Welcome to chatushome.com

from the volunteers of the Citizens' Road Home Action Team (CHAT)!

We have been advocating since Sept. ‘06 for fairer treatment of applicants in the state-run and $10.4 billion, federally funded Louisiana Road Home Program (RH) for homeowner-victims of the Hurricanes Katrina & Rita & the linked flooding due to faulty levees

CHAT Accomplishments - Some of what we did to help 10,000’s of the ~140,000 applicants    

 CHAT Media Appearances  - Links to about 60 news articles mentioning CHAT leaders and the Road Home Program

To find an item at our website: press both “Ctrl” & “f” keys; release; then, in the pop-up box, type key words

To Get Our Free Email Newsletter: send an email to chatlra@yahoo.com  and write “Join CHAT” in the subject & your city in the email

Sept. 2012 Newsletter: Roofs & Government advice

A recent collection of some of our newsletters can be read by clicking here

v  The Road Home Program (RH) is administered by the state of Louisiana as a HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)

·         ICF Emergency Services (ICF) and HGI contracts used about 10% of the $10.4 billion program funding

v  This program officially ends in June 2010 but will continue to monitor grantees for compliance with covenants for “compensation” grants that unfairly shortchanged many thousands of the applicants

v  In addition, funds that will be collected for not meeting the covenants and for planned construction loans will go into state coffers for undetermined purposes

 

v  ICF, the main RH contractor: its slogan of “Passion, Experience, and Expertise” is contradicted by reality

1.     See the CHAT newsletter from Sept. 13, 2010

2.     More about the unconcern, inexperience, and lack of knownledge of ICF  in following newsletters

 

v  In the following article,  former RH officials & former Gov. Blanco stated that they did not know 

 about underfunded applicants in the beginning of the program

 

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-15/128522342444460.xml&coll=1

 

1.     CHAT documents show that top RH officials were informed of the problems in Oct. 2006, 2 months after the program started in a meeting in the office of Walter Leger, former Chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) Housing Task Force

·         Correspondence to Gov. Blanco’s chief advisor on RH issues; Walter Leger; and Mike Byrne of ICF

·         Correspondence to and from Dr. Norman Francis, Chairman of the LRA Board of Directors

2.     Four years ago, we documented the problems with underfunding of RH applicants because of RH using ‘pre-storm value of land and home” instead of the rebuild estimate

·         Excel spread sheet illustrating problems with the reliance on pre-storm values instead of rebuild costs for these compensation/rebuilding grants

o    The above file uses sample calculations based upon numbers given to us by the RH officials in the meeting two days earlier in Oct., 2006

o    The document contains our conclusion communicated to these officials 4 years ago that The people who need the money the most to be able to come back to their LA home are given the least help. This is prejudicial.” 

o    The early calculations in this document were based on a sliding scale for rebuild costs that was later changed by the RH to $130 per sq ft for everyone

o    However, most applicants had their grant determined by pre-storm valuations, that were often underestimates and were done by poor methods and often inexperienced ICF staff

o    Applicants whose grants were determined by rebuild costs often were underfunded, especially due to unfair rules and practices during the administration of Gov.  Jindal  and LRA Director Paul Rainwater

o    For example, Paul Rainwater changed the rule in the summer of 2008 to exclude mold and mildew damage even for homes that stewed in water for 3 weeks as a result of  the Army Corp of Engineers’ mistake-laden oversight of the levees

3.     We sent a letter to the top official advising Gov. Blanco at that time about RH issues. In we stated the following:

“We believe that it is likely that the state will face claims of economic or racial discrimination arising from the policies now be carried out by ICF.”

4.     The present Gov., Bobby Jindal’s administration made the program more unfair despite appeals from CHAT and other organizations of applicants who were given much too little funding to repair their homes due to faulty rules and faulty implementation

 

 

v  The Dead-end of Road Home: Waste of Taxpayer Money To Intimidate Tens of Thousands of Homeowners

 

1.     The Louisiana State Office of Community Development is sending out letters to tens of thousands of Road Home (RH) Applicants that ask them to sign statements threatening “fine” and “imprisonment” if they have not provided true information about filling the covenant for their RH grant.

2.     One major problem is that the covenant and Compliance and Monitoring Forms being send to them are contradictory. The covenant requires that they live in their repaired house for any time (officials of Road Home often stated at public meetings that one day would suffice) during the course of 3 years after receiving their grant funds. The Monitoring Forms demands a current utility statement despite the fact that the covenant does not require that they be currently living in their home.

3.     Another is that applicants are being asked to give a certificate of occupancy or other such document. This was never mentioned in the covenant and, because of technical, bureaucratic, and financial reasons, some applicants will be living in their home while still awaiting a certificate of occupancy.

4.     They are also being asked to get a copy of initial permits from the city or parish, which should be unnecessary and was never mentioned to applicants before.  If they lost their copy, these are time-consuming to obtain.

5.     They are being asked to produce all these documents within 30 days from the day the letter was sent to the applicants, which is unfair and unreasonable. RH routinely left applicants incommunicado for many months and more than a year but demands rapid responses from beleaguered applicant-hurricane victims, which includes many of those suffering again because of the catastrophic BP oil spill.

6.     The covenant states that the money applicants received is “compensation for damages. ” What right does the state have to demand repair of homes from applicants and maintaining maximum flood insurance in perpetuity?  Many of the low- and middle-income applicants lost all their possessions in the flood, are in difficult financial straits,  were systematically shortchanged on their grant amounts, and falsely led to believe that they would have a chance for a fair appeal to correct the state’s and the contractor’s (ICF Emergency Management Services) shortchanging mistakes after they signed the covenant papers.

7.     The covenant states that “”Nothing in these Covenants shall be construed to require the Owner to repair, rebuild, relocate or sell the Property.” Now the state monitoring staff is requiring precisely that repair or rebuilding despite the acknowledgement that “The Louisiana Recovery Authority estimates that at least 20,000 Road Home recipients, or 15 percent, will be unable to rebuild their homes without substantial help.” http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2010/05/nonprofit_assistance_for_road.htm

o    Even if funds from only 5% of these applicants are recovered, that would mean about $60 million, given the average grant size of about $60,000.

o    What will the state do with the majority of these 20,000 applicants who needed the grant money to pay down mortgages suddenly demanded or to pay rent or to pay for partial home repairs that they could not complete because their grant was inadequate?

o     Will the state try to put leans on thousands of homes thereby negatively impacting the real estate market, which is already depressed?

8.     All the signs point to this “monitoring” being a waste of taxpayer money for the purpose of justifying jobs for state staff in Baton Rouge and filling state coffers with money (see Item 10, below). Not only will state staff (~120 in the Disaster Recovery Unit that includes OCD) have to process 128,000 Monitoring and Compliance forms and associated documents sent by applicants, but also, the letter with the form tells applicants that there will be a tax money-wasting personal visit to their home to check on the status of repairs!

9.     What is the purpose of these expenditures? The effect will be to harass over 100,000 victims of the catastrophic hurricane/floods, who often lost their homes as well as their possession due to the faulty oversight of the US Army Corp of Engineers. This was federal guilt money that the State of Louisiana was never given (they got no interest and had to draw down grant funds from a federal account), but rather was responsible for distributing to the victims.

10.  What will happen to the federal tax dollars “recaptured” from intimidated RH applicants despite the highly dubious legality of the covenant and contradictions in it and in the compliance documents? By the admission of one of the heads of the Housing Dept. of OCD at a public meeting, the recaptured money from applicants will go into OCD’s coffers.

11.  Therefore, federal dollars intended for hurricane victims are being changed to state dollars to be used at Gov. Jindal’s discretion. This will include enabling state staff to reinforce the opinion of very many applicants who have described the 4-year RH program as a terrible ordeal of no answers or nonsensical ones to why mistakes in their grant calculations were not corrected. Many thousands of these applicants are still not able to repair their homes because of the systematic shortchanging of grant funds to them while almost 10% of the $11 billion went to the contractors ICF Emergency Management Services and HGI (Hammerman & Gainer Inc).

          

Reference Documents

http://chatushome.com/chatusfiles/MonitoringForRecaptureLettersForms_7_2010.pdf

 

http://chatushome.com/chatusfiles/Covenants_SeePoint9_112607.pdf

 

Grant recipient affidavit, note Point 3

 

Grant Agreement for homeowners, note Point 4                    

 

 

 

v   Some recent CHAT newsletters:

·     Converting Federal Disaster Relief Money to State General-Coffer Money: March 25, 2010

·     Amnesty International and Rights of Victims: April 11, 2010

·     Unhappy Endings to the Road Home Program: May 1, 2010

·     Louisiana House of Representatives Speaker Jim Tucker & the Politics of RH Money: May 17, 2010

·     Road Home Numbers and Reality: May 25, 2010

·     Road Home Tries to Stifle Complaints, Part 1: May 29, 2010

·     Road Home Tries to Stifle Complaints, Part 2: June 9, 2010

·     LA Office of Community Development (OCD) and HUD Going After Applicants: June 23, 2010

 

v  This is the link to our complaint (39 pages and 88 footnotes) to the HUD Office of the Inspector General (OIG):

http://chatushome.com/chatusfiles/HUD_OIG_Complaint_ForPublicRelease_final__2_2_09.pdf

 

Below is a description of the outcome of this complaint from Melanie Ehrlich, the founder of CHAT, and main author of this complaint

·        When I was interviewed by an inspector from the HUD OIG, I asked if Fred Tombar, the Special Assistant on Disaster Recovery to the Secretary of HUD, would have any influence on the outcome of the promised investigation. 

 

·        Mr. Tombar is a former subcontractor and paid TV-apologist for the main Road Home Program contractor ICF Emergency Management Services (ICF).

 

·        The HUD OIG inspector only smiled and said no.

 

·        I asked if he would interview any of the list of representative applicants who had been treated unfairly or inconsistently and were willing to be interviewed by the HUD OIG. He had asked for such a list.

 

·        “No,”  said the HUD OIG inspector but he would be sure to interview representatives of the contractor, ICF, and HUD staff (whom our complaint implicates in covering up the mismangement of the state-administered program) and state officials from the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) and the Louisiana Office of Community Development (OCD).

 

Ø  Our complaint, which dealt with violation of HUD rules, concerned the following substantive issues:

 

 

 

o   failure to provide a common, consistent, fair and independent method of determining homeowners’ damages, including pre-storm values,

§  thereby, many applicants received less grant money than they were entitled to, which has caused an especial hardship for moderate-to-low income applicants consequently unable to repair or rebuild their homes;

 

o   failure to provide program rules, information and documents to applicants in derogation of their rights;

 

o   failure to meet the contractual obligation to provide an “ombudsman” type program;

 

o   failure to provide a fair and independent appeals process in violation of due process;

 

o   acts in derogation of HUD requirements for citizen and local government representative participation.  

 

Ø  Why was there nothing but a one-paragraph dismissal (“case closed”) of our complaint?

·         after the HUD OIG sat on it for 7 months

·         after the inspector from HUD flew down to interview me

·         after the office of the HUD OIG promised a full, publicly posted report whatever the outcome

·         despite our extensive documentation of glaringly inconsistent treatment of applicants

o   inconsistent treatment is a major violation of HUD rules 

 

Ø  The answer is that the evidence that HUD OIG was so damning their only response could be either a real investigation or no investigation at all

·         They choose a cover-up with no investigation at all

·         HUD, like officials of the State of Louisiana, are complicit in knowingly allowing more than ten thousand applications (see our complaint to the HUD OIG linked above and more documentation below) were subject to appeals conducted by the contractor (ICF) who made the mistakes or state staff who had no rules for conducting those appeals

 

v    If you are a member of the media and want more information, write to mehrlich8@yahoo.com

 

·    If you are a Road Home applicant or other individual and want to subscribe to our free weekly newletter or want more information, write to chatlra@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 April 11, 2010

Ø  A report that was just released by Amnesty International has much merit but is missing the main problems for eligible Road Home (RH) applicants, ~ 130,000 – 140,000 hurricane victims. It isn’t the Stafford Act upon which the report focuses that is responsible for so much heartache and so many RH applicants being unable to rebuild or repair their homes despite $10 billion of grant money for the program.

Ø  It is largely the government’s and contractors’ administration of the program irrespective of the Stafford Act. It is that there was far too little targeting of applicants’ needs. Sure tens of thousands got the grants they needed and deserved but tens of thousands didn’t, due to no fault of their own.

Ø  For other programs, the Stafford Act may be the major hindrance, but not for the Road Home Program.

Ø Amnesty International: U.S. guilty of Katrina-related abuses

http://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2010/04/09/amnesty-us-guilty-of-katrina-related-abuses/

 

 

CHAT’s online applicant surveys: (click here) for which we have ~ 1600 responses from applicants

v     To read the complete responses to one of CHAT’s three surveys  click here

·        The survey has been made anonymous for the public but all these respondents supplied contact information

 

Ø                           

Ø                          HUD’s Rule of Maximum Feasible Deference: LRA and OCD explanations are contradicted

·         http://fhasecure.gov/offices/cpd/communitydevelopment/library/stateguide/appg.pdf

                                     24 CFR 570.480 (c) of the State CDBG regulations provides that the Secretary will give maximum feasible

·         deference to the state’s interpretation of the statutory requirements and the requirements of this regulation, provided that these interpretations are not plainly inconsistent with the HCDA and the Secretary’s obligation to enforce compliance with the intent of Congress contained in the Act.”

 

·         The general meaning is that for HUD CDBG-funded programs (like the Road Home, RH) the State has very much freedom to set the rules as it sees fit.

 

·         A specific application is to the rule that if an applicant gives RH an appraisal that is more than 20% higher than the pre-storm value (PSV) used for grant calculation, RH will not accept it. This detailed requirement could not have come from HUD according to the “maximum feasible deference” regulation.

·         This 20% rule was changed on Nov. 9, 2007 after much advocacy by CHAT. The new rule (# 188G) was that instead of rejecting the appraisal out of hand, RH would do an evaluation of how good the appraisal was by another appraisal called a field review appraisal, also done by certified appraisers but arranged by ICF.

·         Here are the problems associated with this 20% rule.

o    LRA and OCD (RH state agencies, Louisiana Recovery Authority and Office of Community Development) told us in meetings first that OCD decided on 20% themselves (and Mike Spletto, formerly head of Housing for OCD) said the number could have been 5%, 10%, or 20% and he thought they were generous to choose 20%).

o   LRA later told us that HUD requires this 20% cutoff and told the Times-Picayune that HUD gave “guidance” about this 20% rule. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/rule_changes_frustrate_road_ho.html

o   OCD told state legislators that “HUD allows approximately 20% over the highest valid pre-storm value to be paid to homeowners” … exceeding the 20% allowance …would not be eligible for CDBG funds.”

     The legislative fiscal note to a Road Home reform bill http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=497732

o   Quite a different statement was made by Mike Spletto, former head of Housing at OCD during a Louisiana Legislative Subcommittee at a Town Hall meeting on RH on Feb. 6, 2008 .

1.   On p. 17 of the official minutes available from the Municipal Affairs Committee of the Louisiana Senate, the following was                                                                                                                     written (emphasis added).

 “Ms. Elkins said there have been about three policy changes on appraisals and asked Mr. Spletto to go over the most recent one.  Mr. Spletto responded, "As you heard earlier, a lot of the complaints were that when a homeowner provided an appraisal, a post-storm pre-value appraisal greater than twenty percent, the comment was that we just ignored it.  The state had us set up a policy that twenty percent was a number that we could accept a non arms length transaction.” 

2. LRA said that it has two letters from HUD indicating that 20% is the highest deviation that they would consider acceptable. With considerable difficulty, I obtained one of these letters. It (the May 19, 2008 letter) is unconvincing. It refers to the state’s determination of PSV and the homeowner’s appraisal, as if they were done by similarly good methods. They are not. The state’s involves a drive-by appraisal (“market analysis”) at best and often just a broker price opinion with a drive-by. The appraiser for the market analysis and the evaluator (background unspecified) need not leave their car. Moreover, there is a mistake in the second sentence of the letter. Lastly, this letter to Suzie Elkin, former executive director of OCD, is in response to a Mar. 31, 2008 letter from her. I have been unable to obtain that letter despite a public records request to the LRA for it dating from July 1, 2008. A Freedom of Information Act request to HUD produced the May 19 letter from HUD but not this Mar. 31 Elkin’s letter to HUD nor any second letter from HUD about this.

3. As to the second letter, Paul Rainwater, current head of LRA and OCD, told Sen. Murray at a meeting of the Legislative Audit Advisory Council that he had two letters from HUD about the 20% appraisal rule and would be glad to share it with the legislators.

                                                        “Mr. Rainwater said the 20% appraisal is a HUD rule and when he started in January 2008, the former administration had set a policy of no more than 20% and did not tell anybody. He said that he has tried to be very transparent about this process and told his team that they would write HUD. He went up to HUD National and met with the Secretary and program managers said down in Louisiana you are telling us that the differential can be no more than 20%. Louisiana Recovery Authority Board of Directors sent a letter to the HUD Secretary asking for clarification asking if they could exceed the 20% appraisal. Mr. Rainwater said HUD sent a letter back very clearly which was made public to the media that they cannot exceed 20% and if so chose to exceed it then it would come out of state general fund money. That was the clear guidance that received from HUD…. He said he was told that it was a HUD regulation because they use FHA's rule which is about 5%, but HUD said we will allow up to 20%, which may not be enough, but it is the rule that HUD set forth. Mr. Rainwater said he has two letters from HUD stating that and would be happy to provide them to the committee or the full legislature.” http://www.lla.la.gov/legislativeservices/advisorycouncil/  p. 7 - 8

However, Mr. Rainwater has not shared the letter with CHAT Founder, Melanie Ehrlich, despite a public records request on July 1 2008 for the second letter and a writ of mandamus (request for court hearing) as a follow-up to unanswered public records requests. She received the first letter only after insisting that LRA’s statement that there were no letters was incorrect because she had seen one of them (the May 19 letter) briefly when sheI gave testimony in Baton Rouge to a Senate subcommittee.

4. It is arbitrary and inconsistent for RH to accept without question for grant calculation a homeowner-supplied appraisal that is 19% higher than the PSV determined by inferior methods by RH but to reject one that is 21% higher or 60% higher. The more erroneous the PSV by RH, the less chance that an applicant gets any correction.

5. Applicants who had handed in their appraisals that were more than 20% higher than RH’s PSV were left waiting for months without field review appraisals and then the field review appraisals were summarily stopped. We were told first that HUD objected to them, which made no sense because we had earlier been told that the long delay in passing the rule in the first place was that HUD had to approve it. In fall of 2008, we were told during a meeting with RH officials that most applicants who had the field review appraisals objected to them because they were giving values LOWER than the original PSV. That was amazing because the applicants were disputing the PSV as too low and had an appraisal by a certified appraiser to back them up. Moreover, that would imply that RH’s PSVs were too high even though applicants said they were too low.

6. Core CHAT member Mindy Milam’s case helps us to understand these comments from OCD about the field review appraisals. She was mentioned in a recent article but has kindly shared more of the details with us.

               http://blog.nola.com/jarvisdeberry/2009/06/jarvis_deberry_goodbye_good_ri.html

RH did a field review appraisal of Mindy’s certified appraisal that had been rejected because it was more than 20% higher than RH’s PSV.

One of the comparables in RH’s field review appraisal of Mindy’s home in a middle-class neighborhood came in at an incredibly low $61/sq ft. Mindy’s house had been demolished but RH has more faith in their field review appraisal of her demolished home than in a certified appraisal of the inside and outside of her home while it was still standing. This field review appraisal was done as a “favor” to Mindy because she complained at a special meeting of RH officials and CHAT leaders. This field review appraisal was not binding. If it had been binding, Mindy would have had to pay back to RH $21,000 of her grant money.

7. RH tells applicants now that field review appraisals were secretly discontinued (although if you read their website in great detail, you could have found out 2 months after they were discontinued that they were no longer available), that applicant can request a RH certified appraisal. The catch is that if RH’s appraisal comes in lower than a homeowner’s appraisal and the RH PSV the homeowner has to pay back money to RH.

All this for victims of the worst hurricane-flood in US history!

 

v   The Incredible Saga of Secrecy, Public Documents, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA)

 

·        The founder of CHAT, Melanie Ehrlich, describes below her attempt to obtain public documents about Road Home Program (RH) rules, expenditures, and surveys of applicants

·        The requests were directed to the LRA, which has oversight of the RH

·        This goal was to get some transparency in the RH using the clear and citizen-friendly Louisiana Public Records Request law

·        This pursuit of RH documents via Public Records Request took one-and-a-half years from July 1, 2008 to Dec. 20, 2009

·        It required filing a legal complaint (Ehrlich vs. Rainwater) on March 31, 2009 and nine additional months of legal negotiations to get most of the documents

·  Click here to see the legal complaint

 

·  Here is a brief chronology of the public requests that I made for which I had to file for a hearing about LRA violating the Louisiana public records request law

 

·        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

 

v 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 Rees, 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

ð        until CHAT obtained the Change-Policy or CCB documents by public records requests

ð         For records requests for change-policy documents filled in 2007, see http://www.chatushome.com:2500/chatus/published/HomePage#changepolicy

Ø Chapter 2: Empty assurances from LRA to fill my requests before I filed for a hearing on the LRA’s disregard of the Louisiana public records law

·              Assurances were from Paul Rainwater, then LRA Executive Director and Custodian of LRA records

·              Mr. Rainwater provided unfilled promises of compliance on

·         Aug. 11, 2008 (mentions overdue response to my July 1, 2008 request for documents, including documents describing major policy changes in the RH)

·            Oct. 17, 2008

·            Oct. 20, 2008

·            Dec. 18, 2008

·            Dec. 30, 2008

·            Feb. 25, 2009

 

Ø Chapter 3, Part1:  Documents provided by in-house LRA attorney, Dan Rees,  on Mar. 2, 2009

·         These were the first documents provided by LRA after notification that we would have to file for a court hearing because LRA was ignoring my record requests for many months

·          Mr. Rees sent a letter on Mar. 2, 2009 to my lawyer with some of  the missing documents requested on Oct. 20, 2008

·         His letter addressed none of the many missing documents from my records request on July 1, 2008

·         Still I had received none of the documents requested on Dec. 15, 2008 and the letter did not even mention those requests

·         One of the documents provided was a description I had already received about the timeline for State Appeals

o    The State Appeal Panel is the final appeals that LRA allows applicants

·         Mr. Rainwater and Mr. Rees failed to provide what was clearly requested, guidelines & procedures for the State Appeals Panel

o   Provide any and all policy, guideline, and procedure documents given to members of the State Review Panel, appeals advisors, and PALs for resolving dispute or appeals issues.”

Ø   So LRA was still withholding a document with rules for how to decide applicants’ appeals about mistakes in their grants

·   They were thereby keeping secret whether shortchanging grant calculation mistakes were considered with consistent or fair methods by State staff

·   These mistakes averaged over $25,000 per applicant for ~7,500 applicants who managed to win appeals (see road2la.com, pipeline reports)

·   Was there a vote by the State Appeals Panel to decide an appeal?

·   Did it have to be unanimous for an appeal to be granted?

·   What were the guidelines for weighing applicant evidence vs.  evidence from the notoriously mistake-prone contractor, ICF International?

Ø   Chapter 3, Part 2: More State Secrets From Mr. Rees’ Mar. 2, 2009 Letter-- Who Is On the State Appeals Panel  & Applicant Documentation of Mistakes

The State Appeals Panel is supposed to “include at least 6 panelists with the state and adhoc members from the legislature.”

·         According to LRA (and contrary to state law), applicants have no right to go to court, so this panel is supposedly the last body who could review claims by applicants of RH mistakes or even misdeeds 

·         When I requested the names of the Panel members (in July 1, 2008), Mr. Rees finally responded on Mar. 2, 2009 that

§  “It is not appropriate to be disseminating the personal information of non-management personal.”

§  And, no, he wrote, state legislators (who at least would have provided some element of impartiality to the state-run appeals) had not been on the appeal panels (contrary to LRA rules)

·         No rules were provided about what kinds of documents applicants should provide during state appeals

·         Documents, including photos of damage that had since been repaired, were often rejected by staff from the RH contractor

·          Applicants seem to have been rarely, if ever, asked to give specific documents during State Review Panel proceedings

·         In fact, sometimes applicants told us that State appeals were decided so fast, “it would make your head spin” and other times their cases languished for many months, as if in limbo

 

Ø   Therefore, the State Appeals for RH, which were decided in the applicants’ favor only 6% of the time, were conducted by individuals whose identity was hidden from the public (even after a records request was filed) and the Panel used secret rules or no rules to arrive at their conclusions

 

Ø Recently, LONG AFTER HER STATE APPEAL WAS DENIED, an applicant was told that she should have hired an appraiser to document a mistake in RH’s determination of the square footage of her house even though she previously provided three other forms of documentation to correct that mistake

·         This applicant, like many others, had SBA or municipal documentation correcting RH mistakes but this was ignored by the Appeals Board

·         Many applicants with obviously mistaken RH damage assessments had originally been told by RH staff that they had more than 50% damage but, later, had their damage assessments & grants reduced

·         This 50% damage threshold was a critical determinant of grant size

 

Ø Who were the lucky applicants who managed to win State Appeals?

·      One lawyer, who wrote a very long and detailed legal-type document won his appeal about a damage assessment that violated RH rules

·      One elderly mother whose lawyer-son hired a surveyor to document that her single-story New Orleans home, which stewed in 9 feet of filthy water, really did have more than 50% damage

§  He hired the surveyor because he had been told that applicants appealing wrong damage assessments hardly ever win appeals

 

Ø   Wrong damage estimates that deprived applicants of their rightful grants according to RH rules were the most frequent source of denied appeals, as a RH official told us and ICF staffers confirmed

§  But Paul Rainwater, former Exec. Dir. of LRA and now in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s inner staff, repeatedly argued that Charity Hospital with 20 stories, a flooded basement, and 3 ft of water in the first floor was more than 50% damaged  by Hurricane Katrina so that FEMA would give the state more money

§  But, falsely and hurtfully to human victims of Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Rainwater would not reverse RH decisions that outrageously called one- and two-story New Orleans & St. Bernard homes with 5-12 feet of water less than 50% damaged

Ø Chapter 3, Part 3: LRA Withheld the Names of First-Level Appeals Subcontractors for 7 Months

Mr. Rees sent a letter on Mar. 2, 2009 to my lawyer with some of  the missing documents requested on Oct. 20, 2008

·         In my public records request of Oct. 20, 2008, I asked LRA to:

a)     Provide the names of any and all subcontractor(s) who are conducting appeals. 

The answer from Mr. Rees was “I am awaiting receipt of this data.”

b)    Provide the names of any and all subcontractor(s) who are providing the case managers (PALs) for resolving dispute issues with applicants.

The answer again from Mr. Rees was “I am awaiting receipt of this data.”

Although these names of state subcontractors were obviously readily available and should be public information, it was not until 8 weeks after filing a court order for LRA to produce documents and 11 weeks after this letter from LRA attorney Dan Rees that I received subcontractor names formally requested 7 months earlier.

c)     The answer to both of these requests was finally provided on May 27, 2009 by an outside attorney, T. Allen Usry, hired at public taxpayer expense ($175 per hour; total expense for him and the other outside attorney, E. Wade Shows, hired for my public records request case was over $20,000).

 

d)    For both requests, the answer was as follows:

Quadel, Providence, and Franklin Industries. Worley did some elevation PAL work.”

·         So, the same subcontractors who supposedly helped applicants with disputed issues during the compulsory pre-appeals review were paid to administer the subsequent appeals.

·         Despite the fact that some appeals staff tried to be as fair as management would allow them to be, how could that double role for the three subcontractors provide fair appeals of contractor mistakes?

 

 

·         In summary, the contractor hired subcontractors who reviewed the contractor’s mistakes at pre-appeal level (the so-called PALs misnamed Personal Assistant Liasons) and the same subcontractors handled first-level appeals.

a)     The PAL system was a compulsory pre-appeal system instituted by Mike Spletto and Suzie Elkins, previously heads of the state Office of Community Development, OCD, and Paul Rainwater of LRA; it was little better than the previous, also misnamed, Dispute Resolution pre-appeal system.

b)    Not to worry. If you did not get an unbiased assessment during first-level appeals, there was always the state appeals, your final level of appeals, conducted by unknown state personnel by unknown rules (see Chapter 3 Part B).

c)     If you want to avail yourself of the guaranteed-by-law right of judicial review of state decisions for individual citizens, LRA is claiming in the Louisiana Supreme Court, that you have no access to a judicial hearing even if RH takes your house and doesn’t give you any of your money after a duly signed closing (a real previous RH legal case).

Road Home has left many on the road: An editorial, Times-Picayune, January 06, 2010, http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/01/road_home_has_left_many_on_the.html

Road Home program still a dead end for some New Orleans homeowners, David Hammer, Times-Picayune, December 28, 2009, http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/12/post_225.html

 

·         Why did Paul Rainwater, Exec. Dir. of the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) and LRA attorney Dan Rees go to such extents to keep secret the subcontractors for the main Road Home Program (RHP) contractor, ICF?

·         They did this even though

a)      the state senators voted almost unanimously to fire this contractor

 http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/Louisiana/Katrina/Rebuild/Louisiana_Road_Home_ICF_Investigation_Needed__6028.asp;

http://www.trinitynola.com/Document.Doc?&id=372; Dec. 15, 2006, Louisiana Senate votes 97 to 1 to cancel the ICF contract, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/katrina/etc/cron.html   

 

b)      it was common knowledge that the contractor was extraordinarily deficient in running the program

"The reality is the Road Home program has been a dysfunctional program since its inception," said City Councilman Arnie Fielkow. Loyola University press release - August 15, 2008

http://www.loyno.edu/news/story/2008/8/15/1545; “Road Home Fix Falls Short”

c)     Dozens of media articles railed against ICF.

Just one example is the Op Ed article “Lose the attitude, not the paperwork”, By Jarvis Deberry, Times-Picayune Editor, October 28, 2008

“The Road Home Program has messed over so many people in so many ways over such a long period of time that, at this point, it takes a particularly egregious error to attract attention now. “

http://blog.nola.com/jarvisdeberry/2008/10/lose_the_attitude_not_the_pape.html

Ø Chapter 3, Part 4: Officials from Gov. Jindal’s Administration Withheld the Names of Road Home Subcontractors in Defiance of a State Road Home Oversight Law

·          Click here to read how the state Office of Community Development withheld names of Road Home subcontractors from the Louisiana Legislative Audit Advisory Council for 7 months contrary to Road Home reform law Act 829.

·         Then the legislators turned their backs on applicants who were short-changed in their RH  grants and did not use their own law to help them get oversight of the program.

Ø   Chapter 4, LRA-LSU Customer Satisfaction Survey

·            For a summary description in our May 29 CHATNewsletter of this survey paid for with taxpayer money that was not released to the public by LRA or LSU, click here

·            For the contract to the LSU Reilly Center, Kathryn Rountree, Operations Manager of Public Policy Lab, the questionnaire, the unpublicized reports from the survey, and one of 11 tables of applicant comments obtained during the surver,  click here

Ø  Public Records SagaTo Be Continued:

o    More about the public records requests, a hidden RH rule finally revealed, the judges and lawyers involved in the case, an unpublished LRA-LSU Customer Satisfaction Survey showing lots of dissatisfaction despite being set up to be biased toward satisfied applicants

 

v   Some Recent CHAT Newsletters:

HMGP News from LRA, News from Applicants     

FEMA documents about mitigation grants

(difficult to get clarification from Road Home; see above newsletter for the link to Road Home information NOT at the RH site, but at the LRA site)

·         Natl. Flood Insurance Booklet

·         Mitigation reconstruction guidance

·         Reconstruction Grant Unit Cost Guidance

o   Note the word “guidance”

o   Reconstruction grants refer to those who demolish their hurricane/flood-ruined home and rebuilt           

Road Home & the Law:

Including Important Newspaper Article About Frank Silvestri, CHAT Co-Chair & About Denial of Assess to Court for RH Applicants

Chapter 1-Records Requests Of LRA & More HMGP House Elevation Grant Problems

 

v To see the Project on Government Oversight feature on CHAT’s HUD OIG Complaint and Applicant Responses

o   http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2009/09/the-far-too-long-and-winding-road-home-program.html

o  The Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more effective and accountable, open and ethical government, has posted at its blog an article entitled

o  The Far Too Long and Winding Road Home Program”

o    To read or comment at the Blog,

§  see http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2009/09/the-far-too-long-and-winding-road-home-program.html

o   Their blog posting was done after an investigator from the Wash. D.C.-based organization which studied CHAT documents, including:

§  CHAT’s complaint to the HUD Inspector General

§  CHAT survey information from hundreds of applicants

§  Summaries of reports and documents with links to the originals

 

v   On Public Access TV (COX 10) The Eighth Filming of a CHAT Meeting

 The Meeting Was About Our Complaint to the HUD Inspector General Office of About the RH Program

Thanks to Carleen Dunn and COX 10!  Our 1 and a half hour meeting was shown on COX 10 as follows:

  Wed., June 10, Noon-1:30 PM; Fri., June 12, Noon-1;30 PM; Sun., June 14, 10:00-11:30; Mon., June 15, 8:00-10:00; Thurs., June 18, 8:00-10:30; Sat., June 20, 11:00-1:00;  Mon., June 22, 12 - 2 PM; Fri., June 26, 8-10 AM; Wed., July 1, 3 PM; Thurs. July2, 2:30 PM; Fri., July 3, 3 PM; Sun., July 5, 9 AM; Mon., July 6, noon; Tues., July 7, 1:30 PM; Wed., July 8, noon; Mon., July 13, 4 PM; Wed., July 15, 3 PM; Thurs., July 16, 3:30 PM; Mon., July 20, 3 PM; Mon., July 27, 3:30 PM;  Wed., Aug. 5, 3 PM; Fri., Aug.7, 8 AM and 2:30 PM; Mon., Aug. 10, 3 PM; Wed., Aug. 12, 3 PM; Fri., Aug. 14, 12:30 PM;  Tues., Aug. 19, 4:30 PM; Fri., Aug. 22, 2 PM; Sat., Aug. 23, 10:30 AM; Wed.,  Aug. 26, 2 PM; Fri., Aug. 28, 2 PM; Sun., Wed., Sept. 9, 2 PM; Fri., Sept. 11, 2 PM; Tues., Sept. 15, noon.

 

v   More Background About the Road Home Program and the HUD OIG

·         Why is our complaint addressed to the HUD OIG and what is the nature of these grants?

o   HUD funds this $10.4 billion program run by the State of Louisiana and HUD has responsibility for oversight

o   RHP has given an average grant of $64,000 (including about 20,000 $30,000 house-elevation awards)  to 124,000 applicants as of May, 2009

o  RHP grants to homeowners are for up to $150,000 as compensation for otherwise uncompensated structural damage

o  These grants are for Louisiana victims of Hurricanes Katrina or Rita

o  There is $1.5 billion left as of June 2009 in this program for homeowner victims of the hurricane/floods

o      LRA has not agreed to set up an independent and fair appeals system with publicized rules for deciding appeals

o      This new appeals system should be described in a letter to applicants who tried to appeal but still have shortchanging mistakes

o      Fair appeals without difficult, unclear deadlines and pre-appeals procedures should be a first priority for the remaining RH funds

o      The other first priority should be applicants still in grant-processing limbo through no fault of their own           

·         On May 5, the Inspector General of HUD released two audit reports in answer to a citizen complaint about ICF staff erroneously receiving grant money intended for low-income applicants

          http://www.hud.gov/utilities/intercept.cfm?/offices/oig/reports/files/ig09a1002.pdf

             http://www.hud.gov/utilities/intercept.cfm?/offices/oig/reports/files/ig09a1001.pdf

·         The HUD OIG found that there were incorrect payments to 5 of 34 employee-applicants and that the State did not make sure that ICF had procedures in place to identify such errors and did not follow program rules.

·         In addition, the HUD OIG reported duplicate payments to single addresses due to the State’s failure to ensure that ICF had controls to identify multiple disbursements to a single address.

·         Our complaint to the HUD OIG, which was accepted for investigation in February, 2009, includes the following allegations:

o   a lack of adequate State oversight of the program leading to thousands of applicants having their grants short-changed and to waste and abuse of program funds because of ICF failing to follow program rules.

o   evidence for an intentionally fraudulent pre-appeal program that 22,650 applicants tried to navigate and arbitrary and capricious manipulation of procedures for damage assessment and house valuation during grant processing.

o    ICF purposefully inflating numbers of applicants and falsely arguing that it did more work than stipulated in the contract in order to justify an increase in its contract payment.

·    No investigations of the Road Home Program by the HUD Inspector General’s Office have tackled the problems of underpayment of applicants often described in the local media and addressed in several bills passed by the State Senate

 

 

One of Many Examples of Violations of HUD Rules & Serious Mismanagement

 The contractor (ICF) established an intentionally misleading pre-appeal program (dispute resolution) and then left thousands of applicants in limbo, unable to appeal. LRA has not given large numbers of applicants a chance to appeal.

 

·         The Louisiana Legislative Auditor analyzed 50 applicant files of a total of 22,650 that had the pre-storm value (PSV) dispute flag as of March 2008 and found that 27 of the 50 (54%) did not have an issue related to PSV in the JIRA database for resolving issues associated with grant processing. Without the applicant’s file being transferred to the JIRA files, no dispute resolution or appeal was possible.                  http://app1.lla.state.la.us/PublicReports.nsf/6F905AB4148A123C8625753D0066BD41/$FILE/00008378.pdf

 

 

 

 

o    In answer to complaints from CHAT & others, the following was posted in Feb., 2009 at the LRA website (not the much better known Road Home website):

 

§  “For many months we have heard of people who believe their Road Home appeal was lost in the shuffle, or that they were never able to exercise their right to appeal because their case was stuck in the "resolutions" process…the Louisiana Recovery … will review these cases.”

                    http://lra.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=pagebuilder&tmp=home&pid=106

 

Applicants are told to contact LRA through one of three addresses or phone numbers.

·      Email info@louisianarecoveryauthority.org with "Road Home Appeal" in the subject line

·      Or call (225) 342-1700 to find out how to request an appeal

·      Or mail a letter to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, ATTN: Ty Larkins, 150 Third Street,Suite 200, Baton Rouge, LA, 70801  (CHAT recommends certified mail}

 

 

o    However, subsequently, after LRA was swamped with requests, LRA wrote the following to applicants who try to get this review

 

“Mr. Rainwater did not say he was opening appeals to applicants who have gone pass [sic] the deadline.  His comments were directed at serving persons who were in appeals who "fell through the cracks" and therefore, never had their matters resolved.”

o   Once again, a promised, long-needed reform was revoked by LRA with no public notice

Ø  We still hear over and over about outrageous mistakes made by ICF International, the contractor, that OCD says cannot be fixed or that during appeals just have a rubber stamp put on the wrong data in an applicant’s file

Ø  One of numerous examples is a rural applicant whose barn was appraised for grant calculation instead of her house;

              OCD said this could not be corrected even though they admitted the mistake      

Ø How will applicants who never had a chance to continue their pre-appeal process or had no access to their files during appeal have a fair chance to appeal?

Ø What will LRA do with their projected “surplus” of $200 – 300 million dollars and why are they not using that for fair appeals?

Ø  A Times-Picayune editorial in 2009 stated the following about the contractor, ICF International

§   “ICF's abysmal management of the Road Home program hampered people's recovery from the 2005 hurricanes and caused great misery and hardship.”  http://blog.nola.com/editorials/2009/02/keep_watch_on_icf.html

 

v   Senate subcommittee testimony on the need for the HUD OIG investigation

Melanie Ehrlich, founder of CHAT, was asked by Sen. Landrieu's staff to testify in DC about the Road Home Program on May 20. Sen. Landrieu chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Disaster Recovery Subcommittee.

 

Click below to see the whole testimony at the hearing: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=f7448914-51a5-41dc-8f75-1e820a008a80

 

 

Other Items:

 

v    Questionable contracts by the Louisiana State Government under Gov. Jindal or former Gov. Blanco

                                   or by the US Government: CLICK here to read more

·         ICF Emergency Management Services, LLC (ICF or ICF International)

·         Camp, Dressler, and McKee (CDM)

·         Hammerman & Gainer Inc. (HGI)

 

v   Updated description of disappearing dispute resolution cases that favored the contractor but left many applicants in limbo

v   For information about HMGP elevation grants contact:

Ø 1-877-744-7235 or 1-225-339-3746 or hazardmitigation@la.gov

Ø  Save all building plans, permits, dated photos, invoices, receipts, and other proof of payment of costs to be reimbursed by an HMGP elevation grant, if you are eligible

Ø However,  we note that these grants have been awarded to only a tiny fraction of eligible RH applicants

v  Congress should not allow diversion of RH funds from applicants who have been denied fair grants

 

v  Unfair Attempts to Get Money Back From Applicants

Ø Road Home isn't playing fair on timetable: A letter to the editor

By Letters to the Editor http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2009/11/road_home_isnt_playing_fair_on.html

November 24, 2009, 2:47AM Re: "Owners got grants, but haven't rebuilt," Nov. 22, Page A1

The article about many Road Home grant recipients not following covenants to rebuild within three years does not mention some key facts. LRA Director Paul Rainwater stated, "We're going to be very strict" about allowing extensions of one to two years to the covenant requirement.

However, thousands of applicants received much less money than they were promised in grant award letters, through no fault of their own. Road Home staff frequently admonished applicants who protested grant downsizing that they must wait to appeal only after they signed the closing documents. Thousands of these appeals were subsequently denied by the contractor who determined grant amounts in the first place or by a State Appeals Panel that has never disclosed its guidelines. Also unfair to homeowners is the great delay in awarding elevation grants.

Clearly, homes should be elevated before rebuilding or repair, but HUD and FEMA elevation grants still are being given out one or two years after applicants signed their Road Home grant covenant. The "backlash against previous efforts to recoup overpayments" briefly noted in the article was centered on the discovery of an attempt of Road Home to get a collection agency to recover "overpayments," including for ICF International's supposed mistakes in determining grant amounts. A 2008 LRA survey found that 55 percent of applicants had not repaired their homes because of insufficient grant funds.I agree that applicants should use the Road Home grant money to repair or rebuild if they signed a covenant to do so. But two-year extensions of the rebuild deadline won't help most of the applicants who were given less money than originally promised and just don't have the funds to rebuild.

Melanie Ehrlich
Founder,
Citizens' Road Home Action Team
New Orleans

Ø Another unfair aspect of the attempts to recapture grant money is that

o   many other low-income applicants were promised an Additional Compensation Grant (ACG) & then 1- 2 ½ years later had their income recalculated and were denied this grant

Ø So while Additional Compensation Grants awarded to many low-income applicants have been increased in amounts lately, a good reform

o   many of the low-income applicants most in need of an ACG to be able to rebuild their home have not benefited from this reform

 

Ø The ACG was originally instituted because low-income applicants got smaller standard RH grants due to the generally low value of their land

v   Louisiana Acts 872 and 829, enacted in July, 2008, have not brought relief to shortchanged RH applicants

·         because the Office of Community Development (OCD)  violated the law (Act 829) by not giving monthly reports on the performance of the contractor, ICF Emergency Management Services, LLC (ICF)

·         and because the HUD Office of Disaster Recovery and Special Issues rejected a change requested by the Louisiana legislature (Act 872) to make grant processing consistent with grant appeal rules

 

v For predatory language in the closing documents used in sale of homes to the state, click here: Website

 

 

Congress Must Not Allow Gov. Jindal To Divert Money from the Road Home Program For Construction of a New Hospital

(especially when a pre-existing hospital can be renovated for much less money without destruction of part of a renovated Mid-City neighborhood)

Ø  Very many applicants have been unable to get a fair appeal of the shortchanging of their grant; others have been left in limbo; yet others have had reduced grant sizes due to inappropriate restrictive rules made in 2008

Ø Tell Senator Landrieu laverne_saulny@landrieu.senate.gov

Ø  Tell members of the State Legislature who have shown much concern about the Road Home Program in this past

o   Sens. Murray,  Gray, and Morrell: murraye@legis.state.la.us; grayc@legis.state.la.us,  jeanpaulmorrell@hotmail.com

                      about not diverting Road Home funds to other purposes than helping applicants and fixing mistakes by                           opening up fair appeals to those who were shut out of a chance for a fair appeal or any appeal

Many thousands of applicants have been shortchanged by the Road Home Program

v  and so are unable to return to Louisiana,

v  to fix their hurricane/flood- devastated home,

v  to move out of crowded, unsafe conditions,

v  or are in debt because of borrowing money from relatives

v  The following Resolution passed by the LRA Board implies that there may be a “surplus” of Road Home funds

                     http://www.lra.louisiana.gov/assets/docs/searchable/meetings/2008/11/111808AppropriationResolution.pdf

Not so. There has been a systematic squeezing of grant amounts over the last year.

We at CHAT frequently noted this and wondered about its purpose

In early 2008, CHAT Co-chairmen Melanie Ehrlich and Frank Silvestri were told by LRA and OCD Director Paul Rainwater that there would just not be enough money left over from RH to allow LRA to re-open appeals

                to those who were unable to have a copy of their file before they appealed

                or who did not have a chance to appeal because of various problems

 Now, with no fair appeals for shortchanged applicants who can’t get back to their home because of broken promises, there is talk of a “surplus.”

v    Excerpts of Draft Minutes, LRA Board Meeting Nov. 18, 2008

Monthly Budget Presentation

Mr. Paul Rainwater said we had asked HUD for an Action Plan Amendment to eliminate the $150,000 cap on the Road Home program. We are not sure how much will be spent on elevations, but $650 million has been drawn down in individual mitigation funds. It is not known how much LLT will spend on demolitions and slab removals, but it could range between $300 and $450 million. Adjustments are being made to the Small Rental program, but there could be between $300 and $500 million in unallocated funds. We do not want to return these funds to the Treasury because we want homeowners to have this funding. Mr. Sean Reilly asked if these are just Road Home figures. Mr. Rainwater explained that the figures encompass all recovery programs. If we are allowed some flexibility by Congress, then we may be able to help Charity Hospital , the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board and others in need.

Mr. Sean Reilly offered a motion to approve a resolution to petition Congress for reallocation of the appropriations to cover other obligations. The motion was seconded by Ms. Pat LeBlanc

Final Approval of the Resolution to Petition Congress for Reallocation of the Appropriations to Cover Other Obligations.

RESOLVED, that the Board hereby accepts and approves the resolution to petition Congress for reallocation of the appropriations to cover other obligations.

Voting: Rep. Karen Carter-Peterson, Dupre, Jas Gill, Lasseigne, Pat LeBlanc, Walter Leger Jr., Roy O. Martin III, Sen. Edward Murray , Sean Reilly,

and John E. Smith.

 

v     The proposed diversion of Road Home homeowner (and rental program) funds would be taking money from where it was promised & still needed: providing places for hurricane and flood victims to live after the worst US natural disaster

o “State asks feds to OK funds for N.O. hospital”: http://docs.newsbank.com/s/InfoWeb/aggdocs/NewsBank/124924606E649E10/0EEA30604397A028

                                   The Advocate, (Baton Rouge, LA) - Wednesday, November 19, 2008, ALLEN M. JOHNSON JR.

o   “Media allowed inside shuttered Charity”: http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl010709mlcharity.3d3f007.html

                                   January 7, 200, Dennis Woltering / Eyewitness News

 

o   And spending it on a new hospital when the renovation of Charity hospital is feasible, expeditious, and cost-effective: 

                             http://www.fhl.org/FHL/News/PresvAlerts/CharityHospital/FHL-RMJMResponse12-22-08.pdf

  

v  The LRA and Gov. Jindal should have made sure shortchanging mistakes were corrected

v  by re-opening appeals to those shut out of it

o      For Progress in this regard as of Feb. 2009, see http://lra.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=pagebuilder&tmp=home&pid=106

o     The LRA website (but not more visited Road Home website, despite our requests) states the following:

For many months we have heard of people who believe their Road Home appeal was lost in the shuffle, or that they were never able to exercise their right to appeal because their case was stuck in the "resolutions" process, which ended earlier this year.

In order to ensure that all applicants received fair treatment under the Road Home, the Louisiana Recovery Authority and the Office of Community Development will review these cases to ensure that homeowners received due process under the Road Home and that cases did not fall through the cracks.

For your case to be considered, you can do one of three things:

 

v  Appeals need to be made fair, independent, and governed by explicit standards

v  All applicants who ever unsuccessfully disputed their grant amount need to be told that:

o  they can get a copy of their file & use the new LRA option to re-open appeals

v  Applicants need and are entitled to a full copy of their file (including JIRA notes) sent in a timely fashion

·         so that they can find the source of any shortchanging in this maize-like set of rules and appeal it under a fair system

 

Legislators’ Attempts To Stop The Abuses of Road Home Applicants by the Contractor,

           ICF Emergency Management Services, LLC (ICF)

For a list of Road Home-related bills and legislation from the Louisiana legislature, click here

 

An Inaccurate Explanation for HUD Rejecting LRA Action Plan Amendment #28 Based on Act 872

  

In a Jan. 13 letter to Gov. Jindal signed by a HUD official, the LRA Action Plan Amendment 28 was rejected

 

This action plan amendment would have fixed a major inconsistency in Road Home (RH) administration

 

It was mandated by Act  872, signed into law on July 9, 2008, in which the Louisiana legislators called for reform of the Road Home Program

 

            http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=504663

 

§  The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and by 93 votes for vs. 4 opposed in the House although LRA (Louisiana Recovery Authority) and OCD (Office of Community Development) argued against it

 

 

§    Road Home stated that it  Provides the applicant with the highest available pre-storm value                 http://road2la.org/Docs/policies/Homeowner_Program_Policies%20v5.2_5-6-08.pdf (p. 22/30)

 

§  From many applicants’ reports and staff reports, we know that grant values were downsized from original determinations by later PSV's that were lower.

 

§  Choosing the highest PSV was supposed to be an antidote to choosing the lower of the two values of PSV vs. estimated cost of damage in grant calculations

 

§  ICF seems to be padding its bills with redundant PSV's and then often downsizing grant amounts by choosing low values for grant calculation

 

§  Most importantly, HUD allows RH to give applicants the highest ICF-calculated PSV in their file upon appeal

 

§  So this law would let applicants who have not had a chance to appeal get the same treatment as those who do

 

§  Amazingly,  the letter arrived at a judgment about Action Plan Amendment 28 inconsistent with the words of the Amendment

 

§  The amendment is not about pre-storm home valuations “20% higher than the next nearest estimate,” as stated in the letter

 

§  Nor is it about any 20% rule as the letter states

 

§  It is about ICF's multiple, often inaccurate & wasteful determinations of pre-storm value (PSV) for grant calculation

 

The State (Office of Community Development, OCD) admitted in the fiscal note for RH reform bills in 2008 that it would cost something like $0.5 billion to give applicants the highest of multiple ICF-determined PSVs in their file

 

The statement below comes from LRA’s Action Plan Amendment & the yellow highlighting is theirs to indicate their change in rules that was called Amendment 28.    http://www.doa.louisiana.gov/cdbg/dr/plans/Amend28-PUBLIC-COMMENT-Appraisal-Determination-08-08-08.pdf

 

 Pre-Storm Value

To accurately calculate compensation, the Road Home Program must base assistance on a fair and equitable pre-storm value of the home. The pre-storm value is based on one of four methods listed below. If more than one method of determining pre-storm value is available, the pre-storm value used in the Road Home calculation will be based on the method with the highest value, regardless of any di