1. CHAT was a major influence in acceptance of homeowner-supplied Louisiana-licensed appraisals by the Louisiana Road Home Program for Homeowner Assistance (RHP).
However, those appraisals will not be used if they differ by more than 20% from much less accurate determinations of pre-storm value (not done on the property) by the RHP. Therefore, the appraisals will not be used in the cases of the most erroneous RHP valuations. RHP officials told CHAT that it is HUD regulations based upon fear of fraud that set the cap of no more than 20% difference.
2. CHAT was responsible for suggesting and getting approval of the right for applicants to dispute the amount of their award after accepting the amount that the RHP initially offers.
This right has been used by many applicants so that they do not have to wait until these usually very long processes are completed to obtain some funding
3. CHAT is responsible for major improvements in the closing documents suggested by two of CHAT’s volunteer lawyers.
4. CHAT is responsible for the getting the RHP to make public, as of Jan. 2007, the policy book describing rules for determining grant awards and sample documents (award letters, closing documents) and, as of June 28, the weekly data reports from the contractor to the Office of Community Development (OCD), the direct oversight agency from the state.
These are now posted at the RHP website, http://www.road2la.org/homeowner/resources.htm#policies
http://www.road2la.org/newsroom/stats.htm
5. CHAT is responsible for getting four Louisiana municipal councils, including the New Orleans City Council, to endorse a Bill of Road Home Rights initially suggested by Frank Silvestri, CHAT Co-Chairman. The LRA has slightly modified these and called them Road Home Program Statement of Principles and adopted them at the May LRA Board Meeting. See point 11.
6. CHAT was a major influence in removing the requirement that the applicant be present during the housing site evaluation in the case of homes that are more than 50% damaged.
The size and extent of damage of a house size is measured during those site visits. It was an unnecessary burden for many applicants, especially for those out of town to have to be present during the house inspection.
7. CHAT helped to obtain much faster rates of closings (distribution of awards) with many media appearances and communications with RHP officials.
8. CHAT started the examination by many news media outlets of the problem of the RHP having inadequate resources to fund all the applicants.
A detailed CHAT posting about this problem was sent on April 24 to several major media news outlets and was followed up by them. Garland Robinette interviewed two CHAT members about this on April 27. Lee Zurick of WWL 4 TV news interviewed one CHAT member on Saturday Eyewitness News on April 28. Ilene Powell of CHAT transmitted the CHAT posting to Rep. Jindal, a gubernatorial candidate. His staff thanked her for alerting him to this important issue. On May 2, Jindal made this a major issue in a publicized letter to Gov. Blanco about the anticipated shortfall. Later that day, CHAT Co-Chairman Melanie Ehrlich was interviewed by Paul Murphy of ABC News. During the interview in a statement that was not broadcast, Murphy said that Jindal’s office credited a CHAT member with showing him the importance of the problem. As of May 5, this has become a major issue, as it should be, that is being discussed in the State Legislature and US Congress, as well as the media.
9. On May 9, 2007, CHAT members Shawn Antee, K.C. King, Peg Case (Director, Terrebonne Readiness & Assistance Coalition, TRAC), and Melanie Ehrlich are members of the Working Group of the Housing Task Force of the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA). K.C. King and Melanie Ehrlich were also named as members of the Housing Task Force.
The Working Group has had useful conference calls for 1 hour every week since then with several members of the LRA including Adam Knapp, Vice Director and Will Jacobs. Recently Mike Spletto, Housing Chairman of the OCD and Lara Robertson have joined those calls.
10. At the May 10, 2007 LRA Board Meeting, it was agreed that work should begin within one week on starting an independent non-governmental organization to conduct an in-flight review of the RHP contractor, ICF, and OCD without disruption of ongoing processing of awards. CHAT has been advocating that independent in-flight reviews be conducted by two different groups since March. This is part of CHAT’s three-pronged proposal for improving the RHP that was presented at two previous LRA Board meetings:
a. Adoption of an applicant-based set of benchmarks for the RHP (now the Road Home Program Statement of Principles adopted by the LRA on 5/10/07)
b. Involvement of citizens’ advocates of RHP applicants in the LRA organization (see above, Point 9)
c. Independent review of process, procedures, technology and program issues with specific recommendations for improvement.
11. At the LRA’s Housing Task Force (HTF) Meeting on May 31, at which two CHAT members were present as new members, one of the CHAT/HTF members proposed the following resolution, which was unanimously accepted:
a. The RHP Statement of Principles should be posted at the RH web site within one week. This was done.
http://www.road2la.org/about-us/principles.htmThe preamble to these principles states: “Whereas, in recent months, members of the Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT) drafted certain principles of performance for the Road Home Program, which was later adopted by the councils of the city of New Orleans, St. Bernard Jefferson and Terrebonne Parishes;
Whereas, CHAT’s initial concepts have been expanded, with their assistance, to a formal body of Road Home Program Principles; and
Whereas, by endorsing these Road Home Program principles, the LRA re-states its commitment to moving the Road Home Housing Program forward in an expeditious and fair manner, and re-states its commitment to moving the state’s recovery forward.”
b. The HTF recommends that ICF-related principles from this document be incorporated into the weekly ICF pipeline reports as deliverables (quantitated descriptions of how well they are being followed).
We are awaiting implementation by OCD since June.
c. HTF requests that ICF pay from its administrative costs for a subcontractor to do an in-flight review with the company and nature of the review determined by LRA
Passed unanimously.
In response to five months of advocacy by CHAT, the LRA announced on Aug. 24 that it contracted RAND Corp. to do an in-flight review. If the review quickly produces constructive recommendations, this could still be useful, albeit delayed, because the review is targetted to consider implementing the CHAT-derived, applicant-oriented Road Home Statement of Principles (see above). The in-flight review was first suggested and outlined for us by Ed Krause, an executive currently with Louisiana Deloitte Services, because of his concerns about the operations of ICF and his understanding of how important this program is to the recovery of New Orleans, his home city.
d. Aug. 21, at our weekly phone-conference meeting of the Working Group of the Housing Task Force including LRA and OCD officials and Shawn Antee, KC King, Peg Case, Frank Silvestri, and Melanie Ehrlich of CHAT, we were told that LRA and OCD were seriously considering greatly improving contested appraisal determinations for grant calculation, detailed written notification of award determinations and appeals, placing more priority on processing the oldest applications first, and appointing an ombudsman, as per CHAT’s recommendations.
12. Aug. 29, KPMG, the company hired by OCD to conduct a program review arranged a conference call with three CHAT members and Ed Krausse, from Louisiana Deloitte Services, a pro bono consultant to CHAT, to get our input and request a list of our priority items for improvement of the RHP. We provided that list on Aug. 31.
13. Oct., 2007, RAND began a one-month in-flight review of the Road Home Program and participated in a half-hour discussion of this review at one of the weekly hour-length conference calls of the Housing Task Force Working Group, which includes LRA officials and four members of CHAT.
14. Nov., 2007, Two new policies that CHAT had advocated for are signed
15. At CHAT’s urging, finally, in July 2008, a specified procedure for applicants to get a complete copy of their file has been made public. Click here for the information. This is critical for applicants who are trying to appeal mistakes in their grants, which are unfortunately very frequent.
16. In July, 2008, after more than one year of advocacy, CHAT was pleased that the promises to us of the past and the present Executive Director of LRA were honored.
Now LRA is extending grants to applicants who had to sell at a loss before the program started.
See the LRA announcement
We still hope that this is extended to all applicants who sold at a loss in 2006 and not just those who sold before Aug. 31, 2006 because there were almost no grants awarded in 2006. Therefore, applicants in dire financial situations and in need of money from selling their home had no hope to get a Road Home grant in time to help them. Many of these applicants were forced by circumstances to sell at exceedingly low prices because the housing market was so depressed right after the hurricane/flood.
17. In May and June 2008, CHAT worked with state legislators on several Road Home reform bills.
One of the reform bills passed, although it was watered down (SB755, signed by Gov. Jindal on July 9, 2008 as ACT 872). CHAT has been credited with being important in the passage of this bill that calls for RH to follow its own policy about using the highest pre-storm value in an applicant’s file. This is the antidote to the multiple unnecessary and often low-quality home valuations done by Road Home with ICF choosing a low one to downgrade an applicant’s grant amount. Implementation is pending approval by the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Department of LRA Action Plan Amendment 28.
LRA maintains that no action plan was needed for the appeals reform mandated by Act 872. However, as of the end of Sept., no appeals reform is apparent.
To Read Public Comments About The LRA Amendments 27 and 28 and the new Road Home Law 872, (the absence of legally mandated appeals reform, and the unnecessary use of $650 million of Road Home funds)
Go to http://www.chatushome.com/blog/?p=8
In the course of attempting to get this and stronger bills passed and with CHAT members testifying to two Legislative committees, the issue of multiple determinations of home valuation by the contractor ICF International or its subcontractors came to the fore. One of the sponsors of the bill credited CHAT’s essential role in its passage. ACT 872 unambiguously states that applicants should get the highest home valuation in their file, although this will not be put into practice without HUD approval despite it being the official, but often ignored, policy of Road Home. This is important because almost all the valuations are inferior ones often done poorly and not full certified appraisals, as mandated by HUD for FHA loans. With multiple house valuations, often unnecessarily and poorly done, ICF was able to pick lower ones and to reduce grant awards to applicants, which are largely based upon these home valuations. What is worse, very large numbers of applicants had their grants reduced from what they were told in their award notice because of extra additional home valuations that produced erroneously low values which were chosen for revising the grant downward just before or at grant closing.
18. LRA recinded the July notice of arbitrary and restrictive applicant deadline of Sept. 5. for often difficult documentation by applicants.* After intense advocacy by Loyola Law Clinic, CHAT, ACT, and other organizations as well as the New Orleans City Council and Terrebonne Parish Council, the only remaining deadline requires that applicants return benefit option letters by November 1, 2008.
For more details see: