AWARENESS: Talk about a classic case of something 'appearing' to be good on the surface, but when peeling away the layers (i.e., BS), you see very little substance.
The Road Home Program, which funds money back to people who were homeowners pre-Katrina and either lost the home or had it incur a significant amount of damage (every home in St. Bernard Parish falls into one of those two categories), has been a debacle since Day 1. Apparently they reached some end of year deadline to finish processing 90,000 applications. But the company contracted to run it is doing nothing but blowing smoke. Yes, more people have received their money (I know a few residents who finally got it in the past month or so), but isn't it about time? Are we to applaud someone or something that has been so inefficient just because they 'finally' reach some benchmarks that should have been hit months ago? Are we to forget the horrible service, the long lines, the lost applications, the no call-backs to residents. I have heard plenty of first hand accounts of this, and it's sad. Yet here was ICF patting itself on the back because it hit some arbitrary end of year deadline. Funny, but ICF would have lost money per its contract had it not hit the mark, and I'm sure they were jumping through hoops to process just enough so that that didn't happen. And trust me, there are plenty of people still waiting and dealing with non-returned calls and buckets of red tape.
Pardon the cynicism, but this is reality. And it's a big reason why I'm still here. People haven't gotten the help they should from agencies and programs that were supposed to deliver it. And don't let some fluffy figures and benchmarks lead you to think otherwise.
Anyway, the following links provide a good recap. The first is to the story the Times-Picayune ran on January 1st (just need to read the first few paragraphs of that one). Try to read the 2nd link in full, an editorial by the TP. It's on the money.
Happy New Year.
STORY:
http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1199200268154110.xml&coll=1
EDITORIAL:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1199168431314580.xml&coll=1
