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February 2008                                                                                              Volume 14 - Number 1

Katrina Update...

Louisiana’s Road Home Program
By Dick Templeton

Billing itself as the largest single housing recovery program in U.S. history, the Road Home program in Louisiana strives to reach its primary objective of helping the state’s residents displaced by Hurricanes Rita or Katrina to get back into a home as quickly as possible.  The program offers its services to three basic groups of citizens: homeowners, small-scale rental property owners, and builders.  The program, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), has so far provided more than $5.5 billion in benefits for some of the more than 185,000 applicants; there is a small backlog of applications but, of those that have been assisted, the average benefit is $61,000.

Residents of the affected area, which covers the southern tier of parishes, have three options under the program: they can stay and repair or rebuild their existing house, they can sell and remain in Louisiana, or they can sell and move out of the state.  As a testament to the concept of community, the overwhelming majority of residents (90%) are opting to remain and repair or rebuild their existing homes; only 2% are leaving the state.

Like any government program, the Road Home program has lots of requirements, but the program’s web site, http://www.road2la.org/default.htm, has a multitude of resources to assist Louisiana’s residents with the paperwork, processes, and potential benefits of the program.  For example, for homeowners, there are sections on eligibility, the application process, and several testimonials from the program’s beneficiaries to date.  Building trades’ personnel can use the site to find rebuilding or remodeling jobs and to locate training opportunities.

A ‘What’s In My Backyard’ (WIMBY) section of the web site shows, by zip code, parish and neighborhood, what utilities, public services, schools, houses of worship, and other facilities are in place to help them make a decision regarding the three options for staying or relocating; the WIMBY section gives residents a broad, general idea of the condition of an area.

And, finally, the web site includes a myth-busting section to help weed out the misinformation that attends to disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  Among the myths dismissed: that the Road Home funds are a loan and must be repaid, that home values are consistently underestimated, and that all residents receive the same amount of storm compensation.  All of the myths appear to be successfully debunked.

The Louisiana Road Home program seems to be one very large but successful federal, state and local government partnership to assist the citizens of the storm-tossed portions of southern Louisiana hit hard by recent major disasters.