WINK News helps a woman apply for temporary housing using Unite Florida

There are many people who need temporary housing after Hurricane Ian and on Monday Florida rolled out Unite Florida which is the first state-wide temporary housing program.

Plenty of Floridians are not even aware the program exists to help them recover from the storm.

Cheryl Garniss lost her home during the hurricane.

Since then, her patience has vanished.

“This is so wrong. It’s just so wrong. Something should have been done a lot sooner than this,” Garniss said

Garniss is done trying to fix things using FEMA.

“They just keep asking for more information, more information. I don’t know what else I can give them,” Garniss said.

But, she needs FEMA for housing, and she’s applied seven times.

“Seven times. Seven today was my seventh time it’s been… so awful,” Garniss said.

When WINK News asked her why she hasn’t tried Unite Florida she didn’t know what it was.

So, WINK News stopped by and set her up with Unite Florida.

After answering a few questions like name, address, phone number, and email, then read the terms and conditions, and proving Garniss is not a robot, the form then asks if you need housing assistance or other unmet needs.

Then the form asks how severely damaged your home was or was it destroyed, which in Garniss’s case it was destroyed.

“I’d like to move on. I’d like to know where I’m going where I’m heading,” Garniss said.

But the state program works in conjunction with FEMA, meaning the state can offer no help until FEMA does its thing.

Unite Florida even asks if you’ve applied for help with FEMA.

Housing from FEMA or Unite Florida is Garniss’s only hope of staying in Florida.

“I can’t afford to live here on my own. It’s just too expensive,” Garniss said.

FEMA told WINK News there is still no timeline for when trailers and other housing will make its way to Southwest Florida.