10,000 Get Grant Letters on Rebuilding in Louisiana

In a sign of painstaking progress for Louisiana’s biggest rebuilding program, the state has sent letters to more than 10,000 families stating how much money they can receive to rebuild their homes under the $7.5-billion housing program Congress financed this year, state officials said yesterday.

But fewer than 50 families had actually collected the money as of Tuesday, prompting renewed concern among homeowners and some government officials about the pace of the program, which is called the Road Home and is widely considered the most important factor in rebuilding areas damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The spate of “award calculations,” as the program calls them, represents a big increase from early last month, when fewer than 2,000 families — out of almost 79,000 applicants at the time — had been told how much they were eligible to receive.

On Nov. 6, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco ordered the private contractor managing the program for the state to reach the 10,000 mark by the end of November. Yesterday, the governor said she would require the contractor, ICF International, to send out 15,000 more award letters before the end of the year.

from The NY Times