Hurricane Katrina, 路易斯安那州, and the Road Home
How ICF supported one of America’s largest disaster relief efforts
挑战
保护和分配7美元.90亿年 in disaster recovery funds to help homeowners rebuild after damage caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
解决方案
Swiftly open housing assistance centers—despite massive infrastructure challenges—and hire a majority-local staff of 2,300 people to distribute the 道路家园补助金.
影响
90天内, ICF opened nine housing assistance centers to help homeowners obtain up to $150,赈灾基金. 我们确保 道路家园补助金 made it into the hands of residents without fraud and within compliance requirements. As a result, we achieved a re-occupancy rate of over 90%.
迅速采取行动
巨大的 卡特里娜飓风造成的损失 led to the displacement of whole communities. The storm had not simply destroyed homes—it had uprooted entire lives.
路易斯安那州 officials tasked ICF with executing the Road Home program, funded by the state’s $7.90亿年 Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) allocation. 尽管在最糟糕的情况下, we helped get this money into the hands of residents and accomplished a recovery effort of historic scale—all while exceeding requirements and finishing faster than expected.
Finding a way home for 路易斯安那州 residents
During the relief efforts, ICF processed over 188000应用程序—53% more than the state’s original estimate—and awarded 数十亿美元的拨款 to 12.4万业主, surpassing the anticipated number in our contract by 24,000. ICF小组也开放了 9个数据中心 为项目服务.
To encourage program participation, we conducted almost 2000项外展活动,参会人数近9万人. We 雇佣2300人 to help with our efforts—the overwhelming majority of whom were local 路易斯安那州 citizens. 结果,国家 达到90%的再占用率, in addition to successfully meeting all project requirements, compliance needs, and deadlines.
注重长期恢复
Disaster relief is always incredibly complex. The process of disbursing billions of dollars effectively—without waste and while monitoring for compliance—is a huge challenge. This project was among the most heavily scrutinized recovery efforts in U.S. 历史—undergoing more than 50 state and 联邦 audits—which found no evidence of fraud or abuse. We achieved a 1-2% error rate, which is well below the industry average of 3-4%.
ICF's focus is always on our job: helping residents get back on their feet and finding a path to long-term recovery. That’s exactly what we did in 路易斯安那州, from Road Home to rebuilding the state's Charity Hospital 卡特里娜飓风过后. And it’s what we’ve continued to do since—our record of success in 路易斯安那州 drove officials in New Jersey, 康涅狄格, and Puerto Rico to contact us for help following 超级风暴砂y和 飓风哈维、玛丽亚和厄玛. The work is never easy, but it is always important.