Road Home Round Table
| Road Home Round Table Conference | |
| When | Sat, June 9th, 2007 |
| Where | Delgado Community College |
| Time | 10:00 am – 5:00 pm |
| Phone | (504) 717-1428 |
| alan@thinknola.com | |
| Printable PDF | road-home-round-table.pdf |
The Road Home Round Table is a citizen driven intervention into Louisiana’s troubled Road Home Program.
Citizens of Louisiana, through the Citizens’ Road Home Action Team, have worked to shape the policy of the Road Home. Though their partner, Think New Orleans, the reach has been statewide.
The limits of our effectiveness through grassroots Internet organization has been reached. We need an applicant’s confab. We need to come together to focus our knack for constructive accountability, and address this problem not as customers of ICF, but as citizens of Louisiana.
Louisiana In Crisis
Many Louisiana residents have made key life decisions based on the availability of Road Home awards. Only a few of the awards have been granted, fewer paid. Many people are unable to move forward, and the longer they wait, the fewer options they have. The inability to make informed decisions is worsened by ambiguous and inconsistent messages. Because of the delays and confusion, these citizens are now facing extreme financial peril.
Unfortunately, the situation with the Road Home Program has not improved, and we’re growing ever more concerned.
The State of Louisiana is experiencing a crisis. That crisis is the Road Home Program.
Road Home Round Table
The Road Home Round Table will consist of three parts.
- Analyze: Gathering seven months of research, requesting public records and reports, applicants experiences, and working with specialists to develop solutions for the implementation failures of Road Home Program.
- Confer: An applicants’ conference where the solutions developed by the Round Table are presented to applicants and parish and neighborhood leaders who then form accountability strategies.
- Account: Applicants then take their plan for accountability to their parish or neighborhood, and provide the political support to their representatives to implement the solutions.
The conference will take place the 2nd weekend of June, Saturday, June 9th, 2007 at Delgado University in Mid City New Orleans, Louisiana. It will be a day long event from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. It will accommodate 1,200 applicant participants.
This event is an important stake in the ground that establishes a time line for this project. However, the analysis in preparation for the conference, and the continued collaboration of applicants after the conference are essential to the success of this project.
The Issues at Hand
The Road Home Program desperately needs intelligent solutions for
- methods for tracking large numbers of applications both in-house and by the applicant online,
- identifying and quantifying procedural bottlenecks in the flow of applications,
- identifying manpower shortages and inadequacies in supervisors’ work leading to bottlenecks in processing applications,
- improved methods for doing calculations of awards for large numbers of applicants,
- accountability in communicating with applicants who phone the contractors tens of thousands of times: locating correct employee for return calls, prompt return calls, informative return calls.
These are issues that must be addressed from the perspective of an applicant. We seek the perspective of people who implement. We need to direct our energies away from fussing on the phones with customer service representatives, and toward a real solution to systemic problems in this vital program.
Analyze
The Round Table Project begins with the careful organization of the available information, gathered by CHAT through it’s seven months of research on the Road Home Program. Think New Orleans will work with CHAT to create a structured knowledge base of CHAT research, public records, contracts, reports, and award letters, and the results of informal surveys taken.
Through the network of neighborhood and nonprofit organizaitons, and through earned media, we will appealing to professionals who have experience in managing large government or private sector programs. We seek representatives from firms in who specialize in banking, insurance, real estate, information systems, and project management.
We will invite them to collaborate on strategies for accountability. Essentially, we will establish metrics that citizens track, so that they can determine which components of the Road Home Program are working, and with components are failing. Participants in the conference will come away with clear set of expectations for their government.
We’ve long been gathering the observable information; the contracts, reports, and award letters, and the results of informal surveys taken.
From the professionals that we attract, we will draw speakers, who will work with members of CHAT to develop presentations on the areas regarded as bottlenecks in the Road Home Program.
The very act of assuring applicants that they are not mistaken in their perception that there are systemic problems will be a watershed moment. Whatever proposals that follow are likely to be snapped up by people looking for an way to address this crisis through their legislature and civic leaders.
Confer
The Round Table Conference will occur on Saturday, June 9th, 2007 at Delgado Community College in Mid City, New Orleans, Louisiana. It will be a day long event from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.
The structure of the conference is part presentation, part interaction. Two presentation areas are established in a common space, one across from the other. The presentation areas have projection and amplification.
A speakers present his or her findings and proposals on a specific issue of the Road Home Program. The speaker will present for 40 minutes, and then break to interact with the audience. After 20 minutes, a new speaker will begin speaking in the second presentation area.
Those applicants who are interested in a particular topic can remain in the previous presentation area to gather specifics and sharpening understanding. Eventually, that area will have to clear out for the next presentation. This keeps the conference dynamic, as people migrate from one conference to the next.
The presentation area will have easels and writing paper for brainstorming by speakers and applicants. The writing will be captured with digital photography. There will be roving volunteers with audio recorders with mikes recording the breakout sessions as if they were man in the street interviews.
We will create an environment where speakers can present their understanding and the citizens can pick it up and run with it. Citizens are engaged. They will jump at the opportunity to partake in a dialog about the true state of the Road Home Program; one that is not a marketing exercise by ICF International itself.
Account
Having devised a plan for implementation and a strategy for accountability, participants will follow up with communication through the facilities provided by Think New Orleans and the moderation of CHAT.
The conference will have gathered a lot of raw material and set a direction for the accountability of the Road Home Program. We will produce an archive of information, including audio and video from the event. We can continue to follow up with updates in the form of audio. We will publish the presentations of the speakers.
The recovery is taking place online. When people are unable to get their Road Home questions answered by the customer service structure, they turn to each other for answers, compare experiences, and share their secret pathways through the maze of the Road Home Program.
We already have compiled a knowledge base of ICF contracts, pipeline reports, and have worked directly with local media in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and with national media as well.
Many of the events in which we’ve been able to participate have been recorded in some fashion, but those records are not made available to us, the participants.
Creating a knowledge base for use after the conference is a recognition of the contributions of the participants in the conference and in the recovery. It will give these applicants the point of reference they need to influence their legislators and civic leaders. To provide those that want the program to succeed with the mutual support that they need.
Outreach
The Road Home Round Table will be billed as the next event in a series of events produced by the Mothership Foundation, those being the Festival of Neighborhoods, and confab of the neighborhood and nonprofit organizations engaged in recovery, and the Bayou Boogaloo, a free music and art festival celebrating the rebirth of Mid City.
In partnership with Think New Orleans, Mothership Foundation will tap an extensive network established the neighborhoods and nonprofits to draw applicants from across the State of Louisiana.
The Citizens’ Road Home Action Team will work with Think New Orleans to expand their database of applicants in advance of the conference, and to disseminate the outcome of the conference through Internet and earned media.
Fund raising efforts and sponsorships will go toward advertising in local media in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, as well as production and equipment costs for the Road Home Round Table.
Partnerships
- Think New Orleans
- Citizens’ Road Home Action Team
- Mothership Foundation
- New Orleans Housing Resources Center
No Comments | No Trackbacks