To ensure that homeowners remaining in the program have continuous service, the state must transition Road Home management from contractor ICF International, whose contract ends in June 2009. So far, the program has awarded 122,639 grants totaling more than $7.8 billion.

The state will immediately begin negotiating the terms of these contracts, including performance measures consistent with the goal of holding contractors accountable for their performance.

"Our commitment to homeowners has not wavered and our goal in this transition period is to ensure seamless service to Road Home applicants who are still active in the program and reliant on it for information about their grants," said Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "We feel that dividing the remaining functions of the program among several companies will make it easier to manage and ultimately ensure fair treatment of homeowners. The contract to continue running the program obviously is much smaller and we will work directly with nonprofit organizations to continue targeted outreach to homeowners."

Hammerman and Gainer, Inc. was selected to be the Homeowner Assistance Management contractor, meaning it will run the homeowner portion of the Road Home program, continuing the process of administering grants and assisting applicants.

CGI Technologies and Solutions, Inc. was selected to be the Disaster Recovery IT Services contractor, meaning it will manage the information technology aspect of the Road Home, including securing and maintaining a large amount of personal data about program applicants in accordance with federal law. This contract also will allow the firm to provide IT services for the state's other disaster recovery programs that are run by the Office of Community Development.

To meet the continuing functions of the Road Home program as it transitions managers, the state will award the following contracts in the future:

• Road Home Small Rental Property Program Management Contract - This contractor will take over the functions of the Small Rental program;
  
  
• Piggyback Program Management Contract - This contractor will provide technical assistance on negotiations, loan agreements and other program documents that ICF currently is providing and may also provide monitoring as the program moves forward.

February 26, 2009
Written By: Christina Stephens
christina.stephens@la.gov
Reprinted From: Louisiana Recovery Authority
www.louisianarecoveryauthority.org