F&R Construction Group, Inc. ← Back to Blog
F&R · Journal

ACPR: A commitment to Puerto Rico

Press ·

September 20, 2017 is recorded in Puerto Rico’s history as the day Hurricane María, a Category 4 cyclone, devastated the island, causing nearly 4,000 deaths, enormous damage to public and private infrastructure, and a complete interruption of electrical service and communications. That catastrophic event marked the beginning of a period of natural and public health emergencies that continued to affect the economy and well-being of the population — including the series of earthquakes that struck the island’s southwest starting December 28, 2019, with the most intense being the magnitude 6.4 quake on January 7, 2020. During that same period, COVID-19 cases began to be reported internationally, and after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, the Puerto Rico government declared a state of emergency and ordered a complete shutdown of all economic and social activity on March 12, 2020. Although the lockdown period ended, the COVID-19 pandemic continues and keeps harming the island’s economy, health, and demographics.

Nevertheless, the story of the past five years also holds positive chapters for the Island, and the Puerto Rico Builders Association (ACPR) has the distinction of having made fundamental contributions during the management and recovery phases of these emergencies — a little-known story that its leaders from these past five years now share with us. Thanks to the efforts of this multisectoral institution, Puerto Rico gained an ally in then-Deputy Secretary of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Pamela Hughes Patenaude; secured extensions on public housing incentives to mitigate the emigration of low-income families; and enabled the allocation of $20 billion in federal recovery funds.

Those achievements, however, did not happen in a vacuum — they were the result of the ACPR board’s strategic vision. It is worth noting that in 2015, the ACPR expanded its membership base to diversify the reach of its initiatives by adopting four pillars of work covering the residential, commercial, industrial, and tourism sectors. Those decisions facilitated teamwork within the board and helped the organization become a voice for the private sector at the most critical moments, according to architect Ricardo Álvarez-Díaz, who was president of the association when Hurricane María struck Puerto Rico. Hurricane Irma, which passed through Puerto Rico two weeks earlier, laid the groundwork for the role the ACPR would take on after María, as Álvarez-Díaz “became the liaison between our membership and other private sectors with the authorities and the media,” notes engineer Emilio Colón Zavala, who would assume the association’s presidency in January 2018 through December 2019.

The day after Hurricane María, Álvarez-Díaz participated in the first of many meetings at La Fortaleza, where it was decided that he would serve as the private sector representative and liaison with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on behalf of private enterprise. The architect also took on a prominent role providing information to media outlets, reaching audiences beyond Puerto Rico. “In the first few weeks, the priority was gathering as much data as possible, because there was very little information available, and one of the biggest challenges was helping people outside the island communicate with their families,” he recalls. He and the other board members made themselves available by attending daily multi-sectoral meetings at the Convention Center, where the government had set up its command center, contributing information on various situations — for example, the needs of assisted-living facilities for power generators, among other functions.

“In those first weeks, the work that the Builders Association has done for 71 years was reaffirmed — it has been an important entity contributing, connecting, and providing information and data to the government, private sector organizations, and nonprofits, offering guidance and recommendations,” says attorney Nory Rivera, ACPR’s executive director, who took on that role just two days before Hurricane Irma passed through. “In those first weeks, our board members were practically living at the Convention Center, trying to understand what was happening and how we could help,” she adds.

For example, they managed to have the Port of Ponce used to bring in electrical system recovery equipment — consisting of some 9,000 utility poles and 6,000 miles of cable — instead of the Port of San Juan, to avoid conflicts with the entry of supplies and other essential goods, recounts Colón Zavala. At the same time, the ACPR board and directors were holding weekly meetings with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), based in Washington, D.C., which connected them with people from New Orleans, New Jersey, and New York, who guided them on what to expect after the disaster, drawing on their experience with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, respectively.

Through that communication, they learned that places like Florida were using lobbyists in Washington, D.C., to request more Section 8 housing vouchers to relocate approximately 120,000 public housing residents out of Puerto Rico. The reason was that the lack of basic services on the Island was putting the government in violation of federal law, which stipulates that residential complexes cannot go without electricity or water for more than two months, as it affects residents’ quality of life. “Although it seemed like a great thing, once you relocate 125,000 families out of Puerto Rico, they won’t come back, and that was going to have a dramatic impact on the Island’s future,” Álvarez-Díaz recalls.

“When the hurricane hit, nobody considered that the lack of water or electricity wasn’t the administrator’s fault — it was because there was damage to the national infrastructure,” says Álvarez-Díaz. Faced with that situation, the ACPR acted quickly and contacted the NAHB, recalls Alfredo Martínez-Álvarez, Jr., then treasurer of the Association and who would assume the presidency in January 2020. “We then requested a meeting with HUD Secretary Ben Carson, and in less than 24 hours they called us back and granted the meeting — but told us we had to be in Washington in three days,” says Álvarez-Díaz, recalling how difficult it was to find air transportation at that time. Álvarez-Díaz arrived in Washington, D.C., just two and a half hours before the meeting, which was ultimately attended by HUD Deputy Secretary Pamela Hughes Patenaude. The 15 minutes they had been given stretched into three hours. In that meeting, the ACPR leadership explained the chaotic situation the Island was facing and succeeded in raising the official’s awareness and establishing a relationship that yielded significant benefits for the entire country. “She told us she couldn’t change the law, but she promised she would do everything possible. That was on a Friday, and on Monday she called us to say she had secured an extension for Section 8 subsidies to be paid through January. I explained that in Puerto Rico we’re still in the Christmas season in January, and she got us six more months. There are families who will never know they weren’t relocated to Florida because of the support and leadership of this Association,” the former ACPR president emphasizes.

“Extending that waiver until electricity and water were restored was an act of social justice,” says Martínez-Álvarez, Jr. “Following that meeting, the Deputy Secretary of Housing came to Puerto Rico — that was the first of more than 20 visits she made to the Island. We managed to establish a direct relationship between the Association and the government in Washington, D.C., that continues to this day,” adds Álvarez-Díaz, who recalls that in many meetings he brought in nonprofit organizations so the federal official could learn about the work they were doing.

Enabling $20 Billion

In its drive to contribute to the country’s recovery, the ACPR leadership decided to research how other jurisdictions had handled similar emergencies, and “within the tragedy we were living through, we understood there was an opportunity when we were told there were funds that would allow us to significantly transform the infrastructure. That’s why federal funds were so important,” says Colón Zavala. There was already talk of $20 billion in CDBG-DR funds for Puerto Rico, but the individual income limits that were part of the program’s requirements posed an obstacle to helping those affected. “We realized the restrictions could result in nobody qualifying because they earned too much according to HUD’s tables. A family of four earning more than $12,000 a year didn’t qualify — those thresholds are very low for Puerto Rico. What good is an entire fund allocation if it can’t actually be used?” questions Colón Zavala. “We got on a plane, went to Washington, and made our case with a small Excel spreadsheet,” says architect de Mari, half-jokingly, recalling that since they had already been briefed by the NAHB, they were even able to cite specific parts of the relevant documents in their meetings.

As part of that process, they also met with Puerto Rico’s then-Secretary of Housing, Fernando Gil Enseñat, “and Housing requested a waiver to raise the income limits,” says Colón Zavala. Álvarez-Díaz states that the Builders Association played a leading role in securing that $20 billion allocation, and that it would not have been assigned to Puerto Rico without the Association’s relationship with the Federal Deputy Secretary of Housing. “Even the waivers that were obtained for the economic development funds now being discussed for nonprofit organizations were secured because this Association went there, made their case, and a portion of those funds was designated for those entities.”

FEMA Maps

One of the limitations facing both the private sector and the government during this emergency was the lack of data, which put them in a weak position when applying for federal funds. “We wanted to use a Puerto Rico municipality as a microcosm to collect data that would document what was happening across the Island. We chose the Municipality of Toa Baja because, by the numbers, it had the highest rate of housing loss relative to its population, and it is largely a flood zone. We brought in the Urban Land Institute (ULI), one of our allied organizations, and raised $100,000 from various entities such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Nike Community Impact Fund of Detroit, to bring in global experts for a week to study the situation in Toa Baja. This gave us enough data to justify many of the initiatives that were being pushed forward without any supporting data,” recalls Álvarez-Díaz. That data was incorporated into FEMA’s new 2018 flood maps. “That document was also crucial in creating the City Revitalization Program, through which municipalities receive funding to make improvements,” explains Álvarez-Díaz.

Lessons Learned

The ACPR’s initiatives in the wake of Hurricane María amounted to “a professional lesson for everyone,” as they had to quickly learn about public processes and resources, and through the results of their work, according to Colón Zavala. He nonetheless laments that, due to a lack of political will, problems that put citizens at risk persist. “There has been no willingness to build an electrical system that can withstand that kind of cyclone, or to address informal housing — all of this has been communicated to the government since Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and the fact that we’re still talking about it is frustrating. The Building Code was updated, yes, but there is no plan for giving people who lack the resources access to professionals to design and build their homes,” the engineer laments. Álvarez-Díaz, for his part, highlights that María taught them “that if we wanted to accomplish anything for Puerto Rico, we had to understand how Washington, D.C. operates — not so much how the agencies here work — because everything depends on how much funding gets allocated.”

He also highlights the precedent set by opening lines of communication between the government and the private sector, the creation of entities to serve as liaisons with FEMA, and the fact that, amid everything, the board members achieved a group cohesion that — without knowing it at the time — would later serve them in facing the subsequent emergencies of the earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Pivotal Role During the Earthquakes

Just when it seemed post-María reconstruction work would finally gain momentum, the country was struck by another tragedy: a series of earthquakes in the island’s southern region beginning in January 2020. In response, the ACPR played an important role in securing federal funding to address the devastation caused by the tremors. “By then, the CDBG-DR funds that had been obtained for Hurricane María reconstruction could not be used to address the earthquake disaster, and new funds had to be requested — a situation the government had not addressed and in which the ACPR collaborated to secure a special allocation for the island,” added Alfredo Martínez-Álvarez, Jr.

Drafting Protocols

During the public health emergency in which the economy was shut down, the ACPR also played a leading role. “After several meetings at La Fortaleza, where the focus was on keeping Puerto Rico closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we worked with other industries on how construction could responsibly reopen,” recalls Martínez-Álvarez, Jr., then president of the Association. In 2020, they created the Corona Task Force, and “among several former Association presidents and board members, we drafted guidelines that were sent to La Fortaleza, and then-Governor Wanda Vázquez understood our position. I was able to explain what we were proposing to reopen the construction sector — we were heading into hurricane season, many people were waiting for their new homes to move in and prepare, and there were still people rebuilding or constructing their homes after the hurricane. We got the Governor to understand that with these guidelines, outdoor work could proceed and that transmission would be minimal. Those guidelines, which were later adopted by other industries, were an achievement of the Association,” reveals Martínez-Álvarez, Jr. The former ACPR president emphasizes that the guidelines were created to protect construction workers and ensure they could go to work in safe conditions.

Looking ahead, the ACPR Board of Directors is confident that all the experience gained during the past emergencies will continue to serve them in making significant contributions to the country.

“When we started on this board, we made a plan and set a goal: to work toward the economic development of Puerto Rico, because what is good for Puerto Rico is good for the Association,” says current president Vanessa de Mari. “Over these past five years we have continued to promote and propose measures aimed at those ends. There is still a long road ahead to achieve the reconstruction Puerto Rico needs and the projects we require. Nevertheless, at the Builders Association we are committed to continuing to work with the government, with other private organizations, and with representatives of the Third Sector to achieve a reconstruction that will undoubtedly transform the quality of life of future generations.”

— F&R
← Back to Blog