Road Home program now solvent

Gov. Kathleen Blanco and members of Louisiana Recovery Authority this afternoon announced that updated budget estimates for the Road Home program show the state has all the money it needs to pay eligible applicants, according to a news release.

Based on new projections, the state will not have to seek new funds from Congress to ensure that every eligible homeowner receives their full hurricane-recovery grant award from the Road Home.

The new figures are based on the estimated number of eligible applicants, who had to schedule appointments with the program by Dec. 1. To cover a massive shortfall, the state committed $1 billion and secured $3 billion from Congress.

"At last, the moment we have all been hoping for," Blanco is quoted as saying in the release. "We can finally say with confidence that the Road Home is running in the black. After making nine trips to Capitol Hill over the last two years to fight for Louisianas fair share, it's a tremendous relief to know we now have the funds we need to assist all eligible homeowners."

District gets FEMA to drop nit-picking

For Recovery School District officials, the $620 fund for 155 glitter packets, the $94,469.05 fund for 2,907 puppets, and the $2,362.85 for 215 magazine holders might have come in handy down the road. But they weren't worth the million-dollar accounting headache.

As the district opened dozens of schools during the past year and a half, it moved quickly to restock them with supplies and furniture. But getting the money back from FEMA seemed like it would be anything but quick. Under the old accounting system, the school district would have had to match items for items to get FEMA reimbursement: 1,000 lost pencils at one school would get the school 1,000 new ones.

A theoretical lost copy of the preschool text "There's a Nightmare in My Closet" would have forced the school to buy a new copy of "There's a Nightmare in My Closet" for $18.92. But that money could not go toward a copy of "I've Got Chicken Pox," another early years classic.

At one point, "we would have had a fund for Wet Vacs," said Ramsey Green, the district's budget director.

What's a Wet Vac?

"I would have to Google search 'Wet Vac,' " he replied.

To help ease the load of such questions, the recovery district and FEMA have now settled on a new, streamlined accounting approach that likely will be used as a model for other school systems trying to recoup money for contents destroyed by the storm. To avoid getting mired in minutia, FEMA will grant the district allotments in four broad categories, each with a capped dollar value: publications, information technology, furniture and school equipment.

"This is unique," said John Connolly, FEMA's chief of public assistance projects on the Gulf Coast. "The RSD has helped broker a process that can be extended to other schools in Louisiana going forward."

The agreement marks a rare example of loosening up typically rigid federal policy, officials said.

"This recovery gets a lot of flak for being overly bureaucratic," Green said, "and this is an example of some people putting their heads together and coming up with a solution to a pretty difficult problem."

St. Bernard Parish also will seek reimbursement under the new process, Connolly said.

Ultimately, the new system was hammered out by a few district staffers in a coffee shop over three days, but only after months of negotiations with FEMA.

"(FEMA) had a mindset about how they wanted to negotiate it," said State Superintendent Paul Pastorek, who helped broker the agreement between FEMA and the recovery district. "That mindset is born of how they've always done it."

But counting lost pencils and books on a line-item basis would have been "impossible," Pastorek said. To say nothing of another nightmarish prospect: "My perception, at least, was that if we had 27 20-year-old desks, we were going to have to go out and get 27 20-year-old desks."

The policy change came only after FEMA made a series of earlier concessions that aimed to simplify the process -- but didn't.

At first, FEMA agreed to establish costs for items that would be used to equip, say, a standard library or high school biology lab. After that process, FEMA identified 5,000 different line items for which schools could seek reimbursement.

But that limited the system to a theoretical list that may or may not include the items it actually needed.

"It's like FEMA was telling us what we were supposed to buy," Green said.

From 5,000, officials whittled the list down to 500 more general categories. Then, at the coffee shop, Green and others came up with just four broad categories for the recovery district's restocking expenses.

Because the four categories are broad, the district also will have more flexibility in how it restocks classrooms. Officials could, for example, purchase technology such as a Promethean Board, a touch-sensitive screen that acts as an interactive whiteboard, to replace a destroyed chalkboard.

The district will get back about $50 million of the more than $77 million that it lost in classroom and building supplies. It already has collected most of the $50 million from FEMA. Previously, district officials had worried about losing the money from its federal Restart funds, a more limited pool of federal recovery aid.

State and district officials said the item-for-item approach would have cost millions of dollars in accounting and auditing fees -- not to mention the sanity of those involved.

"We went from a point of having to buy eraser for eraser to now just having $25 million for school equipment and supplies," Green said, referring to one of the four newly designated categories.

"We got rid of a huge amount of paperwork."

Busy month is under way for Road Home

The Road Home program will need a record number of closings in December to meet a contractual requirement of 90,000 completed files by year's end.

ICF International's contract with the state recommended a pace of 10,000 closings a month. But closings dipped to 9,000 in October, and fewer than 7,000 in November.

Still, ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann said the Road Home team expects to meet the goal, which would mean closing nearly 16,000 grants in December, including Sundays, Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year's Eve. The program had closed 74,311 grant applications through Monday and scheduled another 1,656 to close by the end of the year, the program's daily progress report says.


If the 90,000 benchmark isn't met, ICF faces a $150,000 penalty on its $756 million Road Home contract.

Walter Leger, housing chairman for the Louisiana Recovery Authority and an outspoken critic of ICF's handling of the Road Home program, said he also expects the contractor to rise to the occasion, but hopes it won't try to do it all during the holidays.

"This is a time we all want to spend with our families, not in lines or at day-long mass closings," Leger said. "Recognizing this, I sincerely hope they will continue working efficiently to get homeowners to closings as quickly as possible and won't wait until the end of the month."

Brann said Road Home put itself in position to meet the year-end goal by focusing on tracking down nearly 20,000 applicants who had received an award commitment letter, but hadn't yet chosen whether to rebuild or sell their home to the state -- a choice that must be made before their file can be transferred to the closing companies.

Another 38,000 applicants have done their part and selected their option, but still await a scheduled closing. Brann said those files have stalled because they are riddled with problems, such as a lack of proof that the applicant occupied the home at the time of the storm, or questions of clear title to the property.

"It's not a magic button you push to move people to closing," Brann said. "We need to have all the files that are ready to close, and that's why we put the effort into getting more letters returned to us" by applicants who have yet to choose a buyout or rebuilding grant.

So far, ICF has found ways to speed up closings when state-imposed deadlines loomed. As difficult as reaching 90,000 closings will be, ICF has what appears to be an even tougher contractual standard for closing buyout files -- the so-called Options 2 and 3 benefits, which allow for selling damaged homes to the state.

The contractual performance measures, implemented under public pressure in late July, call for ICF to close, by Dec. 31, 75 percent of "active" files for applicants who had selected a buyout by Oct. 31. There were 11,288 applicants who made that choice by Oct. 31. But Brann said the company doesn't have to close three-quarters of those files -- or 8,466 -- to meet the contract terms.

That's because the contractor doesn't consider about half of the 11,000 files "active," Brann said, because the applicants need to clear up a problem, such as a title issue, before the program can move forward to pay the grant.

Brann said 6,000 of the buyout files are considered inactive because the applicant hasn't established clear title or has what's called an "upside-down" mortgage -- the Road Home can't buy out a property for $75,000, for instance, if the owner owes $125,000 on the mortgage. The contractor has referred those homeowners to free legal and financial counselors, and has asked some lenders to forgive portions of mortgages.

As of Nov. 29, the company reported 2,974 buyout closings, ICF's reports show. ICF will be fined $50,000 for each percentage point below the 75 percent goal, up to $1 million. Mike Taylor, director of the state's Disaster Recovery Unit, which oversees Road Home, said ICF will have to account for all the files it reports as "inactive" when the state checks to see whether the company met its benchmarks. At the same time, the state has no interest in punishing the contractor for not closing files on which homeowners have not held up their part of the bargain.

"You can't hold someone responsible for closing a file that can't be closed," Taylor said.

Demolition scheduled to begin next week

A massive downtown demolition project planned by the state to begin next week that will require removal of the burgeoning homeless encampment from nearby Duncan Plaza must be delayed to allow more time to find shelter for the roughly 150 people encamped in the public square, a New Orleans official said Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for City Councilwoman Stacy Head, whose district includes Duncan Plaza, said the city needs at least another month to complete its strategy to relocate the homeless population that has been growing steadily in the shadow of City Hall for months.


"This is a monumental task. Right now, there is just nowhere for these people to go," said Ruth Idakula, Head's executive assistant, who has been working with Mayor Ray Nagin's administration and homeless advocates to find a solution to the problem.

"We're trying to put the pieces together, but it's not something we can do overnight. If they go forward with this, it's just going to be a big mess."

State officials were unavailable late Tuesday to respond to the request for additional time.

Nagin administration officials could not be reached for comment, but in the past mayoral staffers have emphasized that they don't support emptying Duncan Plaza until housing is found for residents of the small tent city.

Design work continues

The state is preparing to tear down the shuttered nine-story state office building that borders Duncan Plaza, along with an adjacent building that once housed the state Supreme Court, which has relocated to the French Quarter. Plans call for the two structures to be replaced with a 336,000-square-foot building estimated to cost $75 million to $80 million.

While the state intends to design the new building to accommodate state offices now located in other parts of the city, that plan remains a work in progress.

The top official with the agency that oversees state-financed construction projects said a contractor is scheduled to begin erecting a fence Tuesday around the perimeter of Duncan Plaza, which will be transformed into a construction site over the next several months.

The barrier around the park, which will stretch along Loyola Avenue and Perdido and Gravier streets, was supposed to go up a week ago, but state officials agreed to delay the start date to give the city more time, said Jerry Jones, director of the Office of Facilities Planning.

"We're trying to make this transition as smooth as possible," Jones said. "We're hoping that social service agencies and the city will step forward.

"We build stuff, so we're probably not the best folks" to find shelter for the homeless.

Jones said members of his staff have visited Duncan Plaza in recent weeks to begin alerting the occupants about the impending work.

"We've tried to communicate to them that this is for their own safety," he said. "And I've been told that they are a good group of people who understand what's happening. They are not a rowdy group of folks."

Seeking shelter

The idea of emptying Duncan Plaza in less than a week clearly shocked the people most affected: figures in hooded sweatshirts who sat stiffly just off Perdido Street on Tuesday evening, bracing for another cold night.

Longtime park residents Robert Wells and Wilbur Buchanan said state surveyors recently told them that only the cement plaza in front of the State Office Building would be fenced off, within the next month or so.

But plans encompass the entire park and are set for next week. Wells, when told that Tuesday, spoke slowly and in disbelief. "I guess I will have to sleep somewhere else," he said, suggesting some grim options: underneath the overpass at Canal Street and Claiborne Avenue or in an abandoned house.

Wells had hoped to get a motel spot just before Thanksgiving, when homeless service consortium UNITY of Greater New Orleans came to the park with a list of 88 people who had been approved for housing assistance. Instead, he said, the motel spots filled up quickly, and he ended up with a voucher for the Salvation Army emergency shelter in Uptown.

Most nights, he said, that voucher is useless to him, because the Salvation Army closes its doors around 5 p.m. and he works as a waiter at a French Quarter restaurant until 2 a.m.

Last week, Wells acted as if sleeping in the plaza was no big deal. He's now changed his mind. "What I honestly and truthfully am hoping for right now is housing," he said, rubbing his hands together against the chilly air.

151 people per night

Tuesday night, Wells' tent was one of nearly 100 that covered nearly every inch of green space. Two recently created subdivisions -- rows of bedrolls, Federal Emergency Management Agency blue tarp and more tents -- extended along the Gravier Street edge of the Supreme Court building and into the main public library's side lawn.

Homeless outreach workers conducted a census two nights in a row last week and found an average of 151 people sleeping in Duncan Plaza. Outreach worker Shamus Rohn said he and other staff members had already been screening all park residents to see what services they needed. To close down the park hurriedly would waste that work, he said.

"For us, clearing Duncan Plaza means 151 scattered people that we won't be able to find next week," he said.

Last week, UNITY got the go-ahead to spend $3.9 million of Road Home money earmarked for the homeless, a population the agency estimates has grown to 12,000 in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

The state's approval came on the day before Thanksgiving, but only after UNITY's staff spent that day finding 88 homeless people who were to be housed using the agency's own operating budget. Some of those 88 are still living in motels while they await apartments; UNITY staff had hoped to house them all by the end of this week and then begin work with a new group.

UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel questioned the state's pressing need to either displace or jail the "very disabled population" from Duncan Plaza.

"It doesn't seem like it is so urgent to rope the place off," she said. "At a time when we are actively, intensely planning to house these people in the very near future, it seems precipitous," Kegel said.

Next week, after the fence is built, Jones said, the state will prepare the site for the first phase of demolition: the removal of lead, asbestos and other hazardous materials. That contract, which has not yet been awarded, will cost an estimated $1.5 million, Jones said, and the work should begin in February.

Work under the $2.8 demolition contract, which also has yet to be awarded, is slated to commence in March and take about six months to complete, Jones said. A multiple-story parking lot at the rear of the site will not be torn down.

Jones said construction on the new structure, which will be twice the size of the 176,000-square-foot State Office Building, will last about two years. The building is still under design, he said.

The State Office Building and the old Supreme Court sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Katrina.

Pitt unveils program to rebuild swath of Lower 9

After taping an interview Monday afternoon with the TV magazine Entertainment Tonight, Lloyd and Rosemary Griffin headed back across the empty concrete foundations and weed-choked lawns of their Lower 9th Ward neighborhood to a giant party hosted by Hollywood star Brad Pitt.

More than two years ago, during Hurricane Katrina, the couple had clung to a neighbor's roof just blocks from this spot as the wind and rain whipped in the darkness. Rosemary huddled over their toy poodle while Lloyd shielded them both with his body.

"While we were on top of the other house, our house passed us up in the street," said Rosemary Griffin, 66, a retired hotel employee.

Now, brass band music echoed and cameras flashed as hundreds converged on one of the worst-wrecked neighborhoods of flood-ravaged New Orleans for the official birth of Pitt's Make It Right initiative to build at least 150 affordable, environmentally friendly, storm-safe houses on the same lots where residents' old homes once stood.

National media attention

The event drew national attention, with "The Today Show's" Ann Curry and CNN's Larry King milling around near a makeshift stage. Also on hand was world-renowned architect Thom Mayne, who had donated his efforts to the project. And local politicians, including Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and recovery czar Ed Blakely, showed up.

Amid the frenzy, the Griffins, married 37 years, were becoming minor celebrities as one of eight families whose new homes will be built first, all on Tennessee Street, near the place a barge landed after floating through the levee.

The scene seemed almost unreal, said the Griffins, who after their harrowing survival spent two years in Tahlequah, Okla., about 60 mile east of Tulsa. Lloyd Griffin, 67, said that since they moved back to his niece's house in eastern New Orleans in August, he has driven daily to his old neighborhood to check on his vacant property.

"I drive down here everyday, and sometimes at night, and sit at my lot. I look at my lot, sit there with the parking lights on," he said. "It looked like no one wanted to help us until Brad Pitt came along."

Thanks to Pitt

The sentiment was repeated again and again as Lower 9th Ward residents took to the stage to laud the actor's commitment at a time when it appeared that some government leaders intended to let their neighborhood deteriorate.

Patricia Jones, the no-nonsense director of the Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association, praised Pitt's sincerity in inviting residents to participate in planning efforts -- then actually integrating their opinions into the plans. Charles Allen, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, called the actor "a dear friend and brother to us in this community."

When he took the stage, Pitt shifted the focus from himself and issued a plea for donations to augment the $12 million already pledged to Make It Right, including $5 million each from Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing.

At the heart of the fund-raising effort is a call to corporations, foundations and church groups to "adopt" 300 giant pink blocks that are part of an art installation that spreads a half-mile from the center of the project site at Deslonde and North Roman streets.

While the blocks cost $150,000 each, the average cost of a Make It Right home, Pitt also solicited smaller donations -- from $5 to $45,500 -- to support the cost of the individual elements of the houses' eco-friendly designs, such as fluorescent bulbs, low-flush toilets and solar-panel installations. Contributions can be made the project's Web site, www.makeitrightnola.org

"My hope is that we can get next door to Jefferson Parish, then we can get into Central City," Pitt said. "There is no reason that we can't do 1,000 homes, that we can't do 10,000 homes, that we can't do 100,000 homes."

Aid has started rolling in

By noon Monday, the aid already was rolling in. Pitt told reporters that just hours into the fund-raising effort, enough money had been raised to support the construction of six houses.

"Whether you can give a dollar or $10 million, all of that, I guarantee you, will go straight into these houses," he said.

With the average house price pegged at between $100,000 and $174,000, planners expect participants to cover a portion of the cost with insurance and Road Home proceeds. But they expect that most homeowners will fall about $70,000 short of paying off their new homes. To fill the gap, Make It Right plans to offer forgivable loans of as much as $100,000. Applicants must have owned a home or lot in the Lower 9th Ward before Hurricane Katrina.

Though the project's most significant impact surely will be felt by the families who end up in new homes, other local residents said that Make It Right's effects already are spreading through a neighborhood that but for the crash of bulldozers has remained mostly silent -- and vacant -- since the flood.

Tennessee Street resident Gertrude LeBlanc, 72, said Monday's party -- and the giant pink blocks scattered across the landscape -- already had introduced a hopeful new spirit.

"This is like letting them know that we're still here," said LeBlanc, who said a church group will help her rebuild her house using Road Home money. "Yes, indeed, honey, I have been praying for this. I have been praying for somebody to give us a break. I think this might be it."

Sitting at a table inside the party tent, the Griffins, who grew up as next-door neighbors in the Lower 9th Ward, recalled the house they lost to the flood: three bedrooms, a den, a living room, a huge backyard. Inside were photographs of the couple as babies, snapshots of their 13 godchildren and a set of dishes that belonged to Lloyd's mother.

"My house wasn't lavish, but it was comfortable," said Lloyd Griffin, a retired aluminum plant worker. "It was my home."

Though angry about the senseless waste of the house they bought in 1965, Rosemary Griffin's eyes filled with tears at the notion that, thanks to Make It Right, she and her husband will be back in a new home on their own lot next year.

"I'll take a house if I have to sleep on the floor, just to say it's mine," she said, then added, like a wishful child: "I want a house so bad. I want a house, a house, a house, a house, a house."