Governor Christie: This Is About New Jersey's Working Class

Press Release

We have decided to combine two things in the way we determine who's eligible and who will get priority in the REM program, the rebuilding and elevation program. One is the significance of the damage to your structure. And the second is your level of need. Now what that means when you do that is it both creates problem and an advantage, in my view. The problem is, of course, that you need more information from people. You don't need to just know about their home and what damage was done, you need to know about: their salary, their savings, their debt, and all the rest of those things that go into determining someone's economic condition. That means you have to get more information to us, that means we have to review more information, that means the federal government will then review more information, and almost invariably, one of us will ask you for more things. Irene was talking to me about her frequent trips to Freehold to get more information. I get it, believe me I get it. And so, the problem that it creates is the delay, but if we didn't any other way it was my concern that the people who were most needy, who were most damaged, would not necessarily get the priority. And so we had to do it, I believe, this way. To deal with what is the working class nature of the Jersey Shore. And to make sure that those folks were able to get back in their homes. Folks, like the folks here in Keansburg and in other places along the bay shore, and in parts of the Atlantic shore as well.

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