The Far Too Long and Winding Road Home Program
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Concerned that survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could lose out on federal funds for rebuilding their homes, POGO sent letters to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Inspector General (IG) and Members of Congress.
The volunteer-run Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT) brought to our attention the issues with HUD's The Road Home program, which is designed to compensate homeowners affected by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. CHAT has compiled hundreds of egregious stories of applicants being given the runaround from ICF International — the former contractor managing the program — and from Hammerman & Gainer Inc. — the new contractor — such as being denied copies of their files and facing extraordinary delays. For example, Road Home applicant John Lange summarized his appeals process in a May 20, 2009 email to Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and other Members of Congress:
POGO asked the IG, as part of its audit of the program, to contact some of the Road Home applicants who can provide detailed accounts and documents about the extensive problems they encountered when trying to access the funds HUD allocated to help them rebuild their homes and lives in the wake of the two hurricanes. POGO asked several Members of Congress who have jurisdiction over HUD to hold off from approving the Louisiana Recovery Authority’s request to divert the half- to one-billion dollars of uncommitted funds away from The Road Home program.
We recommend that no decisions about future uses of Road Home funding, such as diversion to potentially worthwhile projects like hospital renovation and mobile health clinics, should be made until the results of the IG’s audit are publicly released. We also recommend one way to ensure that all Road Home applicants are awarded fair compensation for their loss: applicants’ appeals should be re-opened so they can be heard by Administrative Law Judges, who at one point were the third-tier review panel for The Road Home Program.
We’ll keep you posted on what we hear back from the IG and Congress.
-- Ingrid Drake
The only thig i can say is that the Federal Government,should investigate the State and the ICF ,And bring charges of fraud aganist the agencies This is nothing,but deception ,greed,and theft.It seam as the people of Louisiana are disfunctional.Some Lawer should look in to this fraudulent pactice,also the Government.
Posted on: Jan 09, 2011 at 12:22 AM
Not pnly am I having problems with the Road Home Grant Programs, but also the State of Louisiana's Citizens Insurance that hasn't settled my Hurricane Damages Claim. I am presently in Civil Court having to litigate my damages. I also haven't received reimbursement from F.E.M.A. for Hurricane Ike and Gustvo evaluation expenses. I feel that although the hurricanes has gone, I am still waiting like so many others to be rescued. My mother died waiting to be rescued. I now question my life's future regardly of my having to live in F.E.M.A. Travel Trailer that exposed me an asthma patient to 21ppb of formaldehyde, tested by F.E.M.A., and now having to live in my damaged home while I wait for Insurance, Road Home, etc. to help repair my home of 30 years in New Orleans-East. I don't know if MRGO and/or Dwdyer Road Drainage Pumps caused the flooding, I do know what is causing my failure to repair my home. When will we be able to move on with our lifes.
Posted on: Aug 23, 2010 at 08:06 AM
I frankly hope that not repeat disaster from previous hurricanes.
http://www.viewheadlines.com/News/Article.aspx?i=17939&t=Tropical-storm-plus-oil-slick-equals-more-fear-and-uncertainty
Posted on: Jun 26, 2010 at 03:33 PM
Melanie, I just read your message about the double standard the state is trying to get away with by denying flood victims fair compensation by stating that a house that was inundated with 12 feet of water and remained flooded for the better part of a month is less than 50% damaged, but a 13 story concrete building that suffered two floors of flood waters that remained for roughly one week is over 50% damaged simply because it suits their purposes.
Thank you for continuing to fight for fairness.
Posted on: Jan 18, 2010 at 04:14 AM
One more thing--
---For records requests for change-policy documents filled in 2007, see http://www.chatushome.com:2500/chatus/published/HomePage#changep
---See also Chapter 1-Records Requests Of LRA & More HMGP House Elevation Grant Problems
Melanie Ehrlich
Founder, Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT) http://chatushome.com
Member, LRA Housing Task Force
Posted on: Jan 04, 2010 at 11:42 AM
More About the Lack of Consistency and Accountability of the $10 billion, federally financed Louisiana Road Home Program
1. Many Low-Income Hurricane Victims Applying For Road Home Grants Still Have Been Shut Out
At the December, 2009 week’s meeting of the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) Housing Task Force, of which I am a member, I noted that the recent raise in the ceiling for special compensation grants (Additional Compensation Grants, ACG) to low-income applicants is not taking care of many of the applicants most wronged by previous grant calculation procedures. The problem originated from a formula for grant calculation that is partly based upon land value so that low-income applicants often do not get enough to repair their homes.
A former member of the Appeals Dept. for ICF wrote to me as follows after my posting in our email newsletter that goes to more than 850 members.
(We were repeatedly instructed in appeals that the income requirement had to be recalculated within 6 months of closing date – this is EXACTLY why people who were originally determined eligible for ACG were later denied.)
2. There was some apparently promising news about Hazard Mitigation house-elevation grants
-Although it is rather late to be giving money over four years after the hurricanes-flood to disaster victims to elevate their homes.
-However, applicants tell us over and over that they this grant program is predominantly broken promises. Part of this was verified in a recent newspaper article.
Bottom line, not only is there limbo for most Road Home applicants to the Hazard Mitigation (HMGP) program for Elevation and Elevation-Reconstruction Grants (like there has been for Road Home Compensation Grants) but also, there is little evidence that once the limbo is over more than a trickle of applicants will receive any money based on an undefined “cost reasonableness.”
See: HMGP News from LRA, News from Applicants
See also: Chapter 1-Records Requests Of LRA & More HMGP House Elevation Grant Problems
3. The Incredible Saga of Secrecy, Public Documents, and the LRA
-I have begun postings about my attempt to obtain public documents about Road Home Program (RH) rules, expenditures, and surveys
-This attempt to get some transparency in the RH involved the Louisiana Public Records Request law
-It took one-and-a-half years from July 1, 2008 to Dec. 20, 2009
-It required filing a legal complaint to get most of the documents
Here is some brief background and the court filing on April 2, 2009
-Melanie Ehrlich versus Paul Rainwater, Executive Director, Louisiana Recovery Authority
-My public records request of July 1, 2008 was only partially filled
-My public records request of Oct. 20, 2008 was not filled at all, as of Mar. 2009, when my lawyer started to write to LRA about a legal hearing
-My public records request of Dec. 15, 2008 was not filled at all as of Mar. 2009
Chapter 1: First letter from my lawyer mentioning the need to file a legal action
-This letter was sent on Mar. 12, 2009 to Dan Reese, LRA attorney
-It describes LRA not releasing documents that detail new policy changes affecting applicants
-I was told by my attorney that any policy changes to state procedure were supposed to be made publicly automatically
-Instead, LRA and the similar state agency Office of Community Development (OCD)
---kept many of the rule changes for Road Home secret
---hid important details about most rule changes from the public
---until CHAT obtained the Change-Policy or CCB documents by public records requests
Melanie Ehrlich
Founder, Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT)
Member, LRA Housing Task Force
Posted on: Jan 04, 2010 at 11:40 AM
The press is part of the problem...
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/12/post_225.html
It appears hyperbole is the order of the day, or perhaps the honorable Mr. Hammer is engaging in ironic sarcasm, a.k.a. modern journalism. Clearly he is not engaging in accounting, science, or social science. His gross generalizations are mere assertions bracketed by anecdotes. Congress and the nation offered post-Katrina & Rita aid of $150K per home to most of southern Louisiana. Where is the denominator? 126K families received some "compensation" (are your allowed to use that term now?) after how many years? How many received the $150K sent? How many received enough to make them whole? Why was "compensation" needs tested? How many young families and needed professionals left thanks to the state's signature program?
Mr. Hammer is clearly an apologist for the state. He says, "Not all recipients have held up their end of the bargain and rebuilt, but after many early stumbles, the Road Home program can say it has gotten the money out and into nearly every qualified applicant's hands, if belatedly." What part of this assertion is true? Let's see some numbers, not vague generalizations? How many recipients received sufficient or full "compensation" and failed to rebuild and how many residents did not and therefore could not rebuild? The beauty of Louisiana's program is that it has no consistent (generally not written, but always changing) rules for administration or appeal, serves as its own opaque review and appeal process and is supported by a court system that demurs to the other branches. "S[tephens] also said the state could not allow disgruntled homeowners access to independent judicial reviews even if it wanted to." Of course not, they are the same perpetrators of fraud the state has been protecting us from all along. Say it often enough, loud enough, and first in enough investigative reports and it must be true. Where are the investigations of ICF, LRA, DCD? Clearly there will be no due process or appeal to an independent judiciary. And do not worry about post mortems by historians or social scientists, they need concrete objective evidence, of which there is none.
The Meehan experience is illustrative. Where is the investigative reporting on the small rental program and all the mom and pop landlords helped by that program? Where is the transparency, accountability, and documentation in the handling of Meehan's or anyone's application? It was too much effort for RH, LRA, and ICF to document decisions or sign letters. My experience (anecdote to be sure) has to do with FEMA flood maps. I have documentation that ICF created its own maps, and LRA officials made decisions based on maps they claimed were official but were not (FEMA officials said so) and still are not and never will be.
The glory of RH is that some people were helped and that is a good thing. But let's not forget that President Bush said that he and the nation would do all that is needed for as long as it takes to make us (the victims of the failed federal levees) whole. It just is not happening. Katrina recovery in Louisiana is a time for political and economic elites to benefit from the perverted provision of collective goods. Don't believe me? "According to a Louisiana Recovery Authority report earlier this month, up to $100 million is set aside for about 3,500 applicants still in the pipeline. That's enough to pay each of them less than half the average grant amount of $64,000." If the federal government allocated $150K for each damaged home, why is the average grant so much lower and the set aside (just in case they must be served) so much lower? And, what happened to all the rest of the money (remember there were no awards for the small rental properties)? The state needs to divert it to its own pet projects not to "compensating" its citizens for their victimization.
How will we demonstrate that all "deserving" home owners have been served? Survey might work, but LRA already did a survey and no one knows where the data are from that abortion. I know let's have the state say it and then report what they say in the press. Let's say it loud, often, and at the beginning of every article and newscast. I will believe it, you will believe it, because they are all honorable men. What's that sharp pain in my back?
Posted on: Dec 28, 2009 at 12:58 PM
i would like to know why they had appeals for the road home program because i appealed and won and when other people took over they said i would not receive the money
Posted on: Dec 02, 2009 at 10:28 PM
I sent this letter directly to Paul Rainwater via Email in July of this year, so far our prayers and situation remain unchanged. God help us all.
Posted on: Nov 03, 2009 at 06:38 AM
Many of my stories are the same as others here, just worse. e.g. On bad evaluations, I worked hard to correct an unconsciencible error, which proved the evaluator had never even seen the house. They classed the home as a mobile home when it was a single shotgun, and to cover, they said it was now demolished. I talked with the owners who were set to get nothing, and stopped on my way home to photograph the home on my own time, with my own equipment. I uploaded the pix, and faced with incontrovertable proof the the house was:
a. a single shotgun
b. recently gutted for rehab by Catholic Charities
c. NOT demolished
the home evaluation unit had to back off.
This is just one example. The the separate (from reality) Road Home Universe, there are thousands of such stories.
Posted on: Nov 01, 2009 at 11:04 AM
I thank the former ICF employees who worked on the Road Home Program for speaking out. I do hope that your words reach the ears of those in a position to and with the motivation to do something and I hope that your co-workers feel compelled to tell what they know.
Sincerest thanks,
Laura
Posted on: Oct 28, 2009 at 05:45 PM
Because we had 800 square feet on the second floor of our 3000 square foot house we were denied a Type 1 evaluation. The fact that several of our neighbors who had FULL second stories were classified as Type 1 seemed not to matter.
It was all about who did the evaluation. Even when the evaluator was totally in error his/her opinion was the last word. We happened to get an arrogant fool who didn't even know how to measure a house--his original measurements were nearly 1000 sqare feet off.
We also never received the Additional Compensation Grant we were promised.
Fair and equitable treatment was a foreign concept to the people who proposed, oversaw and ran the Road Home Program. Either you got lucky--or you didn't.
Posted on: Oct 28, 2009 at 05:37 PM
Not pnly am I having problems with the Road Home Grant Programs, but also the State of Louisiana's Citizens Insurance that hasn't settled my Hurricane Damages Claim. I am presently in Civil Court having to litigate my damages. I also haven't received reimbursement from F.E.M.A. for Hurricane Ike and Gustvo evaluation expenses. I feel that although the hurricanes has gone, I am still waiting like so many others to be rescued. My mother died waiting to be rescued. I now question my life's future regardly of my having to live in F.E.M.A. Travel Trailer that exposed me an asthma patient to 21ppb of formaldehyde, tested by F.E.M.A., and now having to live in my damaged home while I wait for Insurance, Road Home, etc. to help repair my home of 30 years in New Orleans-East. I don't know if MRGO and/or Dwdyer Road Drainage Pumps caused the flooding, I do know what is causing my failure to repair my home. When will we be able to move on with our lifes.
Posted on: Oct 28, 2009 at 01:29 PM
In my opinion, his is Fraud and misuse of federl money and that makes it a federal issue and needs a federal investigation and it appears to some degree it has been brought to some attenion. However, all concerned should not forget to report the issues to the FBI TASK FORCE HOTINE TO REPORT THIS ALLEGED FRAUD 1- 866- 720 -5721 and send comments to WHITEHOUSE.gov as well. The White House and the U. S. Dept. of Justice authorities are FULLY AWARE of these issues but have done nothing so far.......their attitude and I have it in writing.....YOU CAN'T TELL US WHAT TO DO!!!!! The more who write the better.
Posted on: Oct 28, 2009 at 11:50 AM
As Road Home Advisor I assisted thousands of applicants and can relate to their fruitless efforts to get their funds. They were told to call the Baton Rouge office that hardly if ever returned phone calls. Whenever I gave out phone nos to persons that worked in Baton Rouge it raised all kinds of hell and I was told never to give out any more phone nos. When I worked at the title company files were always getting lost..whenever they didnt know what to do with a file it was just dumped into bins similar to the ones that the post office uses....sort of a black hole so to speak..Evaluators refused to change their evaluation of a damaged home even when presented with flood information on areas from Stennis Space Center employees who wanted to help the many applicants...it was impossible to get an evaluator to even come into the center to explain how or why they did wrong evaluations. They said that they could tell the amount of damage by just counting the doors and windows within a home...some evaluators
didnt even get out of their automobile in order to do a damage assessment. Even when presented with indisputable evidence of the amount of damage the Baton Rouge refused to change their evaluation values..they just made the applicant turn in different damage information....Some of the applicants still call me for assistance long after my center closed down...Why give the money to someone other than the people who still havent gotten theirs.
Posted on: Oct 22, 2009 at 12:29 PM
This posting is in response to the comments of Christina Stevens, Press Secretary of the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) on the second page of this blog (editor's note: you may view that comment here). The posting is from Melanie Ehrlich, the founder of Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT) and member of the LRA Housing Task Force (HTF) about the Road Home Program (RH) for Compensation Grants to Louisiana homeowners who were Hurricane Katrina or Rita victims.
1. While thousands have been helped much by RH, other thousands of applicants have been treated unfairly and with inconsistently applied rules through no fault of their own.
Many of the RH applicants lost their homes and possessions because of knowingly faulty oversight of canal walls by the US Army Corp of Engineers leading to wall collapses.
2. The responses at this blog from applicants are representative cases of a very large percentage of Road Home applicants who have been shortchanged on their grants by RH’s own rules.
Some of the validation of the POGO bloggers comes from more than 1500 responses to our detailed online surveys at our grass-root group’s website (http://chatushome.com ). We made over 300 unedited responses to our most recent survey publicly available.
These responses have only be changed to make them anonymous for public posting but we have contact information for each applicant.
In addition, hundreds of emails from applicants and testimony from hundreds more applicants at our CHAT meetings and at HTF meetings indicate the common nature of the complaints raised in the POGO blog responses.
Every issue brought up by applicants in this blog has been independently confirmed by other applicants, e.g., applicants left in limbo, uncorrected mistakes by RH in grant processing, unjustifiable grant-constricting rule changes, the contractor ICF not following applicant-friendly improvements in rules, and personal bias against some applicants who complained to the media.
Our posting of unedited comments from RH applicants is in contrast to an unpublicized survey by LRA and Louisiana State University (LSU) that involved more than 8000 applicants chosen on the basis of being contacted by RH staff within the previous 2 weeks (and hence excluding the many applicants who had been left in limbo and were not contacted for many months by RH). The LRA-LSU survey winnowed the 8000 applicants down to about 650 who were included in the final tally, many of whom were initially eliminated from the final counting because they stated that they did not get the information they needed from the contractor, ICF Emergency Management Services, LLC (ICF) about the Program. The LRA-LSU survey even with its bias against dissatisfied applicants produced approval ratings for this grant program of only 36% “very satisfied” while 12% of interviewed and counted applicants were “very dissatisfied.” The LRA-LSU documents were not made public by LRA but I obtained them more than a half year after I made public record requests for them and enlisted the aid of attorneys.
3. Contrary to the statement at this blog by the Press Secretary of the LRA, there was not simply discussion of diverting funds from RH applicants to other purposes.
Rather, there was a unanimous vote of the LRA Board of Directors at their Nov. 18, 2008 meeting to petition Congress to spend "unexpended portion" of RH funds for "other disaster recovery programs after all Program obligations are met."
Ingrid Drake, POGO Investigator’s comments at the top of this blog include two references to newspaper articles about LRA considering diverting RH funds. One from Sept. 4, 2009 states the following.
"Rainwater said in a recent interview that LRA is in the process of a full accounting of the estimated $3 billion that has yet to be spent from three separate congressional appropriations, about half of that earmarked specifically for the Road Home residential rebuilding program. Any changes affecting money from the first two appropriations must be approved by LRA, a legislative oversight panel and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It would take congressional action to redirect any money from the Road Home-specific appropriations."
Diversion of funds has been planned and pursued, pending Congressional approval.
At the last LRA HTF meeting in Feb. 2009, the question of this diversion of funds came up. The Chairman of the HTF, Walter Leger, stated publicly at this meeting that there never was any intention to use RH funds for anything other than RH applicants, contrary to official minutes of an LRA Board meeting. Mr. Leger asked HTF members for suggestions on how to use remaining funds to help applicants and said that we (myself included as a member) would discuss this. He received suggestions but no further HTF meetings have been held nor have HTF members been involved in subsequent discussion of this important matter by email or phone.
4. A major question here is what is the responsibility of the State of Louisiana to meet Program obligations?
Over and over applicants have told us about being verbally coerced to go to a closing on their grant with the amount of grant money inexplicably lowered from what was on their award letter. They were supposed to be able to appeal after closing but appeals were made difficult to initiate (signing a form AND sending a letter within a time limit) and first-level appeals were conducted by the contractor, ICF, who made unusually high rates of mistakes in the first place and was extremely reluctant to correct them. Second and final level appeals were by the state using undisclosed rules, with undisclosed members of a State Review Panel , and a very low rate of approving appeals.
The "surplus" in RH funds is the result of shortchanging applicants by not correcting large numbers of grant-constricting mistakes and by ever changing rules that often lowered lower grants. One example is the hurtful exclusion of mold and mildew damage from damage calculations, which was made a rule in the summer of 2008, two years after the program began.
This surplus is also a consequence RH not following the Spring, 2007 Statement of Principles approved unanimously by the LRA Board of Directors in response to applicants who kept testifying at these Baton Rouge meetings about unfair treatment resulting in unrepaired or foreclosed homes.
5. It is helpful that LRA is suggesting that raising the cap for Additional Compensation RH grants for low-income applicants. However, the main problem that so many of these applicants had is that they were certified as income-eligible by RH staff and subsequently had their eligibility recalculated and told they were no longer eligible for unfair or incorrect reasons. LRA has not suggested fixing this more fundamental problem.
6. Ms. Christina Stephens, Press Secretary, wrote for the LRA in her POGO blog response that "we cannot undo past customer service failures."
This is not correct.
CHAT has been strongly advocating for opening up appeals to applicants who did not have a copy of their file available to them during their appeal so that they could know exactly what mistakes were made; had a summary rejection of their appeal with no specific reasons given; had their documentary evidence for mistakes overlooked; did not have help with their appeal involving convoluted and changing RH rules never clarified to and often never even made available to them, especially the 40% of applicants without internet access; were unable to appeal because their pre-appeal (dispute resolution) was left in limbo by ICF International; were given only a few days to produce detailed documents during their appeal; were led to believe that they had initiated an appeal by filling out an appeal form but did not also send a letter so that they lost their right to appeal; lost their appeal because the same ICF staff person who gave them an erroneously low damage estimate decided the validity of that estimate during the appeal without even going back to the house in question.
LRA has not made even current appeals fair, independent, or consistent.
7. The Executive Director of LRA, Mr. Paul Rainwater, told me during a face-to-face meeting in early 2008 that he wished he could re-open appeals but there just were not enough funds.
Now there are enough funds but LRA will not re-open appeals.
LRA will not make appeals fair with guidelines for how they are determined (vote?, majority vote? unanimous vote? standards for weighing applicant evidence, etc.) and conducted by independent individuals, not the Contractor staff or undisclosed members of the LRA staff (undisclosed despite my more than 1-year-old public records request for the names of members of the State Review Panel and my unfilled request for written standards for deciding State Review Panel appeals).
8. It is shameful that so many RH applicants have written or told us that the irrationality and unconcern of the black box of the multi-year RH experience (often an ordeal) with unanswered phone calls and emails and uncorrected, sometimes nonsensical mistakes in grant calculations have hurt them yet more than losing all their possessions and their homes.
This is not the way our US government funds should be spent.
The answer is not "no-federal-assistance," but rather, consistent and fair federal assistance to disaster victims with appropriate federal oversight of spending of federal funds so that they serve the purpose intended by Congress.
9. The HUD Office of the Inspector General should fairly evaluate our official complaint
which was accepted for investigation in February.
The only objective way to do this is to include information directly from a small, but representative, sample of the more than 22,000 applicants who filed pre-appeals (dispute resolution) and the more than 8000 applicants who had a chance to appeal (but not an independent appeal with written standards) and lost their appeal (see here and here).
Information for the review should not predominantly come from state and contractor personnel. Applicants files also do not tell enough because we know that important documents that should be there are often intentionally excluded.
10. LRA could and should re-open appeals to those who tried to appeal and lost giving priority first to low-income applicants.
LRA should also re-examine the reversal of eligibility decisions for previously approved applicants for additional compensation grants (for low-income applicants). These reversals were often based upon recalculating applicants' income from later dates and sometimes from incorrect extrapolations of yearly income, contrary to RH rules.
Lastly, we thank POGO very much and Ingrid Drake and Bryan Rahija for your involvement in these issues.
Melanie Ehrlich, Ph.D. in Biochemistry
http://chatushome.com volunteer at Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT)
Professor, Human Genetics and Biochemistry and member of Tulane Cancer Center
Tulane Medical School
New Orleans
Posted on: Oct 13, 2009 at 12:41 PM
I am completing the process of raising my home. I have receipts and the work is being done by a contractor. I did not realize it would cost 51000 to raise the house. Much of this is insurance and profit. I hope that I do not get to the end and find that Rainwater wants the money back. I have been through this once and do not want to go another round against Rainwater and Jindal who wants the money for his political ambitions. I have receipts. pictures, and canceled checks.
Posted on: Oct 12, 2009 at 05:26 PM
Im curious to know, i have been told by RH reps that the program has abducted policies of FEMA, like for example, you must be the owner and occupant, being that i live on family property, where does that leave me, grandmother passed away in 97, aunt is the owner, and i had permission to live there, honestly the house was a start for me, because i had an chance to better myself being that im already in debt, so living there was a big plus, now the problem, because im not the owner, FEMA declared me inelgible to receive assistance, so there was no hope, and when the RH was created, i was happy that finally somebody was looking out for citizens like me, i was wrong, because somebody thought it would be easy to adopt the policies of FEMA, i am still inelgible, i just feel shafted,, not only that we were told to do a succession, yeah right, then to later be told i would have to be the owner before the hurricane hit, so later we were told we should have been registered under the small rental program within the RH program, but after being told that i ask where to register with the small rental property program, and i obtained a number, to only find out that program was over, i never felt so powerless, but i would like to know, why adopt the policies of FEMA, when you know the services you had to provide to citizens were going to be different, to me those that didn't receive any aid from FEMA should have been put on priority, because we do pay property taxes and if we do that we should be entitled to assistance, and not shuffled around like we are illegal citizens with no rights, its the duty of out government to provide us with assistance at times of disaster, keep in mind we had no insurance to collect either, so the family house now is rotting, so my faith in the RH program, is like urinating in hurricane forced winds!
Posted on: Oct 12, 2009 at 12:42 PM
I was Compliance agent for the New Orleans office of The Road Home Program’s Small Rental Property Repair Program. During one visit to the corporate office in Baton Rouge, I along with 63 others, witnessed thousands of applications and requested documents recklessly thrown over the floor. This explained why applicants were being asked to provide duplicative documents four, five and often six times before being assisted. By the end of September of 2007, not one landlord received any assistance from the program, although we opened our doors earlier that same year.
ICF’s 2008 own financial report indicates that their core business revenue was “…up 61.6 percent from the previous year of 2007 due to revenue it had received from obtaining the Road Home contract.” http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS208284+11-Mar-2009+BW20090311
Incredible!!!
As a seasoned compliance agent, at one point monitoring over $5.3 million in federal funding to 12 sub-recipients, I have extensive knowledge in advising and engaging in strategic development, conceptualization, program policy and project development concerning HUD housing programs and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
Once I realized that a simple face to face was being discouraged from happening with the Small Rental Property Program, along with countless other procedures, I forwarded a 6 page memorandum to senior management at the corporate office in Baton Rouge on Goodwood. The response that I received after forwarding that document which outlined some serious problems, to say the least, was overwhelming.
We MUST change the bureaucratic inertia and corruption that permeates our State. Unfortunately, there will be another Katrina. It’s up to us to demand that we do not continue to go down the same paths. Mississippi did not follow the same pattern. When you continue to do the same thing, you continue to get the same results.
"Change your thoughts and you change the world.” Vincent Norman Peale
Posted on: Oct 11, 2009 at 04:46 PM
I have read the applicant comments here, and they are sadly, too familiar. Then I got to the official LRA press statement and felt like banging my head against a wall. Has, at this late date, the state of Louisiana got no further in its understanding of the failures of this program than this?
I know of at least two Road Home applicants, elderly neighbors, whose stories, as far as I know, have never been told anywhere. Both of these people were either summarily rejected or became disheartened by the Road Home process. Both were left with few other options.
When the LRA press release refers to only 8000 applicants remaining, it does not acknowledge those who, like the two neighbors, did not satisfactorily make it that far through the gauntlet even when they did not have “difficult title, legal or financial issues.”
I would not characterize what happened to these Louisiana citizens as mere “customer service failures.” To be clear, the Road Home Program was supposed to help residents regain the epicenter of their lives, their most precious possessions: their homes.
When the LRA states that it cannot correct these failures of the past, I ask: Why not? Or at least, why not try, unless the real sticking point is that the state of Louisiana still does not see the importance of getting this right. The LRA assures us that it is committed to using the remaining $3 billion on behalf of Road Home applicants because it would need congressional approval to do otherwise. But I think it’s important to note that the LRA did move in November 2008 to seek that very congressional approval to use the money for other purposes.
How has the quiet abuse of so many people gone unheeded by others? From my vantage point in Louisiana north of the I-10, I have repeatedly observed an ambivalence, if not downright animosity, in the capitol and northern part of the state toward New Orleans and the coastal area. I have come to believe that this sentiment is being harnessed by some to allow this abuse to continue.
The truth about the Road Home Program is too messy to easily draw attention from the simple platitudes of the mythmakers. Unfortunately, the lesson of the Road Home Program to date is that if you make a program unnecessarily complicated enough, in a state with a low enough education level, all manner of corporate and political malfeasance can be practiced at the expense of citizens.
Thanks to POGO for bringing attention to this shameful matter.
Posted on: Oct 10, 2009 at 06:03 PM
Dear POGO
The Road Home hiring of Hammerman & Gainer Inc appears to be a rogue act.
Just, why would another company be brought in to manage a left behind pittance of a half billion dollars of the Road Home Grant Money (which original totaled TEN billion) ?
Why, did the Road Home officials allow ICF INTERNATIONAL to decimate NINE & HALF BILLION of the Road Home Grant Money and then hire another firm ?
Was this some ruse to allow ICF International a "GET OUT of DODGE TICKET"? Quickly?
This very act by the Louisiana Road Home Authority, appears to have provided a smoke screen for these players. An amateurish one at that.
Please, bear in mind all the employees of the Road Home program and their mantra have remained the same.
Nothing, has changed for the better with the hiring of Hammerman & Gainer. No matter who is handling the contract now. It is sill the same old Road Home gibberish.
Just, how well and fast is Hammerman & Gainer Inc providing closings of Road Home applicants?
It appears by the blogs that many are still in limbo.
Does The Road Home administrators truly believe, that we the citizens are too naive to see through this diabolical ploy of a scheme.
The scheme of an unscrupulous act of Change the Contractor Game. They would have been more astute to do it mid way. Instead The Road Home changed contractors at the very end of their game.
How pathetic. They now are going around saying,"Well, we fired ICF. We knew they did a poor job and caused many mistakes".
Just, how could Governor Jindal allow his administration to turn a blind eye on the disappearance of NINE and Half Billion dollars meant for Katrina victims?
Signed
SAD NOLA
Posted on: Oct 09, 2009 at 02:04 PM
Thank goodness for us we were able to privately sell our ruined property and avoid more wrangling with the joke-of-a-Road-Home program. At the time of our sale, we had already gotten a low ball figure from RH and were in the process of an endless appeal. No phone number to call, no contact person, no email address. Nothing. It was like looking into a black hole.
We have friends who were denied, denied and denied very unfairly over technicalities. One family of friends who are now nearly in bankruptcy and another who still aren't back in their home as they have to do all the work by themselves or with volunteers. Neither "qualified" for RH money. No good reasons. These people were among those who the money was meant for. Many I know gave up and stopped appealing because they were beaten down by too many rejections and RH roadblocks. The LRA should go back to review these closed cases and contact people, reopen cases unfairly closed or at least let people know they may still qualify for money. DO THE RIGHT THING.
The program was wrought with waste, inefficiency, and 'guidelines' that were constantly changing. The people of CHAT worked tirelessly to make things fair and right, but many injustices still remain. The fact that there is leftover money is a bad joke that speaks for itself. So many are still suffering because the money never arrived.
Posted on: Oct 09, 2009 at 12:07 PM
I have been in the Road Home program from the start. I was an initial test case before the program kicked off.
I was awarded $150000 for damages to my house and then four months later was ruled ineligible by RH.
I went to the television stations and presented information about my case. Al Blankenship, the head of Road Home did not apparently like my comments about his company and their poor work. So I had my award reduced from 150000 to zero and met RH mandates to raise my house and do the things they wanted.
This cost me 37000 and now the Road Home gave me zero.
My theory is that Bobby Jindal is running for president in the next election and is building up his money supply. By taking over 1 billion dollars of home owner funds they can then redirect the funds so that many contractors can be rewarded. Paul Rainwater has consistently gone against the home owners in favor of giving the money to the LRA and OCD, state agencies controlled by Rainwater. Rainwater answers to Jindal and does his bidding. For instance the appeals process is by OCD with OCD employees deciding the fate of the home owners. I was one of a few home owners who got a legislative judge appeal. The judge ruled in my favor, but I could not get OCD or ICF to follow the judges order. OCD eventually threw out the judges order and fired the legislative judges. The explanation that I got was the judges were rulling to often for the home owners.
Now there is no judge, no independent review, just a review by Tye Larkins and an attorney named Reese with no allowance of the home owner to present evidence or even see the people who had his fate in their hands. ICF had under Mr Blankenship had given me a zero CAD (Damages) and then ICF did my appeal as well. I hear form insiders that the fix was in on me by Blankenship. To add insult to injury the CAD department of ICF only surveyed 1/2 of my house and missed most of the damages to the side of the house they did appraise. my house is a double and they just did not evaluate the 701 side of the house, missed the roof, the siding, the floors, and the ceiling and walls.
Not very fair, but Mr. Rainwater was happy to have my 150000
for his pork barrel.
Homer Branch
Posted on: Oct 08, 2009 at 02:57 PM
September 28, 2009
In September, 2009 I was informed that our State Appeal was denied.
Living in Chalmette, a town in St. Bernard Parish, we had 9 feet of water which sat in our home for weeks. This water contained mud and grass from the marsh. The entire first floor of our home was destroyed by flood water. The upstairs did not have flood water, but damage had occurred from wind.
No one could live upstairs because there were no basic utilities in the parish. Part of the front porch was blown off, causing water to be blown into the attic, wetting the insulation and destroying the heating and cooling system in the attic. The carpet was destroyed from the moisture, odor, and tracking of muddy feet. The entrance doors had to be broken open so anyone could enter the house.
RH said our damages were under 50%. I think the way that RH determines the damage is unfair. We had 1577 square feet of livable space on the first floor; 642 on the second floor and a porch that crosses the entire front of our house had 220 square feet. No one lives on a porch, yet RH counted the square footage of the porch in our total livable space causing us to have under 50% damage. They used 2,440 as the total livable space when in reality it should have only been 2219. I can't understand how a porch is classified as livable space. In RH's final determination, they said we had 46 % damage but this includes the porch.
Our neighborhood friends and neighbors with similar type homes and the same level of flooding or less in some cases were classified as having over 50% damage. They didn't have a porch! Again, it's hard to understand the differences between homes.
I can't help but feel somewhat angry and disappointed with RH. I can honestly state that no two representatives responded to the same questions or problems in the same way. Often we were unknowingly misinformed.
At one point we were sure that our case was lost. Only with the help of Mr. Rainwater was our case found and started moving again.
WE have exhausted all measures known to us. The denial did not even correct the amount of insurance money we received, but where do we go from here? Where is the accountability? Where is the understanding for a group of people who lost everything? After 20 or more contacts since September, 2006 with RH, one would think RH would finally get it right, but that's not the case here.
In closing, most homes in our area were torn down or sold to others interested in making a fast dollar off the suffering of others. We are the ones who stayed and invested our lives into making our parish come alive again. For this decision, RH has built up our hopes, only to let us down.
Patty Abshier
Posted on: Oct 06, 2009 at 10:11 PM
The road home program has been a complete disaster. The countless lies and rule changes has made it impossible to get a fair grant. During my three years going through this ordeal I have been told a certain amount was granted then on closing the entire grant has been changed. How is this fair? I even have documents to prove it and it still did not matter during my appeal. This program was and still is a joke designed to line the pockets of the last administration and current one. It is so amazing that the program is so flexible to give ICF more money yet it takes an act of congress to give the money to the people.
Posted on: Oct 06, 2009 at 07:50 PM