2009 State and Federal Legislative Agenda

The Louisiana Family Recovery Corps has for the first time adopted a state and federal legislative agenda focused on aligning the various systems and resources associated with long-term human recovery efforts and creating systems and structures designed to increase accountability, transparency, and efficiency surrounding recovery-related resources. Additionally, the agency will seek to develop centralized and better-coordinated long-term recovery efforts at both the state and federal levels while also strengthening Louisiana's non-profit sector and increasing its role in Louisiana's long-term human recovery. Finally, the legislative agenda calls for amending state and federal legislation that serves to hamper long-term human recovery in the wake of disaster and creating a long-term human recovery preparedness plan to avoid future humanitarian crises.

While 2009 marks the first time that the Recovery Corps has announced a formal state and federal legislative agenda, the agency has become a respected leader in the field of long-term human recovery, both statewide and nationally, since being created in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The Recovery Corps has consulted with and educated state and national leaders relative to the major issues impacting Louisiana's ongoing human recovery efforts, including providing congressional and legislative testimony, meeting with key congressional leaders and staffers, providing data and other strategic information to state agency heads, and working with local leaders to implement outcome-based programs in communities throughout the state.

The establishment of a formal state and federal legislative agenda completes the reorganization of the Recovery Corps, an effort that has made the agency much more sustainable and more-appropriately situated to advance long-term human recovery at the local, state, and federal levels.

The Recovery Corps has developed a reputation for its ability to design quality, outcome-based proprietary programs that offer direct assistance to disaster-impacted residents in an effective and efficient manner. The agency has served more than 30,000 households via resources allocated by the state and federal governments and private organizations. In all, the Recovery Corps has allocated more than $80 million to Louisiana families recovering from the impacts associated with hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike.

The Recovery Corps has also produced and commissioned important research related to Louisiana’s long-term recovery efforts and the impacts of disaster on people. Working with respected organizations such as The Children’s Health Fund, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, The Urban Institute, Berkeley Policy Associates, and others, our research has identified some of the major barriers in the recovery process such as the inability for many to re-establish their households with proper furnishings, the inability to pay for back utility bills, the inability to pay rent and utility deposits, the inability to pay higher rental rates associated with far fewer housing options post-disaster, and the inability to afford to fully repair uninhabitable homes even after receiving some federal, state, and insurance assistance.

Now, with the addition of the Recovery Corps’ legislative agenda, the agency can provide direct services to impacted people, undertake meaningful research surrounding key recovery issues and trends, utilize the findings from the programs and research to develop policy positions and better situate government, private, and non-profit organizations so that they may best serve the needs of those who suffer from disasters, and also actively advocate for, educate around, and work to legislatively impact key issues dealing with long-term humanitarian disaster recovery.

The following legislative agenda describes the central issues and themes upon which the Recovery Corps will concentrate as it moves forward in serving the people of Louisiana. However, while all of the key issues described and discussed within the following legislative agenda deal directly with improving the long-term human recovery process for those impacted by disaster, many of the recommendations, if properly addressed, will enhance the accountability, transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness of government as a whole.

In essence, the specific agenda items included in the Recovery Corps’ state and federal legislative agenda constitute good governmental practices, not just single items designed to ease the recovery process for Louisiana families. The issues discussed can easily be adjusted to deal specifically with other areas in which the state of Louisiana will look toward improving, including education, healthcare, transportation, workforce development, poverty, and criminal justice, just to name a few.

Finally, in releasing its legislative agenda, the Recovery Corps recognizes that the timing is right to advance an organized effort to provide greater coordination, connection, and communication relative to long-term human recovery. Act 313 of the 2007 Louisiana legislative session recognizes the Recovery Corps as the agency assigned with those tasks, among others.

Many well-meaning agencies in Louisiana and outside of the state poured an unfathomable amount of money, volunteer hours, and in-kind resources into the state in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and again in the wake of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. While extremely meaningful, all of the resources were not properly utilized simply because of the sheer volume and the lack of coordination due to the unprecedented nature of the disasters. Dollars and other resources were flowing in all directions, and many of the resources did not necessarily have any associated outcomes tied to them. This happened within large agencies, small agencies, and with resources provided by individual groups. People simply wanted to do anything they could to help and did not necessarily take into account the actual outcomes associated with the resources provided – and the Recovery Corps was no different than anyone else in that regard.

However, if another catastrophic disaster were to strike, the state of Louisiana is not in an appreciably better position to properly address the long-term human recovery needs of its citizens than it was in 2005. It is with that reality, along with the fact that 2009 is the first year that federal funds allocated specifically for recovery from hurricanes Gustav and Ike will begin flowing into the state, that the Recovery Corps has begun to advance an organized state and federal legislative initiative.