Ike’s wrath lingers as new homes go unbuilt
Beset by woes, program finally breaking ground
GALVESTON — Hurricane Ike uprooted a giant oak and sent it crashing through the roof of Sarfonia Norman-Daniel’s Houston home in 2008, dumping water into the house and trapping her and family members inside for three days. The retired schoolteacher applied months later for disaster housing.
She waited for two years before being told that the program was out of money and she would have to wait for more funding. Six years after the tree crushed her house, she is hoping to receive a letter soon telling her when it will be demolished to make way for a new one.
“Patience is something I acquired ahead of Ike, and it’s a good thing I did,” said Norman-Daniels, 59, who lives on disability.
Six years after Congress approved $3.1 billion in federal disaster aid to help victims of hurricanes Ike and Dolly, including $1.7 billion for housing, Norman-Daniels is among
about 2,000 Texans still waiting for their homes to be repaired or rebuilt.
The lengthy process for rebuilding homes after a disaster is a nationwide problem, but in Texas the delays have been compounded by various factors: the newness of the program, the lack of a reliable model, inexperience and constant changes.
For example, the responsibility for rebuilding disaster housing was thrust on local governments with little or no experience dealing with home construction by state officials who were equally unprepared and inexperienced. The money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development came with no instruction manual, only a long list of requirements to ensure it was properly spent. Chronic mismanagement
The job of handling disaster housing in Texas shifted three times, each time forcing the hiring and training of new personnel. The program itself was changed several times by the state, forcing local governments to relearn an already complicated process. Construction and planning in several instances was handled by private contractors who were accused of mismanagement and overspending.
The disaster housing program floundered until the Texas General Land Office took it over in July 2011. Critics say the pace has quickened, programs are running more smoothly and the abuse and mismanagement have ended, but that construction is still proceeding too slowly.
The state’s goal is to complete construction statewide by September, but Houston isn’t expected to drive the last nail until next year.
“By any standards, seven or eight years for rebuilding from a disaster is unacceptable,” said John Henneberger, co-director of the Texas Low-Income Housing Information Service.
Henneberger said that without legislative action, Texas may be doomed to repeat history. “The time to figure out what to do is not after a hurricane hits but before the hurricane,” he said.
Texas’ misadventure with disaster housing began with Hurricane Rita in 2005.
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs was given primary responsibility for managing a $503 million program to repair and rebuild storm-damaged homes, most of them in Orange and Jefferson counties.
The aid was restricted to lowincome homeowners whose insurance would not cover damages, and to apartments catering to low-income families. The aid is separate from Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance immediately following the storm.
Kevin Hambly, special counsel for the department at the time, recalled that the program was new and the only model was Louisiana’s rebuilding from Hurricane Rita, a program riddled with problems. “With Rita it was a blank slate,” Hambly said.
When Ike and Dolly struck in 2008, the rebuilding program from Rita was far from complete, according to a 2010 report by the Texas Sunset Commission.
Hurricane Dolly plowed into the Texas coast about 80 miles south of Corpus Christi in July, causing about $1 billion in damage. As Henneberger watched news reports of Ike heading straight for Galveston two months later, he recalled thinking, “Oh no, we are going to be no better prepared for this one than we were when Rita hit.”
Ike was the worst storm to strike Texas in decades, leaving dozens dead while causing an estimated $29.5 billion in damage. ‘Started from zero’
Much of the experience gained by the Department of Housing and Community Affairs was lost when then-Gov. Rick Perry transferred primary responsibility for disaster housing to another agency, the Department of Rural Affairs. That agency began building an entirely new program for Ike.
“We have essentially started from zero every single time,” said Madison Sloan, attorney for the low-income advocacy group Texas Appleseed. Sloan’s comment echoed the Sunset report in detailing how mistakes made in rebuilding after Rita were repeated after Hurricane Ike: “The state has yet to fully absorb lessons from previous (federal) disaster recovery funding or develop a clear model for allocation and administration of funds.”
That view is shared by Chuck Wemple, CEO of the HoustonGalveston Council of Governments, which oversees rebuilding in five counties. Wemple questioned the wisdom of ignoring the experience gained after Rita and restarting the program so many times. “The state went back to the drawing board three different times when we had so much experience administering these programs,” Wemple said.
For its part, the state Department of Rural Affairs chose to saddle 18 local governments, most of them with scant rebuilding experience, with responsibility for rebuilding under a complex set of newly developed state rules. “There are things that (local) governments aren’t prepared to do,” said Galveston City Manager Brian Maxwell. “It hits you like a landslide coming on top of you.”
Galveston and local governments from East Texas to the Rio Grande Valley had to invent programs to fit their unique circumstances. The Sunset Commission report said it took about two years after the storm to finish the first house.
“There is no system in place from the beginning that would have moved this process along faster,” Henneberger said.
The city of Galveston hired a contractor to handle a $160 million program to repair and rebuild 1,033 homes, the largest disaster program in the state. After complaints about delays and construction quality, the city let the contract expire. In 2012, Galveston allowed the state Land Office to take over a program far behind schedule. As of November, about 100 homes remained to be rebuilt.
Houston’s $82 million rebuilding program was beset by accusations of mismanagement after a federal audit and a 2012 Chronicle analysis of records found $700,000 misspent even as the program lagged far behind. In March of that year, Houston was one of five programs cited for failing to spend at least 20 percent of its reconstruction money. A series of management changes finally put the program on track and won the praise of housing advocates, although it remains the farthest behind. ‘Overjoyed’ for help
Evelyn Pierce, 66, of Houston is among those who’s had to wait. The rain leaking from her roof into pans on the floor remind Pierce that it’s been more than six years since fierce winds from Ike slammed into her home.
Pierce, a retired office manager whose only source of income is Social Security, said she was unaware of the program until someone knocked on her door in the summer of 2013, handed her a flier and urged her to attend a meeting. The poor performance by the city early on left bad feelings in the community, Pierce said, and the woman with the flier assured her that things were better.
Pierce went to the meeting, filled out a questionnaire and in a few weeks had an interview. Soon after she was notified that she had qualified for the repair program. Contractors inspected her house early last year and decided it was so damaged that it needed to be rebuilt.
She had to reapply and go through the approval process again, all the while fearing she would not qualify: “All sorts of negative thoughts went through my mind.”
About three months later she got a phone call saying she was approved. “I was overjoyed — overjoyed,” she said. Pierce has made arrangements to stay with her brother in Missouri City and is packed and waiting for construction to begin.
The delays also meant the loss of federally funded assistance to help low-income earners find a place to stay while their houses were rebuilt and to furnish the new homes. The refurnishing program through Catholic Charities ended in September 2011; rental assistance was discontinued in February 2012.
“I was fixing to live outside in my sister’s backyard in a tent,” said Hector Compian, 64, of La Marque, a disabled electrician. He eventually traded electrical work for a place to stay while his house was built. The end of the Catholic Charities program, he said, “really hurt.” New program is ‘blessing’
At the state level, the overall program lagged far behind under the Department of Rural Affairs. The agency had hired a contractor to administer the program, but a federal audit accused the department of improperly doubling the size of the contract to $144 million while failing to monitor the contractor’s spending. Perry disbanded the department and shifted responsibilities to the state Land Office, where officials complained publicly about the loss under the contract of money needed to run the program.
“It was determined that putting the responsibility for recovery under a single agency headed by a statewide elected official would lead to efficiencies that the other two agencies hadn’t been able to achieve,” explained a Perry spokeswoman, who declined to further discuss changes that occurred during the Perry administration.
Henneberger said failed contracts with private companies slowed programs by 12 to 18 months.
The Land Office consolidated the rebuilding effort into eight programs and kept a close watch on each, sending in advisers whenever a program seemed to bog down.
Land Office spokesman Jim Suydam and Neal Rackleff, Houston’s housing and community development director, blamed many of the delays on a 2010 conciliation agreement between the state and two agencies over a complaint that disaster money wasn’t going to counties that suffered the most hurricane damage or to low-income storm victims, as intended. Hennenberger dismissed the argument, saying the agreement didn’t lead to significant delays.
Those interviewed with damaged homes remain grateful even as they wait. “To me, this program is a blessing,” said Victor Ayala, 27, of Galveston, who is living with his wife and 8-year-old daughter at his mother-in-law’s house while his house is rebuilt. “I cannot complain about it because they are doing something that at the moment I wouldn’t have been able to take care of.” harvey.rice@chron.com twitter.com/harveyricechron