Posted on 12/22/2006 11:11:04 AM PST by Ellesu
Payments have been too slow, Powell says : Federal Gulf Coast rebuilding coordinator Donald Powell on Wednesday urged the contractor running the Road Home program to speed up payments to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"As I expressed by phone, I have serious concerns about the effectiveness and expediency of the program," Powell said in a letter to Sudhakar Kesavan, chief executive of the Virginia-based ICF International.
"As I write this letter, only 92 homeowners have received financial assistance out of over 80,000 applicants, or .1 percent of applicants," he wrote. "This rate must dramatically improve."
In the one-page letter, Powell said that since Nov. 2, representatives of his office have held weekly conference calls with ICF staff in Baton Rouge, representatives of the state and of the Louisiana Recovery Office and of other federal agencies.
"While these calls have been an effective tool to identify and eliminate challenges, they have made clear to me that serious administrative issues remain with the Blanco Road Home program," Powell wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
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