Forbix Financial Teams Up with US HART to Invest in Rebuilding the US Virgin Islands

PR Newswire

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- During a two-week period in September 2017, two category 5 hurricanes, Irma and Maria, charged through the Caribbean region of the Atlantic, causing massive property and financial damage totaling in the billions. Among the hardest hit were the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The storms reportedly damaged or destroyed 85% of the islands' 56,000 homes and recovery efforts have left much to be desired. Although committing $1.8 billion in disaster assistance to the region, assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) has been largely inadequate.

This inadequacy has created a vast demand for basic societal necessities such as affordable housing, disaster preparedness, and waste management. And as is often the case when the government is slow to execute, the private sector is bridging the gap.

In August of 2018, The United States Humanitarian Aid Response Team (US HART) hosted the inaugural Emergency Housing and Safe Waste Summit at the Green Bay Resort in St. Thomas. The objective was to explore strategic collaborations with investors from the US Virgin Islands and across the United States with hopes to inject $1 billion in public and private investment. These investments would mainly go into creating affordable housing and "smart" solutions for disaster recovery and waste management.

The two-day event hosted multiple stakeholders. Investors along with many public officials including US Senator Marvin A. Blyden, US Congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett, and US Congressman James E. Clyburn were in attendance. One of those public partners, Forbix Financial Group, was awarded the 2018 Patriotic Philanthropy Eagle award for their support in sponsoring the event.

In attendance and accepting the award was Ryan Butler, Commercial Loan Officer and Vice President of Development at Forbix. "The purpose of Forbix's involvement in the summit," said Butler, "was to see how we could be involved with the federal programs that were approved by congress and the president, that have been put together to respond to the disaster to create funds to essentially build out the housing that was lost in the storm."

In addition to sponsoring the summit, Forbix has already pledged to invest $3 million into developing affordable housing in the region. Forbix plans to use the initial investment to build new rental housing as well as help rebuild and repair some of the housing devastated in the disasters.

Forbix is in the process of raising capital for the project. "Forbix is now in the second stage," Butler said, "and is working out an investment model to work with the local builders, stakeholders, government officials, and anybody who can help us achieve our goal of building three hundred rental housing units."

The way the public private partnership mechanism works is private investors such as Forbix invest the capital into a project and the federal government then reimburses the investor upon completion of the project. "If all goes well, we will continue to reinvest many times over," said Butler.

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