[StBernard] Blanco may oust private contractor for rental repair program

[Westley Annis]

By MELINDA DESLATTE 
 
The Associated Press
 
 	 	
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. Kathleen Blanco is considering whether to hire
a new contractor to run the state's rental housing repair program after
complaints that the private company slated to do the work has moved too
slowly in doling out homeowner grants.

ICF International Inc. was hired by the Blanco administration to run both
the rental repair and homeowner repair portions of the "Road Home" program,
which was designed to deal with damaged property after hurricanes Katrina
and Rita.
 
But ICF has received repeated criticism from state officials - including
Blanco - about the slow pace of grant awards for homeowners.
 
Blanco said Tuesday that she's worried about ICF's ability to run the $869
million rental repair program for small landlords, which will be launched
next week. 
"I am concerned about that, and we are investigating if they deserve to have
the second phase" of the Road Home contract, Blanco said in response to
questions by The Associated Press.
 
Blanco said she didn't know when she would make a decision whether to keep
or oust ICF for the rental repair portion of the Road Home.
 
ICF officials didn't immediately return calls for comment Tuesday.
 
The rental repair program, developed by the governor's Louisiana Recovery
Authority, will hand out forgivable loans to landlords who own small numbers
of apartments and agree to keep the rents low enough that the apartments are
affordable to poorer residents of hurricane damaged areas.
 
An estimated 18,000 apartments are expected to be repaired or rebuilt
through the program, which is funded with federal recovery block grant aid
allocated to Louisiana by Congress after the 2005 storms. The program plans
to start accepting applications for rental repair aid on Monday, and ICF
plans to send out the first award letters for loans in March.
 
State lawmakers have suggested the Blanco administration should fire ICF
from running the $7.5 billion homeowner grant award portion of the Road
Home, saying the company is moving too slowly and creating too much red tape
for homeowners seeking assistance.
State Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, called the Road Home program "a
sidewalk to nowhere."
 
Homeowners have flooded newspaper pages and inundated state offices with
criticism about the slow pace of aid. Only about 200 homeowners out of
100,000 applicants have received grants through the Road Home so far.
 
Blanco has said she doesn't want to oust ICF in the homeowner grant portion
of the Road Home because it would take too much time to restart that aid
program from scratch with a new contractor.
 
ICF officials have said they are working to speed up and improve a program
that is the largest rebuilding program of its kind in U.S. history and that
they expect the number of grant awards to homeowners to increase
substantially in the next few months.