This will be the first of a two-part series on how to find and verify flood-related information. Today’s post will focus on flooding itself. Tomorrow’s will focus on how some developers can affect flooding. Together, they should help you protect yourself whether you are a homebuyer, homeowner, or community activist.
Triangulating on Truth
The world is awash in misinformation. Most of it results from people simply repeating things they’ve heard but haven’t verified. And some of it is intentional, i.e., for political or financial gain.
Getting an accurate picture of the world around you often involves investigation and “triangulating on truth” by looking at multiple perspectives.
Below are sources of information you may find useful. They represent my go-to sources. I often supplement them with interviews, but I usually start with these.
The Harris County Flood Control District’s website, HCFCD.org, is a wealth of information about what’s happening where. It is organized by watershed. Click one to see an overview of issues there, flood mitigation projects that address them, maps, risks, costs, pending grants, and more. Note: Flood Control manages hundreds of projects. Sometimes the projects move faster than website updates. So it’s always good to verify the status of projects by laying eyes on them.
The Harris County Flood Warning System, HarrisCountyFWS.org, gives you real-time information during floods. It also gives you historical information about rainfall, gage heights, and flooding at locations throughout the region. You can use this site to explore when, if, or how often a channel came out of its banks and by how much.
Note: Before 2010 you may find suspicious data because of the type of gages in use during that period. Pressure transducers frequently clogged with floating debris and reported false information. So, if you see a hundred-foot flood that lasted 15 minutes, you’re likely looking at error. Cross check the reading against rainfall at the same gage. Also check the readings immediately up and downstream.
Using this information, you can help narrow down the source of flooding. If a neighborhood flooded, but the channel didn’t come out of its banks, chances are that you’re looking at a street flooding issue. Most storm sewers and roadside ditches in Harris County and Houston are sized to handle a two-year rain. But older ones may have only a one-year level of service. And many become clogged over time. See below.
Drive Around and Talk to Residents
To confirm whether street flooding is your issue, drive around and look at the ditches and storm drains. Even if you clean out your ditch but a neighbor doesn’t, water could be trapped in your neighborhood. The photo below shows ditches in three areas that report frequent flooding: Kashmere Gardens, Trinity Gardens, and East Aldine. They are symbolic of a problem that exists in many other areas..
Ditches blocked by silt in Kashmere Gardens, Trinity Gardens, and East Aldine
Report blocked drains and ditches to authorities. Who you report them to will depend on where you live. Inside the City of Houston or another municipality, report them to the city. If you live outside a city but inside Harris County, report them to your precinct commissioner. The Harris County Flood Control District is not involved in roadside ditches. Flood Control only works on channels, bayous and rivers.
Ditch blocked by garbage in Kashmere Gardens, a neighborhood that experiences frequent flooding.
Drones/Helicopters
It’s often hard to see Flood Control projects from the ground. Construction happens behind tall fences and trees in remote areas. However, you can spot projects easily from the air with drones or helicopters.
Phase 1 of the new Lauder Detention Basin on Greens Bayou is virtually invisible from streets. Yet many Greens Bayou residents are convinced nothing is being done to protect them.
The Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool at HarrisCountyFEMT.org was developed after Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. It shows channels and watershed boundaries. Zoom in to find your neighborhood. That activates the ponding button. You can then see areas likely to flood from ponding or, alternatively, floodplains. Note: Most of the current flood maps for Harris County are based on Allison but are now being updated.
This particular tool is geared toward coastal areas but also covers all of Harris County. It includes FEMA’s flood hazard layers (see below), plus dozens of other visualization tools, all in one website. It shows development density, wetlands, emergency infrastructure, and much, much more. The site also lets you vary opacity of different layers and save maps.
A one-stop shop for flood preparedness anywhere in Texas. TexasFlood.org brings together local information from all over the state. Check everything from stream gages to the status of evacuation routes. It even lets you see the spread of floodwaters and the structures that will be inundated when a gage reaches a certain height. Hosted by the Texas Water Development Board.
Not exactly a flood map, Texas Watershed Viewer is useful in figuring out where water comes from and how it converges. This also lets you see how streams may have been altered. For instance, a part of North Kingwood Forest that used to drain into Mills Branch now drains into Taylor Gully where hundreds of homes flooded in 2019.
A Texas Water Development Board/USGS site. Click on a river gage, select a flood depth, and see how far the waters would spread. Clicking on a location within the flooded area will also show you the estimated depth at that point. You can also turn on a layer that shows flooded buildings. Unfortunately, however, the number of gages is limited, and most are in northern Harris and southern Montgomery Counties.
FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer lets you zoom into any part of the country. Wait a few seconds. And outlines for the floodway, 100-year flood plain and 500-year floodplains will appear. This website has amazing investigative potential. With it, you can tell how far your home or business is from flood threats.
FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center lets you plug in any address and instantly see where your property stands in relation to floodplains that may exist around it.
The USGS National Map Viewer lets you find elevations and slopes everywhere in the US and works down to the individual property level. Find the elevation of your slab, the slope of your street, your elevation above street level, and more. Best of its kind. Here’s a post that explains more about how to use it. Realtors and people who want to buy homes with minimal flood risk will find this useful.
Want to know if a house was built on wetlands? Check the US Fish and Wildlife Service Wetlands Mapper. Some developers fill in wetlands to build more homes. But those homes are subject to foundation shifting and driveway cracking. Also, water will often collect in former wetlands after a storm. See below. Also note how the homes are built within feet of a major ditch. These factors should send signals to homebuyers, who may want to request discounts to compensate for increased risk.
High-density neighborhood built over wetlands near East Little York
Enter your address or zip code in NOAA’s Precipitation Data Frequency Server and see the Atlas-14 precipitation frequency estimates for your neighborhood, in graphical or tabular formats. This will tell you what constitutes a 1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, 100-, 200-, 500-, or 1000-year rain in your area. The rates vary with distance from the coast.
Precipitation Frequency Estimates for 77339. 17.3 inches in 24 hours constitutes a 100-year rain. You can see how storm sewers designed to hold a 1-year rain could easily become overwhelmed in a climate like Houston’s.
If your neighborhood floods on less than the 1- to 2-year amounts shown above, you may need to investigate the cause.
Imelda left a 13-foot high bathtub ring around around East End Park in Kingwood.With this knowledge and the elevation of a home’s slab from a survey or the USGS National Map, you could determine whether a particular home flooded during Imelda.
Other Valuable Sources for Flood-Related Information
Google Earth Pro
Using the History Function in Google Earth Pro (a Free App Download) lets you scroll back through aerial and satellite images of an area at different points in time. With it, you can see how neighborhoods filled in floodplains, rivers migrated, deltas formed, and more. The app also contains powerful measurement tools to calculate area and distance. Using this gives you a greater appreciation for the difficulty of building flood mitigation projects where people build too close to bayous, ditches, and rivers. Whole neighborhoods must be bought out before construction can begin. Check out, for instance, the detention ponds on both sides of US59 at Halls Bayou.
All people are entitled to request government information under the Freedom of Information Act or Texas Public Information Act. Both are valuable tools for getting at information that may not be published. Make sure you put FOIA or TPIA in the subject line of your email and state your request as succinctly as possible. Certain records are exempt (such as personnel files and correspondence with lawyers). But bids, plans, reports, and spending information are all fair requests. Generally, a government agency has 10 business days to respond. Different agencies have different procedures and starting points. So you may want to call or google before submitting your request.
Caveat Emptor
Buyer Beware. The ancient slogan applies to flood-related information as well as homes. The more you know, the safer you are.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/NOAA-Atlas-14-Rainfall-Rates-for-Kingwood.png?fit=976%2C828&ssl=1828976adminadmin2021-11-28 17:11:042021-11-30 12:58:53How to Find and Verify Flood-Related Information
Between those two dates, Jennifer Coulter, the victim, contacted the City 17 times to ask if she could file an application.
In every call, no HCDD employee ever told her that she was eligible to apply. In fact, they told her the opposite – that they hadn’t gotten to her “Priority Group” yet. After misleading her, when New Year’s Eve came and went last year, the Harvey Reimbursement Program expired, and Coulter was out. Despite multiple requests to clarify her status and two appeals , HCDD denied aid to Coulter for not communicating with them.
Many others, who were denied aid, experienced variations of her problems. For instance, after two years of being kept in the dark about whether he could submit an application, HCDD notified one man that he could apply just hours before the program expired on New Year’s Eve. HCDD told him that he needed to submit his application by 5PM or lose eligibility. Unfortunately, he was visiting out-of-town relatives and didn’t have access to required documents.
Chronic bad planning, mismanagement, disorganization, understaffing, miscommunication and poor record-keeping at HCDD created a malignant and crippled aid-distribution system after Harvey.
In Coulter’s case and many others, HCDD problems victimized flood victims a second time.
Coulter home after Harvey. The family lived in a travel trailer in their driveway for a year with two adults, two kids, two cats and one dog, while they made repairswith money in their 401Ks and kids’ college funds.
I would say Coulter’s case is one of the saddest stories to come out of Harvey…if so many others hadn’t been denied aid for similar reasons.
A 2019 HUD audit of HCDD found in part that “Staff members worked independently and did not communicate with each other re: applications.” Coulter’s call log vividly brings to life the chaos that flood victims were forced to deal with as they struggled to find assistance from the City.
Audits 2 Years Apart Show Similar Organizational Problems
After Harvey, the City of Houston lobbied the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for approximately $1.3 billion to aid Harvey victims, such as Coulter. But a subsequent 2019 HUD audit showed HCDD was unprepared to manage the money, the caseload or the approval process.
Despite assistance and training by the Texas General Land Office (GLO), which manages disaster relief for HUD in Texas, Houston never got its disaster relief programs in gear. A second audit by GLO released last Wednesday arrived at conclusions similar to HUD’s.
City’s Needlessly Complex Two-Step Application Dooms Program
Among the problems: HCDD set up a needlessly complex application process involving two steps. Victims had to “apply to apply” by filling out an online survey. Based on survey answers, HCDD placed victims in one of six “priority groups.” Group 1 represented highest priority flood victims and 6 the lowest.
HUD and the GLO warned Houston about the two-step application process even before it started. They told Houston it was too complex and would cause delays. They recommended that the City have everyone submit full applications and then sort through them to find enough qualified applicants to match the amount of aid available.
That way, everyone would have had a fair chance to meet the deadlines involved. Delays and miscommunication would not have been a factor. HCDD’s repair program expired last December 31st at 5PM with only a small fraction of the aid distributed.
HCDD initially told Coulter that she was in Group 6, the lowest priority. But on May 14, 2020, HCDD sent her an invitation to submit a full application. The invitation got lost in her email. And Coulter continued to call the City for the remainder of the year. Each time she would ask if she could submit an application and each time she was told, “Not yet,” despite already having been invited.
Even though Coulter called HCDD dozens of times to clarify her status, in 15 months, nobody at HCDD ever told her over the phone to check her email or that she could apply. That’s how bad HCDD’s record-keeping, database systems, and internal communications were!
Sadly, we’ve come to expect and accept stories like this from the City of Houston. HUD and GLO audits repeatedly showed problems in HCDD.
After Reimbursement Program Expired, Mayor Claims Commitment to Improvement
The mayor’s response, after the latest audit and after the program expired, was in essence, “We’ll look into it and fix it if we find problems.” His press release about the latest audit concluded, “The City is committed, as it always has been, to transparency and improving its Housing processes.”
Admittedly, the Reimbursement Program that Coulter applied to is just one of many HCDD programs.
But for the Jennifer Coulters of the world, it’s too late. The HUD money will likely go unused and return to Washington for future grants that may give other victims false hope.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/27/2021
1551 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Cart-in-Living-Room.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=19001200adminadmin2021-11-27 15:48:092021-11-27 16:44:07Harvey Victim Denied Aid for Not Communicating After Contacting City 17 Times
“It is important to note that the GLO previously reviewed the City’s Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) 1, 2, and 3 and took no exceptions. The GLO also reviewed and approved all program guidelines before they were sent to the city council and subsequently approved. The City has operated under the GLO-approved guidelines for all issued NOFAs and will determine if changes are needed.
“Indeed, the report does not identify any violations of law, regulations or contractual provisions, as asserted by the City during the review process. The report found no conflict of interest violations of law or regulation.”
City of Houston Mayor’s Office
In essence, Turner was saying, “We were being constantly reviewed and GLO approved everything we did.”
Difference Between Guidelines and Following Them
If you took that away from the Mayor’s statement, though, you may have drawn the wrong conclusion. It’s one thing to have GLO-approved guidelines – and another to follow them. There’s often a huge difference between the way things should operate and the way they do.
A former high-level employee of HCDD who wishes to remain anonymous, told me, “You need to understand that GLO and HUD provide the only supervision of HCDD. It’s not coming from the City or City Council.”
The relationship between HCDD, the GLO and HUD has been stormy for a long time. HCDD’s Harvey recovery programs got off to such a slow start, that HUD audited them. The audit was so critical that GLO feared the state might lose future funds from HUD; HUD explicitly stated that as a possibility. That caused the GLO to offer help and increase its supervision of HCDD. And that set the tone through 2020 when GLO tried to take back Harvey relief funds – so that GLO could distribute them itself – and the City sued to keep them.
Wednesday’s blowup was simply the latest in a long line. Let’s not ignore that. This relationship has been stormy from the start.
Houston had not drawn any funds from the Hurricane Harvey grants. The city had only submitted two requests for payment to the GLO – totaling approximately $1 million out of more than $1.2 billion. GLO rejected both requests as incomplete.
HUD had concerns regarding “the city’s expenditure progress and overall financial management processes.”
The City’s compliance website did not meet HUD’s requirements.
Houston was operating at half staff (59 full-time employees; 61 more needed) and had turnover in two key positions.
“The city of Houston’s CDBG-DR program is plagued with many staff vacancies (including several key management positions), high staff turnover, slow hiring processes, and lack of effective hiring and onboarding plans for new staff.”
“The city’s procedures do not provide a clear workflow for program implementation and overall management of its CDBG-DR grant allocations.”
The City did not post details on its website of all contracts funded by HUD money as required by law.
HCDD provided inconsistent explanations of the process used to secure a major contract, and verbally confirmed that the selection was not based on a competitive process.
The City tried to seek reimbursement from FEMA for costs of a HUD program, something prohibited by statute.
HCDD did not follow record-keeping procedures for its Hurricane Harvey Homeowner Assistance Program.
Staff members worked independently and did not communicate with each other re: applications. No one individual reviewed an application for completeness.
The Mayor’s Office concluded his press release with the following:
“The City is committed, as it always has been, to transparency and improving its Housing processes.” Really?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/26/2021
1550 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Turner.jpg?fit=1500%2C1125&ssl=111251500adminadmin2021-11-26 18:02:122021-11-26 22:09:04Mayor Turner Points Finger at GLO in Latest Harvey Relief Dispute
How to Find and Verify Flood-Related Information
This will be the first of a two-part series on how to find and verify flood-related information. Today’s post will focus on flooding itself. Tomorrow’s will focus on how some developers can affect flooding. Together, they should help you protect yourself whether you are a homebuyer, homeowner, or community activist.
Triangulating on Truth
The world is awash in misinformation. Most of it results from people simply repeating things they’ve heard but haven’t verified. And some of it is intentional, i.e., for political or financial gain.
Getting an accurate picture of the world around you often involves investigation and “triangulating on truth” by looking at multiple perspectives.
Below are sources of information you may find useful. They represent my go-to sources. I often supplement them with interviews, but I usually start with these.
Local Sources
HCFCD.org
The Harris County Flood Control District’s website, HCFCD.org, is a wealth of information about what’s happening where. It is organized by watershed. Click one to see an overview of issues there, flood mitigation projects that address them, maps, risks, costs, pending grants, and more. Note: Flood Control manages hundreds of projects. Sometimes the projects move faster than website updates. So it’s always good to verify the status of projects by laying eyes on them.
HarrisCountyFWS.org
The Harris County Flood Warning System, HarrisCountyFWS.org, gives you real-time information during floods. It also gives you historical information about rainfall, gage heights, and flooding at locations throughout the region. You can use this site to explore when, if, or how often a channel came out of its banks and by how much.
Note: Before 2010 you may find suspicious data because of the type of gages in use during that period. Pressure transducers frequently clogged with floating debris and reported false information. So, if you see a hundred-foot flood that lasted 15 minutes, you’re likely looking at error. Cross check the reading against rainfall at the same gage. Also check the readings immediately up and downstream.
Using this information, you can help narrow down the source of flooding. If a neighborhood flooded, but the channel didn’t come out of its banks, chances are that you’re looking at a street flooding issue. Most storm sewers and roadside ditches in Harris County and Houston are sized to handle a two-year rain. But older ones may have only a one-year level of service. And many become clogged over time. See below.
Drive Around and Talk to Residents
To confirm whether street flooding is your issue, drive around and look at the ditches and storm drains. Even if you clean out your ditch but a neighbor doesn’t, water could be trapped in your neighborhood. The photo below shows ditches in three areas that report frequent flooding: Kashmere Gardens, Trinity Gardens, and East Aldine. They are symbolic of a problem that exists in many other areas..
Report blocked drains and ditches to authorities. Who you report them to will depend on where you live. Inside the City of Houston or another municipality, report them to the city. If you live outside a city but inside Harris County, report them to your precinct commissioner. The Harris County Flood Control District is not involved in roadside ditches. Flood Control only works on channels, bayous and rivers.
Drones/Helicopters
It’s often hard to see Flood Control projects from the ground. Construction happens behind tall fences and trees in remote areas. However, you can spot projects easily from the air with drones or helicopters.
HarrisCountyFEMT.org
The Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool at HarrisCountyFEMT.org was developed after Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. It shows channels and watershed boundaries. Zoom in to find your neighborhood. That activates the ponding button. You can then see areas likely to flood from ponding or, alternatively, floodplains. Note: Most of the current flood maps for Harris County are based on Allison but are now being updated.
Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper
This particular tool is geared toward coastal areas but also covers all of Harris County. It includes FEMA’s flood hazard layers (see below), plus dozens of other visualization tools, all in one website. It shows development density, wetlands, emergency infrastructure, and much, much more. The site also lets you vary opacity of different layers and save maps.
City of Houston Water Flood Hazards
City of Houston maintains a GIS site that shows the extent of flood hazards for many smaller streams and ditches in neighborhoods that are not covered in county or national maps.
Texas Sources of Flood-Related Information
TexasFlood.org
A one-stop shop for flood preparedness anywhere in Texas. TexasFlood.org brings together local information from all over the state. Check everything from stream gages to the status of evacuation routes. It even lets you see the spread of floodwaters and the structures that will be inundated when a gage reaches a certain height. Hosted by the Texas Water Development Board.
Texas Flood Viewer
Texas Flood Viewer shows gages throughout Texas. Click on a dot and you can see current water level relative to various flood stages.
Texas Watershed Viewer
Not exactly a flood map, Texas Watershed Viewer is useful in figuring out where water comes from and how it converges. This also lets you see how streams may have been altered. For instance, a part of North Kingwood Forest that used to drain into Mills Branch now drains into Taylor Gully where hundreds of homes flooded in 2019.
Flood Decision Support Toolbox
A Texas Water Development Board/USGS site. Click on a river gage, select a flood depth, and see how far the waters would spread. Clicking on a location within the flooded area will also show you the estimated depth at that point. You can also turn on a layer that shows flooded buildings. Unfortunately, however, the number of gages is limited, and most are in northern Harris and southern Montgomery Counties.
National Sources of Flood-Related Information
FEMA Estimated Base Flood Elevation Viewer
This site shows not only the extent but also the estimated depth of floods. It maps many areas not included in the National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer. See below.
FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer
FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer lets you zoom into any part of the country. Wait a few seconds. And outlines for the floodway, 100-year flood plain and 500-year floodplains will appear. This website has amazing investigative potential. With it, you can tell how far your home or business is from flood threats.
FEMA Flood Map Service Center
FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center lets you plug in any address and instantly see where your property stands in relation to floodplains that may exist around it.
USGS National Map Viewer
The USGS National Map Viewer lets you find elevations and slopes everywhere in the US and works down to the individual property level. Find the elevation of your slab, the slope of your street, your elevation above street level, and more. Best of its kind. Here’s a post that explains more about how to use it. Realtors and people who want to buy homes with minimal flood risk will find this useful.
US Fish and Wildlife Service Wetlands Mapper
Want to know if a house was built on wetlands? Check the US Fish and Wildlife Service Wetlands Mapper. Some developers fill in wetlands to build more homes. But those homes are subject to foundation shifting and driveway cracking. Also, water will often collect in former wetlands after a storm. See below. Also note how the homes are built within feet of a major ditch. These factors should send signals to homebuyers, who may want to request discounts to compensate for increased risk.
NOAA’s Precipitation Data Frequency Server
Enter your address or zip code in NOAA’s Precipitation Data Frequency Server and see the Atlas-14 precipitation frequency estimates for your neighborhood, in graphical or tabular formats. This will tell you what constitutes a 1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, 100-, 200-, 500-, or 1000-year rain in your area. The rates vary with distance from the coast.
If your neighborhood floods on less than the 1- to 2-year amounts shown above, you may need to investigate the cause.
USGS High-Water Marks
High water marks validate the extent of flooding. After Harvey, the US Geological Survey measured them at 74 selected points throughout SE Texas and published them in this study. Check out this event viewer to learn about other floods and how they affected various neighborhoods or this post to learn how high-water marks fill gaps in flood-related information.
Other Valuable Sources for Flood-Related Information
Google Earth Pro
Using the History Function in Google Earth Pro (a Free App Download) lets you scroll back through aerial and satellite images of an area at different points in time. With it, you can see how neighborhoods filled in floodplains, rivers migrated, deltas formed, and more. The app also contains powerful measurement tools to calculate area and distance. Using this gives you a greater appreciation for the difficulty of building flood mitigation projects where people build too close to bayous, ditches, and rivers. Whole neighborhoods must be bought out before construction can begin. Check out, for instance, the detention ponds on both sides of US59 at Halls Bayou.
FOIA and TPIA Requests
All people are entitled to request government information under the Freedom of Information Act or Texas Public Information Act. Both are valuable tools for getting at information that may not be published. Make sure you put FOIA or TPIA in the subject line of your email and state your request as succinctly as possible. Certain records are exempt (such as personnel files and correspondence with lawyers). But bids, plans, reports, and spending information are all fair requests. Generally, a government agency has 10 business days to respond. Different agencies have different procedures and starting points. So you may want to call or google before submitting your request.
Caveat Emptor
Buyer Beware. The ancient slogan applies to flood-related information as well as homes. The more you know, the safer you are.
To see the second part of this series which focuses on developers’ plans, click here.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/28/21
1552 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Harvey Victim Denied Aid for Not Communicating After Contacting City 17 Times
Bureaucracies never make mistakes; they just defend them.
A Harvey flood victim was denied aid because, the city says, she didn’t respond to the Houston Housing and Community Development Department’s (HCDD) invitation to submit an application on May 14, 2020. However, the invitation got lost in the victim’s email and she didn’t learn of it until September 7, 2021, when the City first mentioned it in a denial of her second appeal.
Between those two dates, Jennifer Coulter, the victim, contacted the City 17 times to ask if she could file an application.
In every call, no HCDD employee ever told her that she was eligible to apply. In fact, they told her the opposite – that they hadn’t gotten to her “Priority Group” yet. After misleading her, when New Year’s Eve came and went last year, the Harvey Reimbursement Program expired, and Coulter was out. Despite multiple requests to clarify her status and two appeals , HCDD denied aid to Coulter for not communicating with them.
Meticulous Records Read Like Horror Movie Script
Fortunately, Coulter kept meticulous records of her calls, emails and attempts to contact HCDD. Reading her log is like a horror movie.
Many others, who were denied aid, experienced variations of her problems. For instance, after two years of being kept in the dark about whether he could submit an application, HCDD notified one man that he could apply just hours before the program expired on New Year’s Eve. HCDD told him that he needed to submit his application by 5PM or lose eligibility. Unfortunately, he was visiting out-of-town relatives and didn’t have access to required documents.
In Coulter’s case and many others, HCDD problems victimized flood victims a second time.
Organizational Travesty Compounded Natural Tragedy
I would say Coulter’s case is one of the saddest stories to come out of Harvey…if so many others hadn’t been denied aid for similar reasons.
A 2019 HUD audit of HCDD found in part that “Staff members worked independently and did not communicate with each other re: applications.” Coulter’s call log vividly brings to life the chaos that flood victims were forced to deal with as they struggled to find assistance from the City.
Of the tens of thousands of homes damaged in Harvey, Houston managed to reimburse only 120 families a mere $2,024,000 out of the $164 million allocated by HUD – just 1.2% of available funds. Those figures were as of December 31, 2020. The City’s 10/31/2021 pipeline report shows that HCDD has manage to reimburse another 22 families that managed to squeeze in under the Reimbursement Program deadline.
Audits 2 Years Apart Show Similar Organizational Problems
After Harvey, the City of Houston lobbied the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for approximately $1.3 billion to aid Harvey victims, such as Coulter. But a subsequent 2019 HUD audit showed HCDD was unprepared to manage the money, the caseload or the approval process.
Despite assistance and training by the Texas General Land Office (GLO), which manages disaster relief for HUD in Texas, Houston never got its disaster relief programs in gear. A second audit by GLO released last Wednesday arrived at conclusions similar to HUD’s.
While interference by the Mayor in HCDD operations has drawn headlines, Coulter’s case and thousands of others remain footnotes in this tragedy.
City’s Needlessly Complex Two-Step Application Dooms Program
Among the problems: HCDD set up a needlessly complex application process involving two steps. Victims had to “apply to apply” by filling out an online survey. Based on survey answers, HCDD placed victims in one of six “priority groups.” Group 1 represented highest priority flood victims and 6 the lowest.
HUD and the GLO warned Houston about the two-step application process even before it started. They told Houston it was too complex and would cause delays. They recommended that the City have everyone submit full applications and then sort through them to find enough qualified applicants to match the amount of aid available.
That way, everyone would have had a fair chance to meet the deadlines involved. Delays and miscommunication would not have been a factor. HCDD’s repair program expired last December 31st at 5PM with only a small fraction of the aid distributed.
HCDD initially told Coulter that she was in Group 6, the lowest priority. But on May 14, 2020, HCDD sent her an invitation to submit a full application. The invitation got lost in her email. And Coulter continued to call the City for the remainder of the year. Each time she would ask if she could submit an application and each time she was told, “Not yet,” despite already having been invited.
GLO Help Rebuffed by City
GLO attempted to help HCDD, but was rebuffed and actually barred from HCDD offices at one point. When HCDD continued to miss interim deadlines for the dispersal of aid, GLO even attempted to take over the repair program. But Houston sued GLO to retain it. Ultimately, the repair program expired with only a tiny fraction of the funds dispersed and with thousands of flood victims left empty handed.
Even though Coulter called HCDD dozens of times to clarify her status, in 15 months, nobody at HCDD ever told her over the phone to check her email or that she could apply. That’s how bad HCDD’s record-keeping, database systems, and internal communications were!
Sadly, we’ve come to expect and accept stories like this from the City of Houston. HUD and GLO audits repeatedly showed problems in HCDD.
After Reimbursement Program Expired, Mayor Claims Commitment to Improvement
The mayor’s response, after the latest audit and after the program expired, was in essence, “We’ll look into it and fix it if we find problems.” His press release about the latest audit concluded, “The City is committed, as it always has been, to transparency and improving its Housing processes.”
Admittedly, the Reimbursement Program that Coulter applied to is just one of many HCDD programs.
But for the Jennifer Coulters of the world, it’s too late. The HUD money will likely go unused and return to Washington for future grants that may give other victims false hope.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/27/2021
1551 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
Mayor Turner Points Finger at GLO in Latest Harvey Relief Dispute
Two months after Tom McCasland publicly exposed problems in his Housing and Community Development Department (HCDD), the Texas General Land Office (GLO) released the results of its investigation of McCasland’s explosive allegations. GLO criticized HCDD on five counts. It didn’t take long for Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner to return fire.
Turner Fires Back
Turner’s office issued a press release that said in part:
In essence, Turner was saying, “We were being constantly reviewed and GLO approved everything we did.”
Difference Between Guidelines and Following Them
If you took that away from the Mayor’s statement, though, you may have drawn the wrong conclusion. It’s one thing to have GLO-approved guidelines – and another to follow them. There’s often a huge difference between the way things should operate and the way they do.
A former high-level employee of HCDD who wishes to remain anonymous, told me, “You need to understand that GLO and HUD provide the only supervision of HCDD. It’s not coming from the City or City Council.”
The relationship between HCDD, the GLO and HUD has been stormy for a long time. HCDD’s Harvey recovery programs got off to such a slow start, that HUD audited them. The audit was so critical that GLO feared the state might lose future funds from HUD; HUD explicitly stated that as a possibility. That caused the GLO to offer help and increase its supervision of HCDD. And that set the tone through 2020 when GLO tried to take back Harvey relief funds – so that GLO could distribute them itself – and the City sued to keep them.
Wednesday’s blowup was simply the latest in a long line. Let’s not ignore that. This relationship has been stormy from the start.
2019 Audit Lays Out Many of Latest Concerns
Here is the entire 34-page audit from 2019. Among the concerns at the time of that first review:
Missing documentation explains why so many got kicked back by GLO and FEMA.
Draw Your Own Conclusion
With history like that, you can see why GLO (which HUD holds accountable for Houston’s funds) became concerned. As time passed, and Houston missed one interim deadline after another for dispersal of funds, the relationship with HCDD degenerated into a lawsuit. A year after the settlement, many of the same problems still exist. The interim director has openly testified in front of City Council that the City could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in budget overruns.
The Mayor’s Office concluded his press release with the following:
“The City is committed, as it always has been, to transparency and improving its Housing processes.” Really?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/26/2021
1550 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.