[FoCHAT] CHAT Meeting: Wed. 6:30 PM, UNO

Mon Apr 23 22:06:56 PDT 2007

Our next CHAT meeting is:
  UNO Old Bus. Admin. Rm. 212 on Wed. 6:30 PM.
  Directions to the Business Bldg  are given on the Campus Map for UNO. The URL is http://www.uno.edu/university/maps/maincamp.cfm. The Business Bldg is #7 on the map .

    Agenda

  Update on three CHAT initiatives presented at LRA Bd. and nominally accepted: (citizens' participation in LRA, program review, Bill of Road Home Rights- see below): Melanie

  Discussion of legislative outreach: Barbara & Melanie

  New CHAT initiative for Public Records Act Requests: 

  Report on NORA & RHC: Ricardo

  Update on Roundtable: KC or Alan

  Other business

  Best wishes,

  Melanie

  Recent Improvements in the RHP (needed follow-up) & Some Major Outstanding Problems

  1. Covenant reduced to any amount of time living in your house within 3 y of closing. (Reasonable residency requirements requested in the CHAT Bill of Road Home Rights)

  2. Covenant same for affordable loan (which might now be just a grant supplement) as for grant instead of 2 more years for the loan than for the gran and no transferabliliy of the loan as there was for the grant (this was specifically mentioned in CHAT Bill of Road Home Rights)

  3. OCD reversed the hold on closings for mortgage-free homes before the following paperwork is modified and approved thereby allowing these closing to proceed.

  Commitment to official citizen representation for the RHP.
  April 10 LRA Press Release: “The Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) Board of Directors today recommended expanding the Housing and Community Development Task Force to include homeowners as members and advisors.” Awaiting addition of members and advisors by the LRA/Housing Task Force.

  Commitment to a full and independent program reviews to begin ASAP
  April 10 LRA Press Release: “The board also supported conducting additional "in-flight reviews" of the Road Home homeowner assistance program to supplement other audits and program reviews already in place to assure a high level of quality of the program.”  Awaiting information on starting the review very soon, for it to be effective.

  Commitment to the CHAT and 4-Parish Bill of Road Home Rights renamed Principles.
  April 10 LRA Press Release: “Additionally, the board proposed the consideration of a "Homeowner Bill of Principles" at the group's meeting next month. The principles were originally developed by the Citizens' Road Home Action Team (CHAT) and later supplemented by LRA policy staff. “

  The RHP is stopping time-consuming and process-blocking verification of title searches for Option 1 award letters. 
  The needed corollary is to prevent other extremely time-consuming blocks (months-long) to processing applications:

  1. huge delays in FEMA house-benefit verifications (only low-income individuals got up to $10,500 for structural damage to homes)

  2. huge delays in  insurance verifications (often the insurance companies give less accurate information than the documentation presented by the applicant at the initial interview because the insurance companies often do not separate benefits for structural damage to the house from other insurance benefits received)

  3. months delay in completion of dispute resolution by the RHP (often the applicant cannot find out what the impediment is to being in dispute resolution for up to 4 months)

  4. problems with changing or inconsistent categorization of slightly atypical housing situations (doubles) which are delaying processing for many months

  CHAT continues to be told that very many applicants are still unable to get useful information about the status of their application, often are told for months that their application is “in verification,” often are unable to contact their housing advisor or the dispute resolution team, sometimes are denied any money due to an apparent mistake on the part of the RHP. We have heard about vast new manpower shortages (resignations) in the staff charged with fast-tracking stalled applications (Long Term Advisory Team). 

  CHAT awaits rapid ramp-up to 500 closings per day that should be sustained and not just evanescent.

  Transparency in the RHP must be dramatically increased
  The apparent transformation of the affordable (forgivable) loan to supplemental grant money is welcome but needs to be explained at the RHP website?

  There needs to be an explanation to the public and applicants about removing the damage estimate ($130 per sq. ft.) from the award letters. If an applicant has a lower damage estimate than pre-storm value, is the lower of the two numbers still used as the starting point for the calculation? If the damage estimate is used for calculation of the new substitute for the affordable loan, this value must be given to the applicant

  There is much confusion still about elevation allowance calculations and the relation to ICC. This needs to be clarified at the RHP web site. In addition, if an applicant is supposed to raise their house according to ABFE requirements but does not get enough money to do so and has no elevation allowance or one much less than $30,000, what will be the liability of the applicant and of the RHP for non-compliance with local elevation requirements?

  What is happening to fast-tracking of grant applications stalled for more than 2 months between major stages in the processing: interview, site visit, receipt of award letter, and closing?

  The website should not list benefits calculated and scheduled closings but rather the following.

  number of applicants receiving award notification

  number of applicants who have had house site visits but are awaiting award notification

  number of applicants awaiting a revised award notice (in dispute resolution)

  number of applicants awaiting determination of an appeal

  If, as CHAT has heard, award letters will not be sent, what is the alternative that gives the applicant the data about their award determination and the readiness of their application for closing? This needs to be explained at the web site.

  The website should list actual closings as well as scheduled closings.

  The pre-storm process needs to be explained to the public so that they can evaluate its suitability. As promised in Dec., Louisiana certified appraisals of pre-storm value by LA certified appraisers paid for by homeowners needs to be accepted as the primary determinant of pre-storm value when supplied by the homeowner during the application process, dispute resolution, or appeal. 

  CHAT’s Updated Homeowner Bill of Principles

  I. The right to the complete rules of the program. 
  It is the responsibility of the RHP to make current, updated rules available to applicants as soon as new rules are put into effect, to notify applicants of any changes, and to make those changes retroactive for those who have gone to grant closing. 

  II. The right to timely processing of applications. 
  There needs to be a timeline for processing applications and a special division to effectively deal with very long delays for many application. ICF and its subcontractors need to sustain an average of at least 500 closings per business day starting in May. Inordinate delays remain a terrible problem for applicants. At the Road Home web site, ICF needs to regularly post  flow charts describing  how many applicants are delayed at which steps and for approximately how many weeks. OCF needs to comment publicly on how each of  the major sources of delays will be eliminated.

  III. The right to a fair and swift resolution of errors, disputes, and appeals. 
  There needs to be a timeline for dispute resolution and appeals and a special division to effectively deal with long delays in resolving these matters. Simple computer input or calculation errors should be fast-tracked. The appeals process should be mandated in the rules to involve a written point-by-point response to all questions raised by applicants in their appeal. Given the great problems with this aspect of the program, OCD and ICF should give monthly reports detailing the number of personnel and supervisory personnel handling these problems as well as the types of software used to deal with these issues.
   If after the exhaustion of appeals to ICF/OCD, the applicant still has grounds for redress, he/she should be permitted to appeal to the district court of the parish in which the property is located. If the applicant prevails and proves the award which was appealed was arbitrary or capriciously made, reasonable attorneys fees and penalties should be granted the applicant.  

  IV. The right to a fair and accurate calculation of your benefits and tender of your award (acceptance of grant money without losing the right to dispute resolution and appeal). 
  If a homeowner does not have a pre-Katrina appraisal but does order a Louisiana certified appraisal after the storm, the latter should be accepted as the primary determinant of pre-storm value.

  V. The right to simple, fair, and easily understood closing papers. 

  VI. The right to accurate information about the status of applications by informed and trained personnel within 24 hours of your request. 
  There should be a separate phone number or extension for information about processing of grants that is slower than a standard, posted  timeline (II, above) so that within 24 hours applicants can speak to someone empowered to help them. Applicants are often told for many weeks or for months that their application is “in verification.” Specific information should be given about the nature of any prolonged verification.

  VII. The right to reasonable residency requirements for grants and loans and fair rules for grant benefit assignment or compensation for applicants who must sell their home. 

  VIII. The right to receive sufficient affordable or forgivable loans to enable you to rebuild or repair if you have a low pre-storm appraised value. 
  It is not fair that those of middle income with moderate-appraisal houses are less likely than other income groups to get enough RHP money to rebuild. Forgivable loans should be made available to those with 120% or less of the median area income, instead of just to those with 80% or less of the median area income.

  IX. The right to have realistic elevation awards to encourage applicants to rebuild really safer, stronger, and smarter. 
  Allowances limited to $15 per square foot will often be inadequate to elevate new homes to safe levels.  Road Home Program elevation allowances should be calculated according to the “real cost” used by NFIP’s ICC except that the total cost limit should be set at $60,000 with funds available for elevation under ICC drawn first.  

  X. The right to have the disposition of RHP-acquired properties benefit grantees and the neighborhoods in which such properties are located, with neighborhood input in the process. 
  The LRA should stipulate that the public must be given adequate notice of meetings of the RHC and that representatives of citizen groups from the affected districts should be allowed to participate in discussions about setting policy for land- use decisions about RHC-acquired property. Profit from the sale of Road Home Corporation- acquired properties should be used for the benefit of RHP grantees and their neighborhoods, not for districts that did not suffer great storm damage.

  XI. The right to have the government ensure that applicants are not deprived of their duly calculated award because the program has depleted its funds.  
  The LRA needs to work together with the state executive branch, state legislative branch, and the federal government to ensure adequate funds for the program because presently the program statistics predict a shortfall of more than 2 billion dollars. 

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