[FoCHAT] CHAT: An Hour at NOLA LRA Meeting & What the Public Can Do If You Try---Grants and Land Use

Sun Oct 7 08:41:55 PDT 2007

Dear Citizens Concerned About Louisiana's Recovery,

  If you can, please come to the LRA Housing Task Force Meeting on Tues. afternoon, Oct. 9 at UNO's Conference Center (see below), even if only for an hour. Whether or not you are a Road Home applicant, the issues discussed will impact you if you are concerned about LA's recovery. 

  At this meeting, there will be discussion of major Road Home issues including:

  “all applications should be processed in a timely manner,”  

  “every applicant should have access to a fair and swift resolution of errors, disputes, and appeals,” 

  and “local community input and neighborhood planning” about land bought from Road Home applicants. 

  The above quotes are from the LRA Board's Statement of Road Home Principles that you can read at the Road Home website:

  http://road2la.org/about-us/principles.htm

  If the public is effectively engaged, ordinary citizens, like Steve Donahue or KC King, both members of the Citizens' Road Home Action Team (CHAT), can have a positive influence on correcting unfair policies of the federal government or the Road Home Program that are causing anguish for dedicated homeowners who want to rebuild their hurricane- flood-devastated homes. 

  In addition, these issues affect the economy of all of Louisiana because of their major effect on our state's recovery. This is an issue that too few of the Louisiana politicians runnning for office or serving in Congress have shown concern about by their pronouncements and their actions. Please see http://chat.thinknola.com for more information.

  From the first page of the 10/7/07 Times-Picayune, there is an illustration of how citizens can be more effective sometimes than our politicians  

  All this elevation allowance controversy is about 1.2 billion dollars that the federal government appropriated long ago for post-storm recovery in LA. Federal officials said they would allow these funds for Road Home Program grant use under the umbrella of the Road Home Program but then they did not allow that to happen. 

  The federal government insisted that the funds be administered not by the Road Home under its policies, but by a FEMA program involving totally irrelevant and counterproductive red tape: exclusion of applicants who previously signed building contracts, requirement of cost-benefit, environmental and historical analyses, and extremely slow payout methods.

    The issue is not yet resolved but the Times-Picayune article cited below gives encouraging hope: 

  http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/10/fema_to_offer_aid_to_those_who_1.html

    This hope contrasts with what CHAT had been hearing about the lack of a reasonable, applicant-oriented solution from federal and RH officials, despite the intensive efforts of the LA Office of Community Development.

  Timeline and Why You Should Come on Tues. To the LRA Meeting in New Orleans If You Can:

  March- May 2007: The Citizens' Road Home Action Team (CHAT) advocates to the LRA that members of grassroots organizations who work on Road Home policy issues should be appointed to the LRA.
  http://thinknola.com/instiki/wiki/show/CHAT+Accomplishments

  May-present: CHAT (with KC King as the leading CHAT member working on this with important input and work from many of our most active CHAT members) advocates re-institution of the elevation allowances by the Road Home Program but state officials tell us that their hands are tied because of the federal government problems mentioned above.

  May 9: Two CHAT members (Melanie Ehrlich and KC King) and one member of the Jeremiah Group (Nell Bolton) are appointed to the LRA Housing Task Force. They participate as members in the Housing Task Force Meeting on May 31, 2007.

  Sept. 25. Next Housing Task Force (HTF) meeting is held in Baton Rouge from 1:00 to 4:30 PM.  The CHAT HTF members had requested that elevation allowances be part of the agenda but most of the other issues that CHAT requested, including resolutions from HTF member Melanie Ehrlich, were not included

  1. After the meeting, before returning to New Orleans, Times-Picayune reporter David Hammer asks Ehrlich to give him the contact information for someone who would be good to illustrate the problem of Road Home grantees who have elevated their houses but not received their Road Home elevation allowances. Such homeowners would not be eligible under the rules that FEMA was insisting on for FEMA-based elevation grants   http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/people_who_elevated_their_home.html.

  2. Ehrlich has trouble with restarting her laptop to get him the contact information for Steve Donahue. Donahue was the person she recommends because of his tenacity, can-do attitude, and knowledge of the Road Home Program through his work for CHAT and attendance at CHAT weekly meetings at UNO. Hammer waits patiently despite the lateness of the hour and explains that he needed that phone contact information that afternoon to make a newspaper deadline. Finally, the phone number is provided.

  3. The Oct. 7 article in the Times-Picayune gives the first hope from the federal government (a large part of Road Home problems) for a reasonable approach to allowing those 
  already signed a contract for rebuilding their home to be eligible for FEMA-based elevation grants. However, this problem is not yet resolved, only awaiting resolution.
  http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/10/fema_to_offer_aid_to_those_who_1.html

  Tues., Oct. 9. The HTF meeting is scheduled for Oct. 9 and is supposed to deal with many critical issues and topics left over from CHAT's and Ehrlich's request for the Sept. 25 meeting.

      NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING

  The meeting of the Louisiana Recovery Authority Housing Committee has been scheduled for: 

  Tuesday, October 9, 2007
  1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  University of New Orleans
  Research and Technology Park
  Lindy C. Boggs International Conference Center
  2045 Lakeshore Drive, CERM 245
New Orleans, LA

  Please send an email to chatlra at yahoo.com if you or your neighbors plan to go and put "HTF" in the subject line and your contact info (name, email, and phone number) in the body of the message, and any questions that you might have about the meeting.

  Melanie Ehrlich
  CHAT

  HTF

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