Katrina good for one firm

NEW ORLEANS —  Two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of homeowners are still waiting for their government rebuilding checks, and many complain they can’t even get their calls returned. But the company that holds the contract to distribute the aid is doing quite well.

ICF International of Fairfax, Va., has posted strong profits, gone public, landed additional multimillion-dollar government contracts -- and recently secured a potentially big raise from the state of Louisiana.

In the waning days of Democratic Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s administration, state officials increased the management contract ceiling from $756 million to $912 million -- this, after the Legislature wanted to fire ICF over its handling of the homeowner recovery program, called Road Home.

“It is outrageous that ICF couldn’t do the job for more than $750 million and that they were given a pay raise after their history of disappointing service,” Blanco’s successor, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, said in an e-mail Thursday.

Displaced residents expressed anger.

“I’m flabbergasted that this company could be so inefficient and could mess up so consistently and for so long,” said Bill Yurt, 57, who has been living in a FEMA trailer for 2 1/2 years.

Yurt said ICF hasn’t sent an appraiser to determine the grant amount that will resurrect his gutted house in the New Orleans neighborhood of Gentilly. And his calls to an ICF caseworker have gone unreturned for a month.

Road Home was created in June 2006 as a state-run, federally funded plan to compensate homeowners for the breach of New Orleans’ government-run levees. Homeowners can apply for grants to repair their homes or to obtain buyouts if they don’t want to fix things up.

As of last month, 56,000 applicants -- nearly 40% of the qualified total -- had yet to receive a cent. Plagued by cost overruns and delays, Road Home is expected to cost federal taxpayers $10 billion and has become a glaring symbol of frustration in post-Katrina New Orleans.

“Supposedly they had the expertise, but what we’ve learned ever since is it’s been on-the-job training,” said Frank Silvestri, co-chairman of the Citizens Road Home Action Team, or CHAT, a community group that was formed in anger over ICF.

ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann blamed the state’s ever-changing rules and political meddling by officials and community groups for many of Road Home’s difficulties.

She said Road Home had come to be regarded as an entitlement program The company, she said, must carefully evaluate 157,000 applications to guard against fraud.