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We need a list of CHAT’s accomplishments. The policies that we’ve pushed for that have been adopted. We need this for the media campaign. Please, write down any of the policies that you can think of in the comments of this post. I’ll add them to the body of this post, and then we’ll put it on the cover of Think New Orleans.
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So, to get things started. Wasn’t the acceptance of appraisals from certified Louisiana appraisers a CHAT idea?
Some Accomplishments of the Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT) in Improving the Road Home Program
1. Major influence in acceptance of homeowner-supplied Louisiana-licensed appraisals by the RHP
2. Responsible for suggesting and getting approval of the right for applicants to dispute the amount of their award after accepting the amount that the RHP initially offers so that the applicants do not have to wait until these usually very long processes are completed to obtain some funding
3. Responsible for major improvements in the closing documents suggested by two of CHATs volunteer lawyers
4. Responsible for the getting the RHP to make public the rulebook for determining grant awards and sample documents (award letters, closing documents), which are now posted at the RHP website
5. Responsible for getting four Louisiana municipal councils, including the New Orleans City Council, to endorse a Bill of Road Home Rights. The LRA has slightly modified these and called them Homeowners’ Bill of Principles and will vote on adopting them at the May LRA Board Meeting.
6. Major influence in removing the requirement that the applicant be present during the housing site evaluation in the case of homes that are more than 50% damaged (house size is measured during those site visits and was a burden, especially for those out of town to have to be present)
7. Helped to obtain much faster rates of closings (distribution of awards) with many media appearances and communications with RHP officials.
8. Started the examination by many news media outlets of the problem of the RHP having inadequate resources to fund all the applicants.
A. A detailed CHAT posting about this problem sent on April 24 to several major media news outlets and was followed up by them.
B. Garland Robinette interviewed two CHAT members about this on April 27.
C. Lee Zurick of WWL 4 TV news interviewed one CHAT member on Saturday Eyewitness News on April 28.
D. Ilene Powell of CHAT transmitted the CHAT posting to Rep. Jindal, a gubernatorial candidate. His staff thanked her for alerting her to this important issue.
E. On May 2, Jindal made this a major issue in a publicized letter to Gov. Blanco about the anticipated shortfall.
F. On May 2, Melanie Ehrlich was interviewed by Paul Murphy of ABC News. During the interview in a statement that was not broadcast, Murphy said that Jindal’s office credited a CHAT member with showing him the importance of the problem.
G. As of May 5, this has become a major issue, as it should be, that is being discussed in the state legislature as well as the media.
Melanie
I’m editing your “list of accomplishments”:http://thinknola.com/instiki/wiki/show/CHAT+Accomplishments, if anyone wants to add anything.