BATON ROUGE - Last year, thousands of Louisiana families were denied federal grant money for flood repairs because they qualified for federal SBA loans. The existing law prohibited loans and grants.

President Trump signed that legislation in October. Governor John Bel Edwards immediately sent the president a letter urging him to approve a waiver affecting thousands of flood victims in Louisiana, but since then there's been no movement.

"To this date, we have not received that guidance," said Nick Speyrer with Restore LA.

Now with the government being shut down, there's even less of a chance we'll see movement any time soon.

"They're obviously getting impatient as we all are, as we await this guidance. It just means another day will go by where they will not know if this new legislation will positively impact" Speyrer said.

That impact could mean the difference of thousands of dollars for nearly 6,000 families.

"We're waiting on HUD to tell us, are we able to eliminate the entire loan amount, which is what we're currently required to count as a duplication of benefit... If will they restrict that in some way."

Restore says there's nothing homeowners need to do right now except wait.

"It's that they're working on it and that they're hopeful to get it to us soon, which is frustrating."