[FoCHAT] CHATNews: At HTF Mtg., LRA Claims Credit Where It Isn’t Due

Sun Dec 13 20:50:30 CST 2009

CHATNews: At HTF Mtg., LRA Claims Credit Where It Isn’t Due
Dec. 13, 2009 
Dear CHAT Members, 
1. Housing Task Force Meeting: Highlights
2. Contaminated Drywall
3. Unscrupulous home contracters
1. HTF Meeting Highlights
Here are homeowner program-related matters discussed at the LRA Housing Task Force Meeting (HTF) on Dec. 7. These are just about the only discussions of the homeowner program at the HTF meeting because the Chairman of the HTF would not let us put homeowner items on the agenda for this meeting (see below), only the rental program issues. 
·                     Paul Rainwater, Executive Director of the LRA, took credit at the HTF meeting on Monday, Dec. 13 at the UNO campus, for stopping a poor attempt at recapture by ICF as soon as he learned about it. 

Mr. Rainwater said, “Back in 2008 ICF was going to set up a recovery program but I said ‘Wait a minute, I want to put the brakes on it.’ ”  
That is not quite the way it happened. 

CHAT discovered the Request for Proposals at the RH website for a collection agency to go after applicants who supposedly got paid too much even if it was the result of a miscalculation. 

That would have been a highly effective way to create yet more grief for unlucky RH applicants. 
A press release was sent from CHAT about the RFP for a collection agency to collect money from applicants even for ICF mistakes. 
The press release led to an AP interview and a news article that was picked up by very large numbers of newspapers across the country and by the International Herald Tribune. 
Several days later LRA stated there would be no collection agency and the RFP was no longer visible at the RH website.
In addition, that week, LRA had allowed a barrier to be inserted at the RFP link at the RH website so that only companies, not the public, could see RH RFPs. 

It was public exposure that achieved the withdrawal of the RFP and the response by LRA was to hide yet more from the public.

Great wrongs have been done to tens of thousands of innocent victims of the worst so-called natural disaster in the administration of RH grants. Those wrongs greatly outweigh misuse of grant funds by applicants. CHAT will continue to call for accountability. 

·                                 Three members of the HTF (myself included) asked at the Mon. meeting for a Jan. meeting of the HTF to discuss RH homeowner issues. 

We were told that it might be difficult to schedule a meeting in January for the Chairman of the HTF.
If so, the Chairman should designate another member of the HTF to run the meeting.
The meeting of the HTF on Monday was the first in 10 months despite previous assurances from the Chairman that we would finally have regular meetings, at least, once per 3 months.
o              Pressing issues are the diversion of RH funds to other purposes. This was previously voted on by the LRA Board to the homeowners’ detriment, bypassing the HTF. 
o              Fortunately, pressure from CHAT and others, including Rep. Waters of California, derailed the initial, unanimous attempt by the LRA Board to divert RH money to rebuilding Charity Hospital in a new location instead of repairing it. 
o              In addition, there are important, time-sensitive issues about the red-tape riddled, inefficient, and nontransparent HMGP elevation program to be discussed. 
·                                 I asked where the recaptured funds will go once the RH is not in existence and referred to the original RH legislation, which can seen below. 
http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=405963 
Act 654  ROAD HOME LEGISLATION EXCERPTS; § 600.66. Powers of the Road Home Corporation 

§ 600.67. Excess Earnings
Any net earnings of the Road Home Corporation beyond that necessary for the Road Home Corporation to implement the purposes of this Chapter shall inure to the benefit of The Road Home Program. 

§ 600.68. Dissolution of the Road Home Corporation; Title to property to vest in successor
Upon dissolution of the Road Home Corporation, title to all property owned by the Road Home Corporation shall vest in the successor corporation created by the legislature, if any. If no such successor corporation is so created, title to such property shall vest in the state of Louisiana. 

Mr. Rainwater said that recaptured money will go to OCD. 
I asked whether it would be used only for RH applicants.
He replied, “yes.”

§   A slide from Paul Rainwater’s presentation, given in part by Robin Keegan, Deputy Director of the LRA, stated that for the “Additional Compensation Grant Removal, eligibility based upon the applicant’s income at the time the homeowner first qualified for ACG.” 

I asked whether that meant that applicants who were told that they qualified for an low-income ACG at or shortly after their first interview when they submitted all necessary documents about their income would be considered.

 The problem is that for many of these applicants, their income qualification was redetermined within 6 months of closing when they had a higher income but often still debts due to loses of personal items and jobs as a result of the hurricane.
Robin Keegan deferred to Lara Robertson, Deputy Director of the state Office of Community Development.

Ms. Robertson stated in answer to my question about whether there was a necessity for this recalculation that ACG income eligibility could have been determined at the initial interview and not redetermined at closing. There was no requirement for recalculation within 6 months of closing.
All letters about additional ACG money as a result of recently raising the cap were sent out already.

For questions about any of the above issues that might affect your grant, you could contact:

DR Housing Specialist     Anita Anderson      Anita.Anderson at la.gov
DR Housing Specialist     Belinda Kennedy     Belinda.Kennedy at la.gov 
DR Housing Specialist     Keri Musacchia Keri.Musacchia at la.gov 
OR USE TELEPHONE OR FAX for the Disaster Recovery Unit (DRU) 
Tel:(225)219-9600; Fax:(225)219-9605; Fax:(225)219-9757 
Fax:(225)219-9775; Fax:(225)219-9330 
§      Allison Plyer, Greater New Orleans Community Data Center stated that NO has an extremely high % of homes without mortgages: 41%. 
·         This was noted as evidence of success of the RH by Walter Leger, Chairman of the HTF. 
·         I stated that this was further evidence of economic duress for many RH applicants who were told by their mortgage lenders that they had to pay down their mortgages. As a result, applicants have told us in some of the 1600 survey responses that we received that they had to use RH funds to pay down mortgages and the inadequate amount of RH grant money that they received did not give them enough to repair their homes. 
·                                                   Denise Thornton, President of Beacon of Hope Resource Center made a presentation about blight in the Lakeview area of NOLA and discussed RH homeowners not filling the covenant. 
§   I agree about the importance of blight reduction but raised the issues of: 
§  giving automatic extensions to those applying for HMGP elevation grants as of the date that they were notified by LRA that they received FEMA approval to begin rebuilding/repairing their home. 
§   making the covenant start when applicants got their RH elevation funding (with the HMGP exception noted above) 
§   not threatening applicants who were awarded less money than they were promised in an award letter (for reasons other than receiving insurance benefits for STRUCTURAL damage) and are financially disadvantaged so long as they are keeping their property mowed and house gutted. Moreover, LRA should be reopening appeals and using the original determinations of ACG eligiblity for such applicants and not appealing to Congress and HUD for diversion of RH homeowner funds. 
§  One-year extensions are useless for those without sufficient funding and the guidelines for those extensions include unreasonable requirements for those struggling economically. 
§  Raising the additional compensation grant (ACG) ceiling (to which Ms. Thornton alluded) will not help those who were promised greatly needed ACG grants to repair their home but had their income qualification unnecessarily recalculated later and thereby lost their eligibility (see above). 

Robin Keegan stated that some of my concerns are acknowledged by the LRA and they are working on them. 

_______________________________________________________________________________ 

Several other matters of interest to homeowners follow: 
2. Contaminated drywall: deadline

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2009/12/state_hotline_activated_for_th.html 
Contaminated drywall victims get state hotline 

3. Unscrupulous Home Contractors 
http://www.wdsu.com/news/21657816/detail.html 

New Task Force Tackles Contractor Fraud 
Guilty Contractors May Face Jail Time 

"We are trying to encourage everyone to get involved and come to our office. Give us the opportunity to get restitution for you in those cases and if we can't, we want to put the unscrupulous contractor in jail," said Cannizzaro. 

Investigative supervisor Joe Lentini heads the unit along with a team of attorneys and policemen. He said a lot of dubious contractors popped out of the woodwork in the wake of Katrina. 

"I think because of Katrina, this is pretty unique," he said. "I haven't seen this before. A lot of these contractors ... we contact them and say we're working on this case and a lot of times, they'll go and finish the project or come up with the money to pay restitution on it." 

To read previous issues of CHATNews from the last few month or to comment, please go to: 
http://www.chatushome.com/blog/?p=64 

Best wishes, 
Melanie Ehrlich 
Co-Chairman, Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT) 
http://chatushome.com 
Member, LRA Housing Task Force 

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