Posted on 11/14/2006 9:01:50 AM PST by Ellesu
Yesterday, it was announced that a grand total of 26 people have received their cash settlements from the Louisiana Recovery Authority. This is out of a total of 123,000 potential applicants. LRA leaders are touting the numbers as progress, which sure sounds like spin to me. In the meantime, thousands of poor victims make difficult decisions every day whether to stay in the state or leave. Unfortunately, due to the slow pace of the Road Home plan, thousands have opted to leave.
Along with concerns about levees, political corruption, poor schools, the slow pace of relief by the LRA is a major factor in people giving up on Louisiana. At a time when the state needed efficiency we received bureaucracy, when we needed prompt relief, we received tardiness and delay. The LRA heralded that 80,000 people have applied for the grants, but that means that 43,000 have decided it is not worth their trouble. Who can blame them?
The Governor is supposedly frustrated with the slow pace of recovery; however, if she is upset she should look in the mirror. Her chief of staff is the director of the operation. Her administration chose the out of state firm, ICF of Fairfax, Virginia, to manage the process. In commercials, the program was touted as her personal undertaking and not something provided by the State of Louisiana.
It is amazing to me that once again, when a major contract is given out, the state decides to choose another out of state firm, sending more precious dollars out of Louisiana. Why didn’t LRA choose a locally based contractor? Are we to believe that no local company was qualified and no local company could have done a better job than ICF? Give me a break!
The state has awarded ICF all three phases of the road home plan. These contracts are valued at $756 million. What has the money purchased so far? The $756 million should have been saved and used to pay for more housing grants or helped municipalities like New Orleans, which were devastated last year.
While a $756 million contract with ICF has been signed, only $1.2 million in grant money has been awarded to victims. This reflects the 4,700 awards that have been calculated by ICF, which are many steps away from the victims actually receiving the money.
ICF received the initial contract five months ago, which means that on average five people per month are receiving money. At this rate, it will take 2,050 years for all of the money to be awarded. The state advises victims to be patient, but 2,050 years is a long time to wait.
Overall, not enough is being done, and the Road Home it is way too long and winding. At the very beginning of this process, State Treasurer John Kennedy recommended that the whole grant process be handled by an agency of state government, preventing the need for another bureaucracy to be created and saving precious dollars. Of course, Blanco did not listen to Kennedy, she never does, and now we are stuck with this monstrosity, which is nothing less than a travesty.
It's the government. Welcome to reality, lady. This is life in the real world.
As a Katrina evacuee from Mississippi, I can tell you that Louisiana is it's own worst enemy. Governor Haley Barbour has been a rock in Mississippi, whereas the democrats in LA have made matters worse, blamed President Bush and the GOP, and done very little (as this article shows) for their citizens.
We applied for a grant when the program was first announced. We were told they would contact us for an interview. We've heard nothing since.
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