Blanco says she’s pleased with Road Home February performance

Though Louisiana’s hurricane repair and buyout program fell slightly short of its February goal, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she’s pleased with the large uptick in grant closings for the month.
Road Home officials said the program closed 2,268 grants in February five times more awards in one month than it had during the first four months of the program combined.
But it was 32 short of the 2,300 goal ICF International Inc., the contractor running the program, had set for the month. Blanco didn’t mention the shortfall.
“The pace of Road Home closings improved dramatically this month. I am pleased for the 2,268 families who have closed and more hopeful for the thousands of families making their way through this process,” the governor said in a statement.
She added, “I expect continued positive results and will not be satisfied until the application of every homeowner is complete. We jump-started this program by removing roadblocks and holding ICF International accountable.”
Blanco’s staff hired ICF to run the program, but the governor has complained the contractor wasn’t moving quickly enough to dole out aid to the nearly 111,000 homeowners who have applied for grants. Complaints about speed have dogged the $7.5 billion Road Home program.
Combined with the February grants, 2,718 homeowners have received aid through the Road Home, according to spokeswoman Gentry Brann.
“The news is good here,” Brann said.
The Road Home gives repair or buyout grants up to $150,000 to Louisiana homeowners who suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina, which struck southeast Louisiana in August 2005, or Hurricane Rita, which delivered a follow-up blow to south Louisiana a month later.
ICF officials have estimated they would add another 6,200 grant closings in March, but Brann said that goal may be revised upward or downward after meeting with Blanco administration officials next week to discuss the Road Home’s February performance.
Brann said the homeowner program also will slow down grant awards next week to make software upgrades that should ultimately improve the speed of grant calculations.