Pace of rebuilding program gains steam

About three years since Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston County, a federally funded program managed by the county to repair or replace storm-damaged houses is gaining steam.

Owners got the keys to nine new homes last week. As of Thursday, 84 houses had been built. Another 125 are under construction, but that’s still only 28 percent of the houses the $99.5 million program is supposed to build.

About 530 residents who are eligible for the program have yet to been given the OK for a house, according to county figures.

The pace has frustrated those who applied for assistance and county commissioners who complain weekly of the lack of progress.

Commissioner Ken Clark insisted that Disaster Housing Assistance Director Brenda Bock make weekly trips to commissioners court to report on progress.

More Construction Firms

At the urging of commissioners, Bock hired three more construction firms to help speed up the process. But Bock said the slow going is not the fault of builders.

Bureaucracy on the state and federal levels and case management by the county’s contractor, ACS, continue to bog down the process, Bock said.

“The builders we have in place now are moving,” Bock said. “As soon as they get that notice to proceed, they have their permits, they have their engineering plans. They are getting the job done.”

Happy Homeowner

Jim Bates, one of the 739 program participants, said he had noticed that problems are getting solved faster but also said the process has been “frustrating and stressful.” On Wednesday, Bates and his wife, Carol, were given the keys to their new home on the Bolivar Peninsula.

For 21/2 years, the couple lived in a travel trailer.

“We used to say how much I loved that travel trailer,” Bates said. “After living in it for two months, I told Carol, ‘I hate this trailer.’”

Bates said case workers for ACS would call and ask the same questions “over and over” — questions that he and his wife already had answered. He said the repetition was maddening.

Bock said there still are complaints about repetitive questions and requests for documents.

“There are fewer of those now, but it still happens,” she said. “We do a better job addressing those problems now.”

Bates had some words of advice for the hundreds still waiting for help.

“Don’t lose your cool and just hang in,” he said. “It will happen, and it’s well worth the wait.”

Done by September?

When a deadline to have 60 houses done by the end of June approached, the county had 70. Meeting that benchmark, Bock said, was significant because it kicked in an automatic extension for when all the houses in the program are to be completed. Originally the county had until the end of September to have the work done. By meeting the state’s benchmark, the state extended that deadline to Sept. 30, 2012.

But Bock said she was confident that when the original deadline comes around, all of the houses in the program will either be built or under construction.

Other phases of the program are just starting. About 20 percent of those eligible for assistance will have their storm-damaged homes repaired instead of rebuilt, Bock said. That program just got started.

The county also has $9 million for the rehabilitation of rental properties — mostly houses or duplexes — that is waiting for state approval. Another $1 million to demolish damaged structures on properties where a new house won’t be built also is awaiting state approval, Bock said.

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Where’s The Money Gone?

Entity $ allocated $ spent $ for administrative costs spent

Galveston County $99.503 million $12.736 million $592,453

City of Galveston $160.432 million $5.930 million $492,133

Chambers County $20.921 million $723,804 $61,500

Harris County $56.277 million $7.159 million $328,953

City of Houston $87.256 million $37.115 million $633,482

Liberty County $8.878 million $783,301 $73,850

As of July 11, 2011

SOURCE: Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs