What you need to know to Elevate your home
FIRM advocates for Monroe County residents, businesses and homeowners. We have fought successfully since 2006 against excessive, discriminatory and unaffordable property insurance rates.
Keyswide Home
elevation education
Project
Alison Higgins, the Sustainability Coordinator for the City of Key West, Florida, and Caroline Horn, Manager for Fair Insurance Rates for Monroe (FIRM), a local nonprofit, are leading an effort to help homeowners elevate their homes out of the floodplain. Along with their partners, they developed trainings for contractors and homeowners and educational materials that are demystifying the process and increasing knowledge on home elevation. These informational materials help answer questions around costs, methods, barriers, permitting, duration, and financing.
Our partners
Monroe County, Key West, Layton, Marathon, Key Colony Beach, Monroe County Extension Service, Fair Insurance Rates for Monroe
What about funding?
Home elevation and retrofitting is expensive but we will help you find funding sources.
Why this is important
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineeers has identified 10,000 Monroe County properties that should be elevated, retrofitted or acquired to deal with increased flooding.
Who is this for?
Homeowners, contractors and public-private people interested in flood protection.
Explore Elevation in Action
Homeowners throughout the Keys have successfully taken on the challenge of elevating exisiting structures, including several historic homes in Key West. While elevating a home can appear daunting, working with the right contractor and architect can streamline the process. Flip through our book of succesful Key West projects!
Home Elevation Overview
Our 40-minute video workshop offers multiple modules focusing on home elevation, retrofitting your home for flood protection and understanding the process from first steps to gather the needed information and contractor selection to final elevation.
Local Ordinances overview
Flood plain management experts from Layton, Key Colony Beach, Marathon, Key West and Monroe County explain the local ordinances that affect building height restrictions and codes. The video is 35 minutes.
What is the Elevate Florida Program?
Elevate Florida is a first-of-its-kind, groundbreaking statewide residential mitigation program. Led by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), this program is designed to protect homes and communities by reducing damage caused by natural disasters like hurricanes and floods. Elevate Florida works like FEMA’s FMA grant applications previously administered by Monroe County. However, due to funding cuts to FEMA’s mitigation grant programs, the Elevate Florida program will now be funded by Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Swift Current funding and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). Swift Current and HMGP provide funding to mitigate buildings insured through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP after a major disaster declaration following a flood-related disaster event to reduce risk against future flood damage. Funding will only be available for Severe Repetitive Loss (SRL) properties and only after a disaster declaration. Read more about the funding cuts here.
What is the My Safe Florida Home Program?
Wind Mitigation Home Inspections All owners of site-built, single-family, residential homes or townhouses are eligible to make application for a wind mitigation home inspection. This inspection will identify those elements of your home’s construction which could be improved to mitigate your home against future wind damages. All inspections will be provided to eligible homeowners free of charge by the State. Applications will be reviewed and approved in the order in which they are received until current funding is exhausted.
Wind Mitigation Grant awards for home construction (DFS anticipates awarding between 11,000 and 12,000 grants based on current funding.)
What is the My Safe Florida Condominium Pilot Program?
Wind Mitigation Home Inspections Eligible condominium associations will receive a complimentary inspection to identify existing hurricane-resistant features of their buildings. The inspection will also highlight necessary recommendations for improvements to protect against hurricane winds in order to receive reductions in insurance premiums.Applications will be reviewed and approved in the order in which they are received until current funding is exhausted.
Wind Mitigation Grant awards In addition to the free inspection, eligible associations can apply for grants to implement specific wind mitigation improvements identified in the free inspection report.
Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation Wind Mitigation Resources
The Office of Insurance Regulation is providing a new resource on FLOIR.com to encourage Floridians to be proactive and take measures to prevent and reduce windstorm losses. The new webpage provides details for consumers regarding the process of requesting a wind mitigation inspection, updating and submitting necessary wind mitigation forms, obtaining information about mitigation programs available, as well as other mitigation resources to benefit consumers.