[FoCHAT] ICF violating fundamental due process

Sat Jan 27 21:20:43 EST 2007

Melanie:

  Much more than rules are involved here.  ICF is not giving homeowners sufficient information so they can determine where the mistakes are, so homeowners have to guess.  I believe the withholding of information may violate a fundamental consitutional right, the right to due process of law.   You may be able to sue ICFand obtain a court injunction requiring disclosure of this information.

  a homeowner needs to know not just the rules, but also the detailed information, so they are able to determine the facts and whether the determinations based on those facts violate ICF  and LRA rules.  An example will make my point.  On the Lakeshore forum under NOLA.com, you will read homeowners complaining about this very issue.  See 4532 - complaints about ICF failure to produce a copy of their appraisal.  elsewhere you will read about how ICF appraisals get the sq ft wrong and some ICF appraisals guess at the sq ft. 

  The appeal and problem resolution processes probably violate fundamental due process . CHAT should point this out to ICF and LRA, class action anyone to force them to comply?

  One wants to avoid litigation, because of the delays; but the mere suggestion that many homeowners are talking litigation may scare them into acting.

  In summary, ICF should immediately:

  1.   Post its RH rules on the web as per my prior email,
  2.   LRA should order ICF to produce a copy of the following documents within seven days of a homeowners complaining about:
  A.    appraisal - all appraisals ICF used to determine preKatrina value and any other documentation of any other information relied on by it to determine such value, and its calculations of such value.
  b.    repair costs - a copy of all information relied on by ICF to determine repair costs and ICF's calculations of such costs.

  Note well, most homeowners will not know to ask for this information, therefore it should be automatically given without a request, whenever a homeowners complains about either of such subjects; unless the homeowner signs a waiver of such right.

  I predict, if CHAT does as suggested, that ICF will scream, you are driving up costs, demands on its time, and slowing down resolution of claims.  do not be misled.  with three out of four applicants being told they get nothing, something is really wrong.  the program is a failure, it is not achieving its goal to get homeowners money to rebuild.

  the reality is that all the information ICF must produce is probably on their computers and should be readily emailed to homeowners.

  Harry Hoskins

Melanie Ehrlich <mehrlich8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
    I approved the posting of Harry's informative message to FoCHAT thinknola but it did not seem to go through.

  Melanie

harry hoskins <hoskins910 at yahoo.com> wrote:
    Melanie:

  ICF has a very detailed book of rules.  I know from personal knowledge.  I was shown a page from their rule book to substantiate their rules concerning assignments of RH rights.  I disputed what the supervisor told me and cited a personal conversation with Walter Leger to support my position.  I told them they were wrong.  then they showed me a page from their rule book contradicting what Walter Leger told me.  I told them their rule book was wrong and insisted on their processing my daughter's application.

  So, ICF has a rule book they could put on the web tomorrow; but they refuse.  My surmise is that they do not want to be contradicted.  If they give their rule book out, they probably fear homeowners will attack them, where their rules are not updated to comply with the latest expression of policy change from the LRA.  They probably fear they will have more work, as word gets out about typical mistakes and how they are not following their own rules.

  Knowing the rules is very important to knowing your rights and being able to effectively appeal.  Hiding the rules deprives the people of their fundamental rights.  CHAT should insist on immediate ICFposting of their rules and immediate posting of changes the day they are effected.

  Harry Hoskins

Melanie Ehrlich <mehrlich8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
    Dear CHAT and FoCHAT Members,

  Below is a summary that I wrote of yesterday's meeting at the First American Title Insurance Company's office in the Fr. Qter. Under that is the one page handout we gave at the meeting.

  I also direct your attention to Mike Taylor's letter to the editor in T-P today, in which he mentions concerns about fraud by homeowners 3 times in one sentence using different words each time, and an insightful article for the RHP but about Louisiana and FEMA aid in the first section of today's T-P paper. I encourage you to write letters to the editor, but please do it as individuals, not citing your CHAT affiliation unless you circulate it among the core CHAT members for comments first.

    Meeting Between Representatives of the RHP and CHAT in the French Quarter, 1/26/07

  1. Four representatives from CHAT plus a judge from St. Bernard Parish met with five RHP officials all morning today. The CHAT members and judge, who is also an applicant to the RHP, directed questions at the RHP officials about the extremely slow rate of closings, the often wildly mistaken appraisals that have not yet been corrected, the understaffing of ICF, and the lack of adequate training of many ICF employees. The onerous closing documents, which, in fact need major corrections, were finally revealed to CHAT for the first time this week. However, we did not get them in answer to our numerous requests to LRA and OCD for a copy. Rather, we obtained them from one of the members of our growing group. This member has the exceptional status of having been offered a closing, which she had to decline. She understand that the wording and stipulations of the documents are unfavorable for applicants in general. Lastly, we asked why, despite CHAT’s requests since the beginning
 of October, a list of detailed rules for grant calculation and disbursement (such as how the mysterious elevation allowance is determined) is not posted on the RHP website and included in the award letters.

  2. Signs of progress at the meeting included the appearance there of an OCD official who drove all the way from Baton Rouge to meet with us at 9:00 AM, and the president and several employees of First American Title. In addition, Walter Leger was present. He maintains his job as Chairman of the Housing Committee on a purely voluntary basis, which undercuts the time that he can devote to his law practice. The presentation by Cathleen Carney who heads the closing operation for the RHP out of First American Title was informative and showed that this subcontractor is proactive and not the main limiting factor in the still dreadfully low rate of closings of RHP grants. [However, follow-up is necessary with them to get more of a breakdown about the 3500 applications that they are working on now and which steps, about which we did get some detailed information, are rate-limiting and to what extent.] In fact, Carney told us that her division was ready to process 250 closings per
 day. Mike Spletto, from OCD, pledged that he would work with a member of CHAT who is a lawyer and an RHP lawyer to solve the serious problems in the closing documents by the end of next week. These were prepared by highly paid Jones Walker’s Baton Rouge Division as part of the ICF contract. Included in these problems are the conflicting and incorrect language about SBA and RHP overlap that would erroneously reduce grant amounts and onerous requirements for applicants to document expenses with notarization that are more burdensome than those of a construction loan, even though the award is not a loan, but a grant. Especially worrisome is the finding that the closing documents do not yet contain the promised offer1 that the awards would be tendered, that is that applicants can accept them without losing their right to appeal. 

  3. One of the remaining problems reinforced at the meeting is that the state is placing far too much emphasis on its liability to cover the expenses to the federal government in cases of fraud. In ICF’s reports to the state, only 21 cases of possible fraud were reported for 25,000 applicants, who had their benefits calculated and applicants are fingerprinted, photographed, and have numerous official documents photocopied by the RHP. Moreover, more than 80% of the applicants are choosing to rebuild or repair their homes and so the RHP could put liens on their property as necessary.  

  Another remaining problem is the reluctance of OCD to simply put all the rules for how grants are calculated and copies of blank RHP documents for applicants, such as the closing document, on the web site as soon as they are available. While CHAT appreciates that the rules for this massive program are changing for the better, that is not reason to withold them from the applicants because they can be updated frequently, especially at the website. In addition, RHP employees greatly need this set of rules because they are often uninformed even about matters that they have to relate to applicants. 

  Most disappointing was the lack of data that the officials at the meeting could offer CHAT as to what the bottleneck is in bringing to closing less than 300 grants from over 11,000 grant applications for which award letters were mailed and the award option chosen by the applicant. All we could ascertain was that the delay was in ICF delivering the files to First American for closing but that delay may well involve more verifications mandated as RHP policy. Such policy is not set by ICF. While CHAT was told that by March the closings should be held much more quickly, we await demonstration of  major improvements in the rate of closing in February. It remains to be seen whether the state and LRA officials will make the grant program simpler, instead of more complicated, for the applicant and place the needs of the applicant to get the grant money as soon as possible in the forefront. 

  1 12/27/06 Times-Picayune
  EDITORIAL: A constructive approach
  Citizens who are pushing for improvements to the Road Home program have reason to be angry with the slow, often flawed process homeowners encounter when seeking grants for their storm-damaged property. 

  But members of Citizens' Road Home Action Team -- or CHAT -- aren't letting anger cloud their judgment. Instead the New Orleans-based group has come up with ways to make the program fairer and faster. Some of those ideas have been embraced by state officials and ICF International, the company managing the $7.5 billion program. 

  State officials agreed to allow homeowners who didn't have appraisals before Katrina to hire appraisers to determine the prestorm value of their flood-damaged home. The state also has agreed to allow payments to homeowners even if they're appealing the grant amount. Those are important changes since property values are key to determining grant amounts. 

  CHAT has offered a concrete agenda that is far more helpful than calling for the contractor's termination. That's the approach that the state Legislature took, but CHAT pointed out that firing ICF would just cause more delays for homeowners. 

  Over the past 16 months, Louisianians have learned that they must be their own advocates when it comes to recovery. Groups like CHAT have taken up that mantle. It's encouraging that they are speaking out -- and that the state is listening.
  http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-3/116720198882600.xml&coll=

    Lastly, I note that CHAT contains truly remarkable, talented, and dedicated individuals who take time from lives made especially busy by the destruction of much of New Orleans to do this work for CHAT on top of their normal jobs and family responsibilities. The sense of community and unselfish networking in groups like CHAT, neighborhood district groups, and New Orleans district yahoo groups are amazing and probably unparalleled anywhere in the US. For example, two major problems (one about sheetrock and the other about ESL in schools) that I had were solved this week by eliciting advice from NO chat groups. I received over 8 informative answers to each question within two days.

    CHAT’s OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE ROAD HOME PROGRAM
  January 26, 2007 
  The current slow pace of closings poses a significant threat of defeating the primary goal of the Road Home Program, getting grant money into applicants’ hands soon enough to do any good. The apparent inability of ICF and OCD to either efficiently allocate resources and personnel to the task of advancing files to closings threatens to further delay grant payments and may well destroy what little public confidence remains in the competency of its administration and an ever increasing perception that grant calculations are likely to be unfair and inaccurate and that the payment or escrowing of funds will continue to be unduly delayed. 
  CHAT has yet to discover a good explanation for the failure to immediately move the 30,000 files for which benefits have been calculated to closing or at least some stage of closing readiness to take advantage of option elections continuously being made by applicants.  CHAT still has serious unanswered questions concerning the status of these and other files in the “pipeline” to know with any reasonable degree of reliability whether it will take 3 months or a year to close this group of  files, while also moving other applicants through earlier stages of the process. How long will it take ICF and 1st American to complete most of the closings in this group?
  CHAT’s initial and very recent review of the actual grant or closing documents currently in use presents a new set of problems which need immediate attention. The papers reflect an approach that seems more concerned with protecting the state, the federal government and its contractors from liability for anything and everything (including apparently gross incompetence) rather than driven by LRA policy that reflects that this is a grant program, intended to get awards into the hands of the people so that they may rebuild or relocate.  Policy changes or waivers from HUD needed to eliminate steps[1] or to simplify the process should be readily identified and discussion with HUD and/or someone with authority from Donald Powell’s office would seem advisable, if needed to make any such changes.
  CHAT’s immediate concerns: 
  1. Fast-tracking grant applications that are the easiest to move from options-chosen to closings to get the rate of closings up to an acceptable pace. 
  2. Determining what resources are in place, what steps are necessary to effect closings, and aging at all of the rate-limiting steps.
  a. Determining the handling process by ICF, OCD, and First American in moving applications to and through closing and whether appropriate manpower is being employed, including the experience and or training of personnel hired by ICF or its subcontractors.
  3. Facilitating all post-interview steps: 
  a. By verification concurrent with making the award; verification can be completed post award, especially in cases of applicants choosing option 1. 
  b. By relying more on affidavits for insurance data than rate-limiting 3rd-party information. 
  4. Treating RHP grants like grants, which rely substantially on signed statements of accuracy. 
  5. Correcting major problems in the closing documents, simplifying the RHP rules to make it easier for applicants to rebuild or repair their homes.
  CHAT believes that the loan program which was recently announced by the New Orleans city government will likely compound existing problems.  It is the equivalent of putting a band aid on a patient with a severed limb, may add another level of complexity to assignment of benefits issues, and put some applicants in a worse position.  It is regrettable that delays in the program are leading to the necessity of people borrowing against grant money that should have been expeditiously processed and paid.  CHAT believes ICF must ramp up the rate of closings to at least 225 closings per day in February. Then, the RHP would provide help to almost twice as many applicants from New Orleans in one month as the loan program is entirely funded to provide.

---------------------------------
      [1] If independent verification of value cannot be waived and is required, does it have to be done for every applicant or just a reliable sampling? Why can’t it be done at any point for as many as HUD requires to be satisfied about the overwhelming  majority of people receiving grants? 

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