Standing in the middle of a brand new neighborhood that did not exist before last summer’s devastating flood, community leaders gathered Thursday at Habitat for Humanity Kerr County’s Mariposa subdivision to announce a milestone that few dared predict in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic July 4, 2025 flood: more than 130 households have already returned to stable, permanent housing, with nearly 100 more actively working toward that same goal.
The Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country hosted the press conference at Mariposa, a development that carries special meaning in the region’s recovery story. The subdivision’s first 10 homes were built specifically for flood survivors through a partnership between the Community Foundation and Habitat for Humanity Kerr County.
“Nearly one year ago, the July 4th flood changed lives across Kerr County, the Texas Hill Country, our state, and the world,” said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country. “The flood took lives, it damaged homes, it destroyed businesses, and it left many, many families uncertain about what the future would hold.”
A recovery system built on multiple pathways
Dickson told the crowd that the Foundation launched the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund on July 4, 2025, the day the disaster struck, to raise funds and coordinate a long-term recovery effort. To date, $82 million has been granted across housing, mental health, economic recovery, environmental restoration, and community rebuilding.
Housing has been the single largest investment, accounting for 43 percent of all granted funds, Dickson said, because the Foundation recognized it as the foundation upon which every other aspect of recovery depends.
“When people have a safe and stable place to live, they can return to work, they can get their children back on routines, they can focus on their health again, their mental health, and begin rebuilding a normal life,” he said.
The headline figure Dickson presented was striking: 130 households have already returned to stable, permanent housing through Community Foundation-supported programs, and 98 more are actively progressing toward a permanent solution. In addition, more than 180 families made up of over 400 individuals have been supported through temporary housing programs, which placed flood-affected families in local houses, apartments, and rental properties for 12 months with all expenses paid.
Dickson also recognized the 32 disaster case managers who have worked alongside families throughout the process, helping survivors navigate decisions he described as “very complicated, emotional, and deeply, deeply personal.”
The recovery effort has not relied on a single solution, Dickson said, but rather a coordinated system of options that includes temporary housing, home repairs, RV replacement, mobile and modular home repair or replacement, and down payment assistance.
“What we have learned in less than a year of disaster recovery is that recovery works best when communities create multiple pathways home and give families the support they need to choose a housing solution that works for them,” he said.
David Long, president of the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation, echoed that approach, telling the crowd that no single housing solution works for every family.
“Some survivors want to rebuild the property that they have known for years. Others need to find a different path because the rebuilding is not something that they find to be practical, affordable, or aligned with their long-term needs,” Long said. “Successful recovery means creating options and allowing families to choose the path that works best for them.”
Of the 130 households already home, Dickson said, 20 received down payment assistance through a partnership with the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation, which worked with local lenders and local realtors.
Habitat for Humanity: Building new ground
Among the most visible symbols of recovery is the Mariposa neighborhood itself, where Habitat for Humanity Kerr County has built 11 homes to date, with plans for 44 total when the subdivision is complete.
Mary Campana, executive director of Habitat for Humanity Kerr County, said the Community Foundation provided two grants to the organization: one to repair 40 homes across Center Point, Kerrville, and Comfort, and another specifically to develop the Mariposa subdivision. The investment has returned an estimated $5 million to local suppliers, labor, and subcontractors.
The 10 homes built for flood survivors represent families who chose not to, or were unable to, rebuild on their original properties, Campana said.
Habitat has also launched an affordability program alongside the flood recovery work, with three of the Mariposa homes designated as Habitat homes. A fourth home was dedicated to a Habitat family just days before the press conference.
A key feature of those homes is an affordability deed restriction embedded in the contract, which Campana said she is particularly proud of.
“If someone sells their house, it sells to another income-qualified family,” Campana explained. “And then it sets the property taxes at an affordable price, and it’s sold again at an affordable price.”
She said the restriction ensures that the benefit extends far beyond any single family. “It allows access for long-term for families, for generations, to have access to affordable housing,” she said.
Jake Eickhoff, construction manager for Habitat for Humanity Kerr County, told the crowd that over the past 10 months he has helped with the construction and completion of 30 homes for flood victims.
“Recovery becomes real when a family receives the keys to their new home, and they walk through the front door for the first time, and they begin to feel a sense of normalcy,” Eickhoff said. “Behind every completed home is a family that’s experienced loss, uncertainty, and disruption following the flood.”
Eickhoff credited not any single organization but a coordinated network that included Habitat for Humanity Kerr County, All Hearts and Hands, Hunt Preservation Society, and many other partners. “Construction crews, volunteers, donors, nonprofit organizations, local governments, and disaster case managers all became part of the same unified recovery effort,” he said.
Survivors put a human face on the numbers
Among those whose stories illustrate the broader recovery numbers is Wilbur Max, a Center Point resident who was home on the morning of July 4, 2025, when the water came fast.
“I was up at 7:30 and drank some coffee and I went to the back to check on my chickens,” Max recalled. “And that’s when the water was coming fast to the house.”
Flood waters reached 30 inches inside his home, Max said, and came so quickly that little could be saved. “It came so fast that you couldn’t save nothing. That water was in everything. And plus it was contaminated,” he said, noting that the river silt compounded the destruction by solidifying rapidly upon contact with air.
Max said he connected with assistance through People’s Bank in the early days, and also received support from veterans organizations including the Vietnam Veterans Association, the Combat Veterans Association, the Vietnam PTSD Association, and Gunny’s Warriors, as well as the Red Cross and local churches. The local fire department guided him and others to a school where groceries were available in the immediate aftermath.
Assigned to case manager Carrie Land through the Community Foundation, Max said the process went smoothly. He moved back into a completely rebuilt home on June 12, less than a year after the flood.
“Before even the first anniversary, you’ve been made whole, at least in your home,” the interviewer noted.
“Yeah,” Max confirmed.
Greg Adkins, a Kerrville flood survivor whose home in the Guadalupe Plaza neighborhood sits along the Guadalupe River, described the cognitive toll the disaster took on survivors as he prepared to begin his own move-in process.
“There’s such a thing as flood brain,” Adkins said. “It’s where your brain just gets overtaxed with the synapses and all of the to-dos and all of the to-don’ts, and all of the people calling and all the connections.”
He praised the case management model, saying the support team knew how to guide survivors through the chaos. “The cool thing to me was that they knew how to kind of pick you up like a little baby and kind of help you walk along and call you and say, ‘Don’t forget about this,’ and ‘Do you need this?'”
Adkins said his home was approximately 99 percent complete at the time of the press conference, with a move-in date planned for that Friday. A second property he owns, rented to a pastor and his wife, remained two to three months from completion.
A Telemundo reporter based in San Antonio, Janelli Pedroza, who had followed Adkins since the days immediately after the flood, said the transformation she has witnessed over the past year has been remarkable. “I’ve seen the devastation that he lived through and then the progress that he made months later, and now to be here to see that he’s received so much help and support, it’s been awesome,” she said.
A long road ahead, a community committed
Dickson, in his closing remarks, acknowledged that recovery is not finished. “There are people still needing to get home. There are businesses that still need help. There are trees that still need planting. There is healing that must be done with mental health and other services,” he said.
But he framed the milestone as proof that coordinated philanthropy and community partnership can deliver meaningful results at speed.
“A year ago, I stood at this podium and I said that I don’t think people are ready for the power and the results that philanthropy can achieve in disaster recovery,” Dickson said. “And here we are one year later, when families a year ago did not know whether they would return home or what recovery would look like, and today, a majority of flood-affected households in our community are home again.”
He said the Foundation’s commitment remains unchanged from the day of the flood.
“Our commitment remains exactly what it was one year ago, that every household will have access to support, to resources, and the opportunity to move forward,” Dickson said. “The flood happened in a day, but recovery will take years, and we will stand here every day until recovery is complete and the work is finished.”
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