Louisiana's Road Home Program Surpasses 100,000 Homeowner Closings

BATON ROUGE, La. (February 26, 2008) - Louisiana's Road Home program has closed more than 100,000 grants, representing $6 billion in payouts to homeowners to help them rebuild their homes, the state announced Tuesday.

As of Monday, February 25, 2008, the program had closed 100,452 homeowner grants.

Louisiana estimates around 140,000 homeowners will receive assistance through the program, which is the largest home rebuilding program in the history of the United States. Based on this estimate, the state has closed more than 70 percent of its total grants.

"Closing 100,000 grants represents a significant benchmark for the program and reminds me that this program's scale is extraordinary. No disaster program of this size has ever involved this many applicants who suffered as much damage as our homeowners after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," said Walter Leger, chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority's (LRA) Housing Task Force and a Road Home applicant who lost his home in St. Bernard parish. "And yet thousands of homeowners remain in the system and we are working each and every day to improve the process for them, ensure they are treated with respect and speed the pace of payouts to those still waiting for their grants."

"We are committed to not only closing 95 percent of active, eligible applicant cases by the end of June, but also in improving and expediting the appeals and second disbursement process," said Michael Spletto, senior housing manager for the Office of Community Development.

Since the start of 2008, Louisiana has:

• Closed more than 10,000 homeowner grants, paying out more than $700 million to help homeowners rebuild;
• Announced the launch of the Personal Assistance Liaisons (PALs) for the Road Home, which are caseworkers assigned to each remaining applicant to help move him or her through the process;
• Announced that homeowners who qualified for elevation awards will soon get information they must return to begin accepting those awards, with the first elevation awards being paid this Spring;
• Announced that Louisiana will run a second elevation program, beginning this summer, for Road Home applicants to help cover the gap between their Road Home elevation awards and the actual cost of elevation.

###