[FoCHAT] CHAT News: Raised HMGP Elevn. Cap To $100k; 1st Installment "Squandered..."

Tue Apr 7 23:57:18 CDT 2009

Dear FoCHAT Members,
In this newsletter are the following:
1. Expansion of HMGP elevation grants to $100,000 cap
2.  No information on $7,500 Individual Mitigation Measures (IMM, for raising air conditioners, buying storm shutters, etc.
3. First installment from recently published article “Stranded and Squandered: Lost on the Road Home,” by Davida Finger, Staff Attorney for the Loyola Law Clinic. 

1. Expansion of HMGP elevation grants to $100,000 cap
Reminders:
·         that total construction plus repair costs minus total funds awarded and benefits received are used to calculate HMGP elevation grants for newly built homes of RH applicants, who qualify;
·         that just elevation costs minus elevation benefits are used for repaired homes of qualified RH applicants;
·         remember that if you rebuild your house, it cannot be more than 10% larger in square footage (although we are told that LRA is awaiting FEMA approval for pro-rating;
·         remember to save all receipts, invoices, photos pre-construction etc.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/louisiana_expands_cap_on_homee.html
Louisiana expands cap on home-elevation program from $30,000 to $100,000
by David Hammer, The Times-Picayune 
Tuesday April 07, 2009, 6:52 PM

Louisiana officials announced today that they will let applicants for a federal home-elevation grant program collect as much as $100,000 for raising their houses above base flood levels, rather than the $30,000 cap the state originally imposed.
Too few Louisiana homeowners were choosing to participate in elevation incentive programs because the grants weren't enough to cover the expenses, said Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

The state was offering up to $30,000 to Road Home applicants who were willing to raise their homes, and the National Flood Insurance Program offered another $30,000 for that purpose. The Road Home has paid $772 million to 26,680 homeowners so far, but a third program that offered another $30,000 wasn't really getting off the ground.

That one, called the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, is run by the state and financed by FEMA. It is a reimbursement program, but only 14 homeowners have been paid to date, and the state was hearing from applicants who said they couldn't afford to commit to expensive home-raisings if that program was only going to reimburse for up to $30,000 in costs.

"As we have moved forward with this elevation program, met with homeowners and reviewed their individual circumstances, we discovered that many homeowners had funding gaps that far outweighed the $30,000 elevation grant we could provide through the program," said Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Recently, the LRA succeeded in getting FEMA to extend a Sept. 1 deadline to complete elevation work under the National Flood Insurance Program's Increased Cost of Compliance process, known as ICC. Rainwater hopes that the deadline extension and the new $100,000 Hazard Mitigation Grant Program limit will encourage more uncertain homeowners to protect their rebuilt houses.
"This higher elevation grant amount and the extension of the time to use Increased Cost of Compliance funds may help homeowners who want to take the responsible action of elevating their homes, but could not afford to," Rainwater said.
·         see http://chatushome.com for more details;  
·         contact LRA-HMGP at 1-877-744-7235 or 1-225-339-3746 or hazardmitigation at la.gov

2.  No information is available yet on $7,500 Individual Mitigation Measures (IMM, for raising air conditioners, buying storm shutters, etc.
LRA is apparently still awaiting approval from HUD because LRA had wanted to allow applicants to exceed the $150,000 cap with IMM funding and HUD disapproved.

3. First installment from the recently published article “Stranded and Squandered: Lost on the Road Home,” by Davida Finger, Staff Attorney for the Loyola Law Clinic. 
>From the Seattle Journal for Social Justice Vol. 7, (2009)
A CHAT note: while this article is written mostly from the vantage point of low-income applicants, who are disproportionately African American and are the main clients of Loyola Law Clinic, it has always been CHAT policy to advocate for all groups of applicants.  Many thousands of applicants in all groups have suffered anguish, heartache, prolonged loss of access to their homes, physically and emotionally because of avoidable problems and indifference during grant processing that was no fault of their own. It is just the lucky applicants who got a fair grant without undo trauma who did not personally suffer. Of course, low-income applicants suffered and are still suffering the most because they have the fewest financial resources to tide them over.
The staggering devastation following the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes and levee failures brought attention to inadequate local, state, and federal government responses. As rebuilding progresses in hurricane-impacted areas, images of those waiting for rescue on rooftops have vanished. However, urgent need remains for many still trying to rebuild their homes and lives. This article focuses on one specific disaster response that has fallen short in helping homeowners’ rebuilding efforts: the state of Louisiana’s Road Home Program. Throughout this article, “Road Home” refers to the program overseen by the state of Louisiana and implemented by ICF, the private contractor hired by the State. 

The launch of Road Home was announced by former Governor Kathleen Blanco on August 22, 2006, approximately one year after the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.2 Created to “help Louisiana residents get back into their homes or apartments as quickly and fairly as possible,”3 Road Home is the state of Louisiana’s initiative to distribute federal rebuilding dollars. Through the Katrina Clinic at Loyola Law School in New Orleans, I have given direct assistance to many hundreds of Road Home applicants, and with other advocates, have called for changes to Road Home policies. With Road Home now administered under Governor Bobby Jindal’s authority, applicants and their advocates continue to encounter barriers while navigating complicated, ever-changing, and undisclosed rules. All told, Road Home has proved to be anything but quick and fair. The average homeowner in the Road Home Program received $54,586 less than was actually needed to rebuild 4.
Homeowners have experienced tremendous difficulties in navigating this government program that was supposed to enable rebuilding in Louisiana. This article tells the stories of Road Home applicants in order to illustrate some of the serious systemic challenges this program has presented. The homeowners’ stories highlight flawed Road Home policies and implementation practices that have plagued applicants and their advocates. These stories and countless untold similar accounts make a strong case for improved government accountability for all aspects of Road Home and urgent government reprioritization to value people’s firsthand experiences. This article does not attempt to reveal all problematic policies and practices with Road Home; these are vast. 

Before examining Road Home policy and implementation deficiencies, this article includes a brief background on the funding scheme for Road Home, the State’s privatization of the program, and the State’s failure to allocate adequate funds to rebuild rental properties. The article then describes a myriad of substantive and procedural issues that applicants encounter in Road Home: its underlying valuation formula and problems with home-valuation policies; insufficient funding for low- to moderate-income families; nondisclosure of critical information; problems with its appeal system; inadequate written information and documentation; and expedited program deadlines that have unduly burdened applicants. Throughout, the article describes some of the ways in which advocates have worked to overcome Road Home barriers that lower grant awards, especially for those most in need. In conclusion, I describe Road Home reforms that remain urgent; with increased
 attention and oversight, my hope is that a more equitable and humane grant program can help Louisianians still struggling to rebuild their homes and lives.
INTRODUCTION 
I knew I wanted to rebuild. This is home. Road Home sent an appraiser to my damaged house. That appraiser didn’t even come inside. He said he knew what the values were in the Lower Ninth. One bedrooms have a value. Two bedrooms have a different value. He didn’t even come inside. We didn’t get close to enough to rebuild. If they had written down what it really cost to rebuild, we would be home. 

—Ms. E., Lower Ninth Ward 5 
Road Home was designed to give eligible homeowners up to $150,000 in compensation for their damaged homes.6 It gives homeowner applicants three options: (1) stay in their home and rebuild, (2) sell their home to the State and relocate to a new home within Louisiana, or (3) sell their home to the State and move outside Louisiana.7 Those who select the third option face an automatic 40 percent penalty on their grant award.8 Applicants who did not carry proper insurance are subject to an automatic 30 percent penalty.9 

The homeowner compensation grant is based on either Road Home’s estimated cost of damage to the house minus other assistance received by the homeowner (e.g., insurance, FEMA, etc.), or the prestorm value of the home minus other assistance, whichever is lower.10 After completing the application, the homeowner applicant moves through various stages of Road Home before closing. The closing, administered by a title company subcontractor, finalizes grant disbursement.11 The applicant may appeal grant errors both prior to and after closing.12 
Overall, Road Home’s delays in distributing grant awards have caused applicants endless difficulty; without knowing how or when Road Homegrant awards would be received, applicants have had to postpone important rebuilding decisions. The delay in rebuilding caused by Road Home has made an indelible, detrimental mark on disaster-impacted areas. In an article entitled “Lessons From Katrina: How to Destroy an African American City in 33 Steps,” Bill Quigley explained the first step—delay—the very step Road Home seems to have mastered: “if there is one word that sums up the way to destroy an African-American city after a disaster, that word is DELAY.”13 

In its first four months, Road Home closed fewer than one hundred homeowner grants.14 The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit policy institute, found that “the overall timeliness of the grant-making process has not been consistently good and predictable.”15 RAND identified several problems that contributed to slow and variable grant wait times experienced by applicants: lack of timeliness goals, inattention to application duration, and delay of entire batches of applications based on batch sampling.16 Moreover, no goals were established for wait times to encourage the program to meet the expectations of each individual applicant.17 In addition, Road Home relied on three title companies whose utilization and performance have been uneven.18 

The Times-Picayune’s editorial page succinctly expressed dismay at these delays, stating that “forcing thousands of Katrina victims to wait for eight months or more to get the help they need to rebuild their shattered homes is cruel.”19 Adding to the difficulties caused by overall poor design and implementation of Road Home, the extended, unexplained waits have taken their toll on those applicants who could least afford any additional hardships.
To be continued.

Remember that LRA said that they reopened appeals for those who think they were treated unfairly. See http://chatushome.com for details. We hear that LRA is very slow to answer. 
We suggest that you send an email to us at chatushome.com when you try to appeal again if Road Home did not fairly follow its rules in your case. Please make the subject “Trying to get a fair RH appeal.” Summarize how RH was not fair in your email to us. Don’t forget to also contact RH:
·         Email info at louisianarecoveryauthority.org with "Road Home Appeal" in the subject line 
·         Or call (225) 342-1700 to find out how to request an appeal 

Next CHAT Meeting-Time: Meetings on Wed. at 6:30 PM at UNO
Place: Room 179, UNO Milneburg Hall, on Milneburg Rd. (the road where the brand new dorms are, past the stop sign and the University Center and opposite the Fitness Center.
Building #24: Directions to the Business Bldg are given on the Campus Map for UNO 

NEXT MEETING Wed., Apr. 22. Newcomers are welcome.* 

Best wishes,
Melanie Ehrlich
Founder, Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT)
Member, LRA Housing Task Force

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