Time expires on Lafourche housing upgrade program

The state housing corporation has rejected Lafourche Parish Government’s request to extend a timeline to spend grant money, costing the parish $151,000 in funding for low-income home rehabilitation, according to officials.

The contract expired June 30, and the Louisiana Housing Corporation has de-obligated most of the remaining funds allocated to Lafourche.

Parish President Charlotte Randolph gave numerous reasons for the lack of an extension, suggesting in a printed statement that “past management” was awry.

“An extensive review of the past management of this program identified numerous deficiencies in managing this program, including: improperly engaging contractors without licenses, failing to obtain relevant building permits, the lack of a transparent homeowner selection process, and missing documentation, among several other issues, and we have been working diligently to address these issues and move the program forward,” Randolph said.

Parish officials, citing an ongoing investigation, declined to elaborate further. LHC is neither conducting nor participating in an investigation of Lafourche Parish, according to LHC Communications Director Anna Dearmon.

Dearmon, who noted the state has its own deadlines to meet regarding the grant’s expenditures, said the request was denied in part because the parish hadn’t made substantial progress over the last year.

“We felt that it would be best to not issue any further notices to proceed,” Dearmon said. “It was a combination of their status in completing the projects that they planned to complete and the time period that was left.”

The contract period was initially scheduled to end June 30, 2012, but both parties agreed to extend it by one year. Grant administrators have now declined to extend the contract again, meaning that Lafourche has run out of time to spend the money.

“This decision is obviously extremely disappointing, because we strongly feel that our organization and especially our low income residents certainly deserved another extension of this grant program, but this decision is out of our hands,” Randolph said.

In May 2010, LHC allotted Lafourche Parish $500,000 in HUD funds to rehabilitate roughly 19 homes owned by low-income families. Randolph said last week 14 units will ultimately be completed through the $349,000 the parish will spend.

Of the initial $500,000 commitment, Lafourche lost $151,000, according to the state. As of Monday, the parish’s account had $62,556.01 remaining, all of which has been dedicated to projects that are currently underway, Dearmon said. That money will not be de-obligated.

The parish’s Office of Community Action is managing the program, which granted up to $25,000 in home improvements and refurbishments to qualifying residents in order to help them meet federal housing quality standards. Examples of applicable work include upgrading roofs, plumbing, electrical systems and other structural defects, according to parish spokeswoman Loralei Gilliam.

Joni Tuck was hired last year as the parish’s director of Community Services, which oversees Community Action. Freddia Ruffin-Roberson, the former Community Action executive director, was fired last September.

Also last year, Randolph’s administration drew the parish council’s ire when it was discovered one of the three contractors doing rehabilitation work did not have the proper license.

The legislative body unanimously approved an amendment to an existing agreement with the contractor Pollard Roofing for housing rehabilitation work. Pollard did not have a contractor’s license at that time, May 22, 2012. The contract was subsequently terminated July 24, 2012.

This necessitated amendments to the two other contracts to add the additional units Pollard could not build, a process that didn’t occur until nearly a year later, on May 14, about a month and a half before the parish’s agreement with the state was set to expire.

Citing the ongoing investigation, Lafourche officials said they could neither comment on why so much time lapsed between the termination and amendments, nor whether it had an impact on fulfilling the grant’s timeline.

Officials also wouldn’t say how or why the parish’s permit laws may have been skirted; to what extent there was a lack of transparency in the homeowner selection process; or the details that prevented the parish from executing the funds with a one-year timeline that eventually became three years.

Unless the parish finds money elsewhere to replenish the lost funds, five homes already approved for rehabilitation will not see promised improvements, according to Tuck. Randolph said her administration is researching other means to fund construction on those homes.

“We are currently looking at all options available to the homeowners from a variety of local, state, and federal grant and loan programs, and are working to establish some options for these homeowners to complete all or part of the work on their homes,” Tuck said.