[StBernard] 25 percent of Road Home applicants challenging awards

[Westley Annis]

25 percent of Road Home applicants challenging awards

By David Hammer
Staff writer

About a quarter of the 26,000 homeowners who have received final Road Home
award letters are challenging the calculations on those coveted yellow
sheets of paper, forcing the contractor running the program to dedicate more
manpower to complaints. 

State contractor ICF International tracked about 7,200 called-in complaints
before Jan. 11, with more than half of those remaining unresolved, according
to state figures released this week. The complaints are about everything
from under-estimated pre-storm home values to inadequate storm-loss
estimates to the lack of resolution of their previous complaints. 

A single homeowner can file more than one complaint, but ICF officials
believe the number of applicants seeking a resolution isn't much lower than
the total complaints filed. 

Some of those lodging complaints are applicants who've been told they will
get no money at all. Indeed, the number of Road Home award letters saying
applicants get nothing to fix their homes is nearly three times greater than
the number who have actually received grant money, the latest state count
shows. 

As of Jan. 18, 587 of 26,212 final award letters granted no money, while 215
homeowners had gone to closing with a title company to collect awards
averaging $54,993.

Not surprisingly, some of the rejected applicants aren't taking the news
well. 

"Their evaluation of the property wasn't even the price of the lot," said
Damien Regnard, president of Group Direct, an international marketing firm,
whose final award letter informed him he would get no aid to fix his flooded
West Lakeshore home. 

A private appraiser told Regnard his lot alone is worth more than the
$317,833 pre-storm total property value Road Home used to calculate his
non-existant award. His home took 4 feet of water, but Road Home set his
total damage at $76,650. It cost him half that much to fix the air
conditioning, he said. 

Meanwhile, applicants are reporting new problems. Mary Ann Cardinale, a
medical insurance sales agent from Lakeview, got a call from ICF at 8 p.m.
Wednesday - 12 hours before her scheduled closing - saying her award was
being reduced by $41,000. Cardinale had been a defender of the Road Home
program, which appeared to be making her whole, albeit slowly. No more. 

"I don't know what could have happened between Nov. 3 (when she got her
final award letter) and 12 hours before the closing, and they had no
information for me," she said Thursday. 

ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann said she couldn't address specifics in
Cardinale's case because of privacy constraints, but acknowledged that "we
did have some evaluations that had to be redone." 

She said ICF would look into Cardinale's case and work with her to address
her concerns. Brann said ICF is working out details of a new state policy
that would allow people in Cardinale's situation to close and collect an
initial amount without forfeiting their right to appeal for more money.ICF
has provided additional training and shifted more than 130 employees into a
new system for resolving issues, Brann said. The company is rolling out a
three-level problem resolution system, has vowed not to use voicemail and
promises to keep better track of complaints. 

Until recently, 25 agents have been assigned to resolving problems whenever
applicants call (888) ROAD-2-LA and select prompt 6. 

Last Thursday, ICF started a second-level resolution team with 25 additional
employees. The next day, ICF checked how many people hung up the phone while
on hold, and decided to double the team to 50 agents by next Wednesday,
Brann said. 

On Thursday, those agents resolved about 20 percent of the calls, Brann
said. Whenever that team isn't enough to resolve the problems, ICF will use
a new computerized issue tracker database and a staff of 82 to handle the
complaints. 

But for people like Cardinale and Regnard, the problem isn't with the
employees answering the phones or calling them back. Both said agents they
spoke with were area homeowners facing their own Road Home problems. 

Officials at ICF like to point out that 75 percent of its employees were
affected by the storms, and the company makes the employees go to one of the
11 offices they don't work at to avoid any possible conflicts of interest. 

"I was really harsh on the phone, but they were very good, and it did not
escalate," Cardinale said. "So, I can only think it (the problem) goes all
the way to the top. The girl who called me said she thought our damage
assessment changed, but she wasn't sure. I mean, how do they put these
people in a position to make a call like this and not arm them with
information?" 

David Hammer can be reached at dhammer at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3322.