

According to residents' documentation, in September 2024 an applicant, her sister, and a neighbor received initial denials for lack of title, though other families in a similar situation were approved. After obtaining title and filing reconsiderations, they advanced: soil tests, plans, and, for one resident, a $219,000 approval for a four-bedroom home. In April she chose the model. The process changed when the sister and another neighbor received letters revoking the reconstruction for absence of LUMA service. In that same community, without LUMA service, other families have already been relocated, houses demolished, and some reconstructions are underway or finished.

Clemente Agosto holds that if the absence of electric infrastructure prevents rebuilding, the criterion must be applied uniformly, but the solution cannot be taking the aid from someone who already qualified. Radio Isla does not publish the total number of revoked cases or a Housing statement. The $219,000, Villa Esperanza, and the LUMA-as-technicality argument stand.

On July 22, NotiCel covered S.B. 679 against discrimination over federal purchase vouchers, with $2,175 million from R3. That is another federal window. CDBG-MIT mitigation and R3 acquisition are not fused. LUMA appears here as a reason for revocation, not as operator of an outage.

Clemente Agosto speaks; Housing and LUMA do not answer in this piece. The reader who wants that complaint has the Radio Isla URL at the foot. This is not original reporting.

Source: Radio Isla. https://radioisla.tv/no-les-pueden-quitar-lo-que-les-prometieron-vivienda-cancela-construccion-de-casas-en-toa-alta/