[FoCHAT] CHAT News Urgent: send 1 email to help LA before it is too late for Road Home applicants

Thu Mar 12 22:59:05 CDT 2009

Dear Concerned Citizens,

Many of you are applicants for Road Home grants and all of you in Louisiana are greatly influenced by the outcomes of the Road Home Program for Homeowner Assistance for the rebuilding of your neighborhood, your city, or your State.

Please aid us and help South Louisiana rebuild.

Don’t turn your backs on applicants unfairly deprived of their fair grant to fix their devastated homes.

Don’t let Road Home shut its doors and bury its mistakes and promises to homeowner applicants.

Please send an email today to the Louisiana Legislative Audit Advisory Council to urge them to vote on Tues. to help those who have been treated badly by Road Home after being victims of an historic hurricane/flood. 

This Council has the authority and the power to hold LRA and OCD to account for not following Act 829, which required monthly reports to this committee on ICF performance measures. 

Even more importantly, they have the authority and power to insist that LRA and OCD fix mistakes that are still leading to such misery for unlucky Road Home applicants, as we hear over and over. 

Please ask the Council members at Tuesday’s meeting when Act 829 is finally on the agenda of this Council to really reform and open up appeals to fix mistakes made over and over again by the Program and not corrected. The Louisiana Legislative Auditor reports some of these inexcusable mistakes that ICF resists fixing. 

The Legis. Auditor only make reports. 

But the Council can demand action. 

Don’t let our LA legislators on the Council be part of the problem.

Tell them they have to be part of the solution and use their authority.

Here are the addresses to just paste into an email

ellingtn at legis.state.la.us;  murraye at legis.state.la.us; larep101 at legis.state.la.us;  lasen27 at legis.state.la.us; websen at legis.state.la.us; gautreauxn at legis.state.la.us; smithmi at legis.state.la.us; abramson at legis.state.la.us; larep036 at legis.state.la.us; ligit at legis.state.la.us

Please cc: chatlra at yahoo.com

Here is a sample letter or please write your own. It can be as simple as this:

Please vote on Tuesday to insist that LRA open up really fair Road Home appeals to all applicants who tried to appeal or dispute their grant amount.

Or it could have more information like the following.

Subject: LA Legis. Audit Council and Act 829

Dear Council Member,

There are thousands of Road Home applicants who tried to dispute or appeal mistakes in their grants and never were given a fair chance.

According to the last LRA Housing meeting, there is about $300 million that is not obligated. 

The LA Legis. Auditor has described some of the many kinds of improper procedures used by ICF that shortchanged applicants.

Since August, OCD has resisted reporting to your Council according to Act 829 on ICF’s performance.

We ask that the Council take the authority it has to demand independent appeals, with written guidelines for the standards for deciding appeals to correct the kind of mistakes described by the LA Legis. Auditor and other frequent mistakes.

LRA has recently posted at its website that appeals can be re-opened but has not sent notices to applicants who tried to dispute their grants unsuccessfully and the Road Home website still says that applicants can’t appeal after the 90 day deadline.

LRA and OCD need to meaningfully reform appeals before this program closes.

The Council needs to show that Louisiana can clean its own house and let all shortchanged disaster victims repair their houses.

Yours truly,

 Background

At last, Act 829 (signed into law by Gov. Jindal last July), is on the agenda to be presented to the Louisiana Legislative Audit Advisory Council. OCD has been violating this law every month since it was passed by not reporting to the Council monthly about ICF including about ICF’s performance.

Here is what the law states.

                        http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=504525 

o   Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, the division of administration, office of community development, shall report monthly to the Legislative Audit Advisory Council with respect to the contract between the office of community development and ICF Emergency Management Services dated June 30, 2006, as amended. 

o   The report shall contain information relating to subcontractors, inclusive of subcontractors of subcontractors, payments made to any contractor or subcontractor, the value of the contract, contractor performance in the achievement of goals and objectives of the contract, and any penalties which have been assessed for insufficient performance.

The public may attend this meeting. It is very good that the Legislative Auditor’s office sent me this notice in answer to my request. In addition, they delivered it yesterday and so there was more than the 24-hour notice required by law that is usually the timing of  LRA Board and Housing Task Force notices.

NOTICE OF MEETING
March 17, 2009
2:00 p.m.
House Committee Room 2
State Capitol Building, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

AGENDA

1.      Call to Order – 2:00 p.m.
2.      Approval of Minutes – Meeting of January 26, 2009
3.      Executive Session - Louisiana Department of Insurance Litigation
4.      HB 1 and HB 2 Extension Requests
5.      Act 36 Extension Requests
6.      Shreveport Home Mortgage Authority    
7.      Act 829 Update         
8.      Katrina Cottages Audit                                        
9.      Energy Efficiency Contracts        
10.  North St. Antoine Services, Inc.               
11.  Other Business

An email that I received about this meeting follows.

Mar. 11, 2009

Ms. Ehrlich, 

The meeting is open to the public, all except Executive Session.  The rest of the agenda will be discussed in public and if you fill out a card from the Sergeant-at-Arms, you can request to sit at the table to speak on any topic. 

The meetings are all video taped too and can be seen after any meetings from the House of Representatives website. 

Thank you, 
Liz Martin
Executive Assistant
Office of Legislative Auditor
State of Louisiana
(225) 339-3839

Abramson, Neil C. (Rep) 

365 Canal Street
New Orleans, LA 70130

(504)275-8051

Ellington , Noble E. (Rep) 

4272 Front St.
Winnsboro, LA 71295

(318) 435-7313

Gautreaux, Nick (Sen) 

P. O. Box 94183
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9183

(225) 342-0682

Kleckley, Chuck (Rep) 

130 Jamestown Road
Lake Charles, LA 70605

(337)475-3016

Ligi, Anthony V.(Rep) 

4425 Clearview Parkway, Ste. B
Metairie, LA 70006

(504) 456-3173

Mount, Willie (Sen) 

205 Shell Beach Drive
Lake Charles, LA 70601

(337) 491-1388

Murray, Edwin R. (Sen) 

1540 North Broad Street
New Orleans, LA 70119

(504) 945-0042

Nevers, Ben W. (Sen) 

61596 Little Southern Village 
Bogalusa, LA 70427 

(985) 732-6863

Richmond, Cedric (Rep) 

5437 Crowder Boulevard, Suite 2000
New Orleans, LA 70127

Smith, John R. (Sen) 

611-B S. 5th Street
Leesville, LA 71446

(337)238-2709

Our Next CHAT Meeting

·         Time: Meetings on Wed. at 6:30 PM at UNO, usually every other week 
·         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., Mar. 25. Newcomers are welcome.* 

Ø  The 2-hour CHAT meeting on Dec. 10, 2008 about Road Home Contradictions has been/will be shown on Cox10 TV:
Tues., Dec. 16, 4 PM; Wed., Dec. 17, noon; Thurs., Dec. 18, 8 AM; Tues., Dec. 23, noon; Thurs., Dec. 25, noon; Fri., Dec. 26, 8 AM; Sat., Dec. 27, 4:30 PM; Sun., Dec. 28, 1 PM; Mon., Dec. 29, noon; Wed., Dec. 31, 2 PM; Thurs., Jan. 1, 1 PM; Fri., Jan. 2, 8 AM & 6 PM; Sat., Jan. 3, 3 PM; Mon., Jan. 5, 1:30 PM; Tues., Jan. 6, 3 PM; Wed., Jan. 7, noon; Thurs, Jan. 8, 4 PM; Fri., Jan. 9, 1:30 PM; Sat., Jan., 10, 3 PM; Mon., Jan. 12, 4 PM; Tues., Jan. 13, noon; Wed., Jan. 14, 2 PM; Thurs., Jan. 15, 2 PM; Fri., Jan. 16, noon; Sat., Jan. 17, 3 PM; Mon., Jan. 26, 4 PM; Tues., Jan. 27, noon; Wed., Jan. 28, 4:30 PM; Thurs., Jan. 29, noon; Fri., Jan. 30, 3 PM; Sat., Jan. 31, 4 PM; Mon., Feb. 2, noon; Tues., Feb. 3, 4 PM; Wed., Feb. 4, 4:30 PM; Fri., Feb. 6, noon; Sat., Feb. 7, 9 AM; Mon., Feb. 16, 12:30 PM;  Wed., Feb. 18, noon; Thurs., Feb. 19, 1:30 PM; Fri., Feb. 20, 2 PM; Sat., Feb. 21, 3 PM; Wed., Feb. 25, 1:30 PM; Thurs., Feb. 26, 2:30 PM; Friday, Feb. 27,
 3:30 PM; Tues., Mar. 3, 12:30 PM; Thurs., Mar. 5, noon; Sat., Mar. 7, 10 AM; Mon., Mar. 9, noon; Wed., Mar. 11, 1:30 PM; Fri., Mar. 13, 8 AM; Sat., Mar. 14, 10 AM; Mon., Mar. 16, noon; Wed., Mar. 18, 1:30 PM

Best wishes,

Melanie Ehrlich
Founder, Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT)
Member, LRA Housing Task Force
http://chatushome.com
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