THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2009

Recovery Corps hopes to silence ticking clock

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Every household served by one of the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps’ home repair programs has a perilous story of tragedy, survival, and hope associated with rebuilding their lives in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

However, for four families participating in the Recovery Corps’ Homeowner Repair Grant Program in St. Tammany Parish, a heightened sense of anxiety has been added to the equation.

On May 1, 2009, the dreaded knock on the door came. It was a visit from FEMA that brought the news of the mandatory end of the federal agency’s housing assistance program. Agency representatives were there to inspect and take ownership of the travel trailers being occupied by the families while their homes were being repaired by the Recovery Corps.

While making progress toward returning to a more normal life inside their homes, none of the four families were yet in a position to give up their trailers, as general contractors, electricians, plumbers, roofers, painters, and other sub-contractors were diligently working to make their homes inhabitable again.

But for FEMA, the program was considered officially closed, leaving the families only 30 days to be out of the trailers or face federal criminal charges.

Sonya Richardson and her three sons have had a trailer since December 2005. While her home still remains without gas and hot water, she has received a notice to vacate.

“They’ve been coming every week and the last person that came gave me the notice to vacate,” Richardson explained. “They told me if I’m not out by the end of May they’ll send my file to the Department of Justice. I told them I’ll be holding onto the axels when they come.”

With the clock ticking, the Recovery Corps has done its part to try to ensure that these families’ homes are inhabitable the next time FEMA drops by.

“Everybody has done an outstanding job in rearranging schedules, shifting resources, and working to ensure that these families are not left homeless when FEMA comes to remove the trailers from our clients’ property,” said Dr. Monteic A. Sizer, President and CEO of the Recovery Corps. “Each of these families has gone through so much, and the idea of them having to endure additional emotional distress and anxiety based on something that is totally out of their hands is what is driving our organization to try to ensure that they do not face homelessness at the end of the month.”

The Homeowner Repair Grant Program is being executed by the Recovery Corps via resources provided by the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency. The program provides each household up to $15,000 in home repairs. However, as is the case with the four families still living in FEMA trailers, total repair bills usually exceed that amount, and the Recovery Corps has worked closely with its contractors and other local agencies to ensure that the homes are fully repaired by the time they are reoccupied.

Richardson’s house was pushed off of its foundation and twisted, causing pipes underneath the home to break and damaging the electrical wiring within the home’s walls. Additionally, a large tree fell on top of the house, damaging the roof and the home’s structure.

And while both the interior and exterior work is progressing quickly, the FEMA-mandated deadline is also approaching fast.

“Early on they made me an offer to buy the trailer but then that was rescinded because of the formaldehyde issue, though my trailer never got tested,” Richardson said. “I got sick for a little while and we moved into the house and I got better, but we had to move back out of the house and back into the trailer because they had to start working on it, so we’ve been in the trailer ever since. I just air it out and wipe down the walls every couple of days.”

Richardson, who purchased her house in Madisonville, La., just a month prior to Hurricane Katrina, received $50,000 from her homeowner’s insurance policy. Unfortunately, she lost much of that money when she became the victim of three dubious contractors, each of whom performed little or no work before skipping town with the deposits she paid them.

“I had to buy a car to replace the one a tree fell on and pay the bills,” said Richardson. “We had to pay the light bill even though we didn’t have electricity. They charged us about $600 for the month we didn’t have electricity. I bought a generator, food, gas, furniture, and some supplies to repair my home like sheetrock and some other things. Then the contractors took my money. I’ve learned though. Now I’m watching everything they do. I’m almost counting all of the screws and nuts and bolts.”

Audrey Dubose, a 68-year-old Slidell, La., resident living on a fixed income has also been scrambling to ensure her home is inhabitable by the end of May. Disabled since 1985, she rode out Katrina with family at the John C. Stennis Space Center a few miles away. She was able to return home within a couple of days, but severe damage had been done by the storm.

Like Richardson’s home, the hurricane pushed Dubose’s house off of its foundation, breaking pipes underneath the house in the process. She also suffered structural damage to the roof and floor and the outside eaves and overhangs.

Dubose first attempted to collect on her homeowner’s insurance policy, but had to fight in order to receive that. The insurance adjuster claimed that the damage was done by water, though no flooding occurred in the neighborhood.

After an arbitrator ruled Dubuse was due the maximum amount provided for in her insurance policy, she struck out in her attempts to receive funds from FEMA and Road Home, saying that she was informed that she received too much money from the insurance company to qualify for additional assistance.

“It’s been hard because you can look and see all these people who had no damage at all and got all this money from FEMA,” said Dubose. “People got big money and some of them didn’t even own a house. Here I am trying to live a good life all my life because my momma brought me up right, and you tell the truth about everything, and then you don’t get anything. But FEMA never gave me a dime and Road Home never gave me a dime and I got tired of calling them. I gave up on them. I told them ‘I don’t think any of you all know what you’re doing because everybody says something different.’”

Dubose was finally informed of the home repair program being executed in St. Tammany Parish by the Recovery Corps and ultimately qualified to receive assistance. And, like Richardson and some of the program’s other clients, her case became fast-tracked due to the extenuating circumstances associated with her occupying a FEMA trailer.

“Nobody had really gotten under my house and looked at the pipes, but the Recovery Corps did and they found out that the situation was worse than they originally thought it was,” Dubose explained. “The gas is still out so we have no hot water. We have to go to the trailer for that. I can sleep in the house, but we have to go to the trailer to take a bath. We can’t wash and dry clothes – well we can wash them because my brother rigged it up so we can bring the hose out of the yard and put it into the washing machine. But I’ve been patient and had faith. I know that one day … I am a believer in God. I have faith.”

Some of the clients of the Homeowner Repair Grant Program have already seen their homes completed by the Recovery Corps and its partners, as have many other households throughout the state who took part in Recovery Corps home repair programs. Additional home repairs will be completed throughout the state in the coming months. In all, the Recovery Corps allocated nearly $1 million toward repairing homes in St. Tammany Parish and is currently allocating approximately $1 million more toward home repairs in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.

“You can drive throughout the impacted areas and still see blue tarps on roofs and homes in varying degrees of disrepair,” Sizer said. “It is truly remarkable to see the needs that still exist, and while we strive to assist as many people as we have resources, it is especially fulfilling when we can make a difference in the lives of families with children, the elderly, and those with disabilities. We will always provide opportunities for working families, because many times they also get overlooked, but being able to help so many who otherwise would not be able to help themselves is certainly a blessing.”

ABOUT THE RECOVERY CORPS
The Louisiana Family Recovery Corps is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation based in Baton Rouge, La., and formed in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The Recovery Corps’ mission is to facilitate human recovery for the State of Louisiana in the aftermath of disaster, both natural and man-made. The Recovery Corps has partnered with human service and non-profit organizations throughout the state and the country to deliver assistance as effectively and efficiently as possible, allocating more than $80 million to recovery efforts and assisting more than 30,000 households since January 2006.