NEW YORK (AP) - The head of New York City’s Superstorm Sandy reconstruction program has stepped down, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday.
De Blasio thanked Kathryn Mallon for heading the city’s Build It Back program and did not immediately name a replacement.
“We are looking at the entire dynamic of Sandy recovery,” de Blasio said at a news conference in Queens.
He added, “We obviously feel we have to do a lot better going forward. I’m not, obviously, comfortable, with the fact that so many people have not been able to get back to their homes; some of that is due to very complex federal rules.”
Build It Back is funded by $648 million in federal disaster recovery funds passed by Congress.
The program, which was supposed to provide one-on-one personal help and money to rebuild, has been criticized for failing to distribute badly needed federal money to homeowners who are struggling to rebuild.
Brad Gair, the city’s former director of housing recovery, stepped down this month.
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