Gonna bet that the later is more likely. Now of course, it'd be fun to pull the tax records for the politician and see if he wrote off the entire ‘donation’ of goods to Habitat, or just the difference between the value of the goods, and the value of the demolition.
‘course, if the home was declared a total loss, claiming the value of donations from that home which is now owned by the insurance company would be grand theft and tax fraud...
House was declared at least 51% damaged and hence cheaper to tear down that fix. It’s all in the article.