Tag Archive for: glo

GLO Extends Deadline for Harvey Homeowner Assistance Applications

The original deadline for Hurricane Harvey Homeowner Assistance applications has been extended from this Friday to New Year’s Eve at 5 P.M. Applications do not have to be completed by then, just started by then. So if you still hope to receive aid, move quickly. Money is running out and eligible applications will be prioritized based on who applied first.

The process involves a large number of documents and complex rules that govern eligibility. Here is the full text of this morning’s press release from the GLO. It includes information on where to apply.

What remained of a home washed downstream during Harvey. Photo by Dan Monks.

AUSTIN — The Texas General Land Office (GLO) has extended the deadline to submit applications for the Homeowner Assistance Program (HAP) to 5 p.m. Dec. 31, 2021. All potential applicants must submit draft applications by the deadline to be considered for eligibility so long as funding is available.

We encourage the community to remember that applications do not need to be fully complete to be submitted. Once application intake concludes, additional program resources will be dedicated to processing applicants for eligibility, through the permitting process and into construction. Applications can be submitted even if documentation is missing as HAP applicant coordinators continue to help applicants who are missing documentation.

The HAP regional offices will remain open, and processing of applications will continue indefinitely until program funds are fully expended. Applications will be considered for award on a first-come, first-served basis, according to the priorities outlined in the Regional Housing Guidelines.

Submitting a complete application does not guarantee eligibility nor funding availability, but applicants must submit a complete application by the deadline to be potentially considered for assistance.

Those residing inside the Houston city limits should apply at recovery.texas.gov/hap/houston, while non-Houston residents of Harris County should apply at recovery.texas.gov/hap/harriscounty. New applicants can also call the toll-free intake center line at 1-866-317-1998.

Harris County and the City of Houston received direct allocations of funding for residents in their jurisdictions. Applicants who previously applied to and are receiving assistance from Harris County and the City of Houston directly should continue to work with their program representatives.

In the City of Houston, applications being processed for eligibility already outnumber available funds, but funds remain available in non-Houston Harris County areas. HAP continues to take waitlist applications in Houston in case additional funding becomes available.

Waitlisted applications will be reviewed for eligibility in the order received based on their submission date, should additional funding be approved. Applications that are started, but not yet submitted by 5 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2021, cannot be considered for assistance.

Thus far, in all 49 counties eligible for Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the GLO has approved nearly 6,900 applications for construction, with about 850 homes currently under construction and more than 4,000 completed with keys in the hands of homeowners.

The GLO continues processing completed applications with the expectation of rebuilding up to 10,000 homes total for those needing assistance with available funds, with approximately 3,000 of those homes expected to be rebuilt in Harris County and the City of Houston.

Individuals affected by Hurricane Harvey may qualify for assistance through the Homeowner Assistance Program if:

  • They owned their home
  • It was damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Harvey
  • It was their primary residence at the time of the storm
  • Other eligibility factors also apply.

The program offers qualified homeowners assistance to repair, rehabilitate or rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Harvey. Potential applicants should review the Homeowner Assistance Program Checklist to have all applicable documents ready prior to applying.

Interested homeowners can visit recovery.texas.gov/hap/houston or recovery.texas.gov/hap/harriscounty to find more information.

– End of Release –

For More Information About Homeowner Assistance Applications

The GLO’s main Homeowner Assistance Program website – https://recovery.texas.gov/hap – also provides links to these important documents:

Applications, including all necessary documentation, must be completed and submitted BEFORE the GLO and its partners will begin processing it for eligibility. Each application submitted must be individually evaluated to determine eligibility. If applicants or potential applicants have questions, please contact 346-222-4686 or 1-866-317-1998 (toll free).

Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/15/2021 based on a Texas GLO press release.

1539 Days since Hurricane Harvey

Special City Meeting Thursday At 2 PM Will Address Multi-Family Housing Flap

City of Houston called a special joint committee meeting for Thursday, October 7, at 2PM between Budget & Fiscal Affairs and Housing and Community Affairs. Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin will chair the meeting.

The agenda is scant. It entails a Housing and Community Development “Financial Update” with three speakers:

  • Keith Bynam, Deputy Director, Housing and Community Development
  • Temika Jones, Chief Financial Officer, Housing and Community Development
  • Andy Icken, Chief Development Officer, Mayor’s Office

I asked Mayor Pro Tem Martin for more detail. He replied, “Fiduciary update on City of Houston Housing, specifically CDBG and DR-17, and the status of the investigation from the City Attorney regarding his decision to bring in outside Firms and appropriate resources to ensure independence and completeness.”

Turner Vigorously Denies Allegations

The last part about the City Attorney refers to a self-investigation Mayor Sylvester Turner launched in the wake of explosive allegations by Tom McCasland, Housing and Community Development’s former director. Turner fired McCasland two weeks ago after McCasland accused the Mayor of improperly influencing the award of a housing grant. The Mayor skipped over the top seven recommendations by McCasland’s department to pick the eighth ranked project. The Mayor’s selection would have delivered one quarter of the affordable housing for basically the same price as the four projects recommended by the Department of Housing and Community Development. It just happened to turn out that the Mayor’s former law partner, Barry Barnes, is also a stakeholder in the eighth ranked project.

Turner vigorously denies any charges of impropriety and asked the City Attorney to investigate. However, the appointment of an appointed official to do the investigation was panned by the media.

Since then, the Texas General Land Office (GLO), HUD and the Harris County Attorney have each launched separate investigations. And now it appears that the City Attorney will also bow to public pressure by appointing an outside investigator.

Documents At Heart of Controversy

I spent the better part of the day reviewing complex documents in this case. I will post them below with some brief comments for those who like to refer to original source materials.

  • The 110-page contract between the GLO and City of Houston for $835 million. This is a subset of the $1.2 billion original contract that became the subject of a lawsuit between the same two parties last year. It lays out the expectations for each party, allocates totals to each program, sets performance goals for each, and lists deadlines. The Mayor signed it on Page 104.
  • A letter from the GLO to Keith Bynam, Interim Director of Housing and Community Development. It requested a review of the City’s Multi-Family Rental Program, starting no later than September 29, 2021.
  • The agenda for a review and a list of requested documents. Some of the acronyms in this may be puzzling. MQA stands for “Monitoring Quality Assurance.” MFRP stands for Multi-Family Rental Program. Page 4 lists the purpose of the review. Page 5 lists the scope. Page 11 lists the items that the City had not yet supplied as of 9/30/2021. Page 12 explains regulations that could penalize the City if it fails to provide the requested records.
  • The 40-page 2021 Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) refers to Round 3 of the Disaster Recovery (DR-17) and Multifamily Program. It lays out the ground rules and selection criteria for the controversial Clear Lake apartment complex preferred by the Mayor. This was the “report card” for companies submitting proposals. It told them how they were going to be graded – i.e., what would increase or decrease their chances of success. It includes such factors as “flood resilience,” “experience,” “project readiness,” “cost reasonableness,” “disaster-recovery construction standards,” “location relative to the floodway,” and more.

Significantly, in the last document, the City’s Chief Procurement Officer, Jerry Adams, promises, “Bid proposals will be reviewed, underwritten and scored to select awardees based on a predetermined set of criteria outlined in the NOFA.”

Is There a Contract?

Yes and No.

No, in that a contract has not been signed with the Mayor’s hand-picked developer. The developer has not been paid any money. GLO has not even received a recommendation yet as to the developer. Everything blew up on the launching pad before things got that far.

However, the GLO and HUD contend that the NOFA is a contract. It obligates the City to solicit proposals according to criteria that have been agreed to beforehand.

The documentation calls into question whether bypassing seven higher scoring proposals in favor of a lower scoring project might violate the NOFA and federal procurement process regulations.

Here are some important federal requirements listed in the Code of Federal Regulations under 2 CFR Part 200:

  • Appendix I to Part 200 – Full Text of Notice of Funding Opportunity: “The intent is to make the application process transparent so applicants can make informed decisions when preparing their applications to maximize fairness of the process.” (E. Application Review Information)
  • § 200.319 Competition: “All procurement transactions for the acquisition of property or services required under a Federal award must be conducted in a manner providing full and open competition consistent with the standards of this section and § 200.320.

Additionally, in CONTRACT NO. 21-134-000-C788 above (section 8.05, page 19), the City of Houston agreed to strictly adhere to sections 318-326 of 2 CFR Part 200.

From that perspective, there was and is a contract. As this controversy plays out, the contract question will likely play a central role. Don’t be fooled if someone says, “There was no contract.” Clarify what that means.

To View Special Meeting Thursday At 2PM

To view the Microsoft Teams Live Meeting, go to: https://tinyurl.com/JOINTMTGBFAHOU.

Presentation handouts may be available at: https://www.houstontx.gov/council/committees/bfa.html. As of this posting, no handouts were available.

This meeting will also be broadcast on HTV, the City of Houston’s Municipal Channel.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/6/2021

1499 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.

Blowup Between Mayor and Housing Director Triggers Fraud Investigation over Harvey Funds

Tuesday, City of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Housing and Community Development Director Tom McCasland got into a verbal brawl over alleged improprieties in the distribution of Harvey relief funds.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner photographed in February of 2020.

The trigger was the award of $15 million to build a Clear Lake multi-family housing complex in which the Mayor’s former law partner is a co-developer. (Here is the group’s full application.)

The Mayor overrode the recommendations of McCasland and his staff, who pointed out that $16.2 million could have created four times the number of affordable units in poorer neighborhoods. Those projects all scored higher in the competition for funding.

General Land Office Response

Brittany Eck, a spokesperson for the Texas General Land Office (GLO), issued a statement within hours. She said, “The GLO is looking into the serious allegations of fraud or corruption regarding projects by the City of Houston’s Harvey Multifamily Program. The GLO is responsible for ensuring all money allocated through the Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) are spent appropriately. These projects and funds are intended to be utilized to aid the greatest number of low-income Texans as possible.”

Eck continued: “As such, we will re-review all requests for funding draws allocated to the City of Houston by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The GLO will coordinate with HUD and other investigative entities to determine what actions should follow regarding these allegations. Fraud has no place in helping Texans recover from disaster.”

She concluded, “Anyone with information relating to potential fraud, waste, and/or abuse is encouraged to report it by calling 1-844-893-8937 or emailing cdr@recovery.texas.gov.”

Mayor’s Response

According to multiple news reports and a press release from the Mayor’s Office, Turner denied specific knowledge of the deal with his former law partner. He claimed there was no impropriety, that McCasland had raised no objections to the deal, and that he (Turner) had the right as Mayor to override McCasland’s objections.

The Mayor also asserted he was trying “to place affordable housing projects throughout the City…” Finally, he claimed he severed all ties with his former law partner before assuming his position as Mayor.

McCasland’s Point of View

McCasland insisted this was not the first time the Mayor’s office interfered. The Houston Chronicle, which broke the story, said “McCasland acknowledged the Mayor has the authority to overturn staff recommendations, but McCasland argued that in this case it represented a subversion of a competitive process to benefit one applicant.

McCasland said he was not alleging fraud, but said the pattern of behavior was emblematic of a broader problem in Turner’s administration, a “do-it-because-I-said-so” management style. McCasland did say that drives out public servants dedicated to integrity and breeds a “culture for corruption.”

Further, the Chronicle article quoted McCasland as saying he briefed the Mayor August 17 and again on August 24.

McCasland said the Clear Lake complex (Huntington at Bay Area) ranked 8th out of 12 proposals, and had the lowest percentage (60%) of its units reserved for low income tenants.

Here’s a 77-page document that catalogs nine months of correspondence between McCasland, MST (Mayor Sylvester Turner) and their staffs regarding the controversial project.

Note McCasland’s comments on page 4. He claims “The outcome of that process was predetermined before the funding opportunity was even issued.”

If you don’t read anything else, skip to the last page. It’s an email from McCasland to the Mayor dated September 17. In it, he summarizes all his objections to the Clear Lake deal. That would seem to contradict the Mayor’s claim that McCasland did not register his objections.

Mayor Fires McCasland

McCasland said to City Council, “I am being forced to participate in a charade that this was a competitive process, when I know it was not a competitive process. That’s the problem here and I’m being forced to ask my teammates to participate in that charade and that is not something that we can do and that is not something that we will do.”

According to those who watched the gripping testimony in City Council, it was like watching someone commit career suicide. By the end of the day, the Mayor issued a terse press release. He denied McCasland’s allegations, said he had lost confidence in McCasland, and that it was time to move on.

Why All of a Sudden?

The big question is this: Why now? McCasland and his embattled department have been under fire for years:

Coming forward when he did – as he did – almost felt like a Law & Order episode in which the DA flipped a witness with a promise of immunity. Some veteran City Hall observers felt McCasland was being unusually frank and fearless for someone at the center of such a huge mess. If there was a pattern of ethics violations, why wait years before objecting to them?

Mayor Likely Overstepped Authority

Both McCasland and the Mayor said the Mayor had the right to overturn staff decisions. But Eck pointed out the Mayor did not have the power to “rewrite” the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) to favor one applicant; any project selected must meet federal regulations.

She said that had the City written the NOFA to favor affluent neighborhoods, and had HUD and the GLO approved it that way, there would be no problem at this point. However, the City did not do that.

From McCasland’s report and the documentation provided, it appears the City’s award went against the scoring system laid out in the published NOFA, resulting in a competition that was not full, fair and open. The result led applicants to believe their projects would be considered against one criterion when other unknown criteria were actually utilized. 

We now know the City awarded the project to a former partner of the Mayor in a high-income area…ignoring the posted and approved scoring system. In that regard, the Mayor evidently overstepped his authority.

This was not the first time the presence of the Mayor’s former partner in a deal has raised eyebrows and questions. The Houston Chronicle reported in 2018 that several city council members complained about the optics of the partner’s role as a subcontractor for a firm hired to find Harvey victims.

What Next?

The GLO has been in touch with HUD, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and the Department of Public Safety, according to Eck.

KTRK’s Ted Oberg said DPS would only be involved to investigate criminal matters.

Oberg also reported Wednesday that Chris Brown, the city’s controller, said, “This week’s revelations underscore an ongoing pattern concerning procurement processes and a continued lack of transparency at City Hall.”

Brown, who audits City projects, continued, “In the past several months alone, our office has been denied procurement documents required to conduct an audit of the Strategic Procurement Department and were told to stop all work on a financial transparency project that would bring much-needed insight into the city’s spending practices. Taxpayers deserve a city government that is transparent and above reproach. Unfortunately, recent events suggest that the city is falling short of that goal.”

Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/22/2021

1485 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.

Help Needed: Public Comment Period Swiftly Closing on $750 Million HUD Flood-Mitigation Grant for Harris County

The Texas General Land Office (GLO) has announced that the public comment period for the first amendment to the state’s action plan for Community Development Block Grants for Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) will close in twelve days – on September 29, 2021. The GLO first posted the amendment to its $4.3 billion action plan on August 23rd.

Harris County essentially got shut out of the first round of grants last summer. This amendment would allocate $750 million to Harris County in the second round. That’s good as far as it goes, but Harris County needs more and the proposed amendment needs tweaks. Read more below.

Townhome destroyed by 240,000 cubic feet per second during Harvey.

Background

Earlier this year, the GLO held a statewide competition for approximately $1.1 billion in Harvey flood mitigation funds. Harris County received none, despite being one of the most heavily populated and impacted counties in the state.

A public uproar ensued. GLO Commissioner George P. Bush then agreed to commit $750 million to Harris County for the second round of funding.

The amendment also obligates the county to define a method of distribution (MOD) for that money within US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rules.

The “amendment” has been folded into the state’s action plan. The combined document totals a whopping 1134 pages – more than 100 megabytes. You can download the entire doc from the GLO site here. You can read the relevant seven pages (Section 5.4.5) here. Or read the discussion below.

Outline of MOD Rules

The amendment is based on a Method of Distribution (MOD) program. It makes the GLO the direct recipient of HUD funds and Harris County a sub-recipient.

Harris County must define the MOD plan to allocate funds to eligible entities within rules defined by HUD.

Eligible entities include:
  • Local governments (cities/towns)
  • Special purpose districts (MUDs/improvement districts/drainage districts, etc.)
  • Ports
  • River authorities

GLO encourages prioritization of projects that meet regional mitigation needs.

Harris County’s MOD plan must benefit at least 50% LMI (low-to-moderate income) residents.

Eligible activities include:
  • Flood control and drainage improvements
  • Infrastructure improvements
  • Natural or green infrastructure
  • Communications infrastructure
  • Public facilities
  • Buyouts
  • Relocation assistance to outside of floodplains
  • Public service (housing, legal, job, mental health and general health counseling with a 15% cap)
  • Economic development
  • Elevation of critical structures
  • Planning (5% cap)
Ineligible activities include:
  • Emergency response services
  • Enlargement of a dam or levee
  • Assistance for privately owned utilities
  • Improvement of buildings used by government
  • Funding USACE projects in excess of $250,000
  • Projects involving use of eminent domain that benefit private parties
Buyouts

Have their own guidelines which are too complicated to summarize here.

Timeline
  • The clock starts ticking 4 months after HUD’s approval of Amendment #1.
  • 50% of the grant must be expended by Jan. 12, 2027.
  • 100% must be expended by January 12, 2032.

Experts say all this time may be needed given the complexity of navigating HUD processes, which are lengthier than other sources.

Discussion/Recommendations

Harris County and the Flood Control District support the amendment. It is certainly justified by the number of people in Harris County and the amount of damage inflicted by Harvey.

However, $750 million is not enough. A fairer amount would be closer to $1 billion. As the action plan points out, approximately one third of Harris County went under water during Harvey.

Alan Black, interim executive director of the Harris County Flood Control District, points out several other reasons for increasing the allocation:

The City of Houston has still been left out. Flooding in Harris County has a dual nature. “You can address the rivers and channels,” he says, “but if water can’t get to the bayous, people will still flood when water ponds in neighborhoods. Both riverine and street flooding must be addressed together.”

Black also points out that administrative fees are capped at 6%, but with HUD compliance costs, 8% is more realistic. Moreover, those administrative costs must come out of the $750 million – they are not on top of it. So the real amount of money available for flood mitigation would be reduced to about $690 million.

Finally, the Amendment also allocates approximately $450 million to Houston/Galveston Area Council, much of which would go back into the City of Houston. Black points out that flood mitigation is the Flood Control District’s core competency and that HCFCD can construct projects much faster and more efficiently than HGAC.

An estimated one third of Harris County went under water during Harvey. Photo courtesy of Sally Geis before her rescue.

With the trust fund recently created by Commissioner’s Court, plus $750 million, Black feels confident every project listed under the flood bond could be constructed.

But he worries about inflation of construction costs (which he is already seeing) and the admin costs.

Black intends to build projects as quickly as he can. If there’s a project in an LMI neighborhood that’s shovel ready, he will build it with bond money and not wait for HUD funding which could add years of delays.

That said, there are many projects that are not shovel ready that could benefit from this money. In fact, the need is greater than available funding, says Black.

Make Your Feelings Known

Please consider these points and take time to submit a public comment. Email is probably the easiest way. It doesn’t require you to wait through a meeting for your turn to speak, and doesn’t limit you to a certain amount of time.

Photo by Camille Pagel. Her children are helping to gut the kitchen instead of going to school after the Harvey flood.

How to Register Your Opinion

You can register your opinion in any one of five ways.

All public comments submitted by 5 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2021, will be considered. The method of submittal does not matter. Per federal requirements, the GLO will respond to public comments before the amendment is sent to HUD for final approval.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/17/2021

1480 Days after Hurricane Harvey

GLO Letters to HUD, Green, Garcia Tell Another Side of Mitigation Funding Story

Two letters from Texas General Land Office (GLO) – one to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the other to US Representatives Al Green and Sylvia Garcia – explain the GLO’s awards in a recent competition for $1.1 billion in Harvey mitigation funding.

GLO Commissioner George P. Bush sent the first letter to HUD on May 27, shortly after the GLO “snubbed” (according to Mayor Sylvester Turner) Houston and Harris County. Outraged politicians at City Hall and the County Courthouse organized a protest campaign targeted at the HUD and the GLO. These two letters lay out a slightly different mitigation funding story than the one peddled to Houston media outlets by the City and County. Most media coverage trumpeted how Houston and Harris County got “zero” out of competition because of political warfare between Republicans in Austin and Democrats here.

The facts in these two letters got very little play in Houston media.

Bush Letter to HUD Requests $750 Million Direct Allocation for Harris County

Bush’s letter explains to HUD how the GLO organized and scored grant applications in the competition. The letter also explains how:

  • GLO received more than $6.5 billion in grant requests for $1.1 billion during floods in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
  • Money was awarded based on a numeric scoring system approved by HUD
  • Harris County was one of dozens of counties affected by the three storms
  • Harris County and Harris County communities were awarded $90.4 million and $26.7 million for a total of $117,213,863.96 in the first round of mitigation competition.
  • He (Bush) is submitting a “new action plan amendment” to that will direct $750 million to Harris County.
  • GLO recognizes the great need for mitigation funding in Harris County.
  • GLO supports a direct allocation to Harris County (non-competitive)
  • He (Bush) requests speedy approval of the action plan amendment/direct allocation.

Hmmmmm. $117 million is a little more than zero. However, the point to remember here is that Harris County Flood Control got zero. The $117 went to cities within Harris County to improve resilience.

Havens’ Letter Cites HUD Restrictions, Slow Rate of Drawdown for Previous Programs

Deputy GLO Land Commissioner Mark Havens penned the second letter to Green and Garcia on June 10, 2021. It begins by making some of the same points about $6.5 billion in applications, HUD-approved rules, etc. But then, in regard to the rules he adds something new in the debate.

HUD did not allow damage from Hurricane Harvey to be used as a metric for allocating CDBG-MIT (Community Development Block Grant Mitigation) funding!

Mark Havens, Deputy land commissioner

Deputy Commissioner Havens also points out that:

  • The previous HUD secretary was adamant that a direct allocation didn’t go to Houston and Harris County, and that all counties should be eligible for funds.
  • If you add the $117 million mentioned above to the $750 million direct allocation requested by Bush, Harris County would actually get $867 million which the County could then share with the City of Houston as it saw fit.
  • Harris County also set aside $120 million in infrastructure funding out of the original $2.5 billion allocated to the County and City in the first round of Hurricane Harvey funding.
  • The City also received a direct allocation of $61,884,000 in mitigation funding out of the original $2.5 billion.
  • Out of the $2.5 billion, only $91,225,206 – or 3.6% of the total has been drawn down to date.
  • If the City and County don’t dramatically speed up the distribution of these funds, the funds will be returned to HUD.
  • HUD not yet responded to the request for the $750 million direct allocation.

For More Information

For the full text of:

To see the full text of other documents relating to this issue, see the links this post.

Flood mitigation should be non-partisan. This is about helping people whose lives were destroyed by flooding, not finger pointing. I’m not taking sides. I’m just trying to help give you the information you need about mitigation funding to intelligently question the officials you elected to serve you.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/15/2021

1386 Days since Hurricane Harvey

GLO’s Bush Requests Direct Funding from HUD for Harris County Flood Mitigation

5/26/21 – Tonight, Texas General Land Office (GLO) announced that it would support a direct allocation to Harris County from HUD Mitigation funds for $750 million.

On May 21, the GLO announced winners of US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grants totaling more than a billion dollars for Hurricane Harvey flood mitigation. Only problem: little went to Harris County Flood Control or the City of Houston despite the fact that we experienced half of the statewide damage in Harvey. Only $90.4 million went to small cities in Harris County. (See below)

Harvey at Peak Intensity

Ever since GLO’s announcement, Harris County Commissioners have been scrambling, trying to figure out how to fill a funding shortfall. That’s because they were counting on attracting matching grants that didn’t materialize. Without the grants, some of the projects could be delayed – especially those in low-to-moderate income neighborhoods, which HUD targets – until alternative sources of funding can be identified.

Yesterday’s Harris County Commissioner’s Court Meeting spent more than four hours on the dilemma. Commissioners arranged for angry residents to call in and each testify for 3 minutes. At the end of their allotted time, they were thanked and asked to call the Texas General Land Office (GLO).

The phones must have rung off the hook at the GLO today, because by the end of the day, GLO Commissioner George P. Bush punted the decision for the next round of funding to HUD.

Below is the full text of a GLO press release sent out at 6:28 PM this evening.

GLO Press Release

“Today, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced his request to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for Harris County to receive a direct allocation of $750 million for mitigation efforts.”   

“I have heard the overwhelming concerns of Harris County regarding the mitigation funding competition,” said Commissioner Bush. “The federal government’s red tape requirements and complex regulations are a hallmark of President Biden’s administration. I am no stranger to standing with the people of Texas as we fight against the federal government. As such, I have directed the GLO to work around the federal government’s regulations and allocate $750 million for mitigation efforts in Harris County.”  

“An amendment to the state action plan regarding the administration of Community Development Block Grants for Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) in the State of Texas will be submitted to HUD by the General Land Office to implement these changes. A final mitigation competition will be held for the other 48 eligible counties at a later date.”  

“Although Hurricane Harvey made landfall in August 2017 and Congress appropriated these mitigation funds several months thereafter, the GLO’s hands were tied waiting for HUD to publish the rules regulating the use of these funds until they were published in a Federal Register notice, which did not happen until August 30, 2019 – two years after the storm and 19 months after the appropriation. The scoring criterion required by HUD to be included in the state action plan for distribution of the funds was approved by HUD on March 27, 2020.”

Flood Mitigation Should be Non-Partisan

I don’t want to get in the middle of the cross-fire on this. One of my biggest concerns is that flood mitigation remain non-partisan.

So rather than speculate about people’s motives and try to decipher where things went awry, I will simply post the following documents:

Regarding the last item, the copy is from a draft circulated before the meeting. However, reportedly, Commissioners made no changes. They approved it (or something very close to it) unanimously.

Before the end of the meeting, Commissioners had also resolved to meet with the Governor, HUD, President Biden, Congressmen, Senators and the tooth fairy. One thing is certain. Harris County is not taking this lying down.

One strange thing that several people have commented on: approximately a quarter of all the grants awarded went to improve water and sewage treatment plants – not flood mitigation projects. As one Congressional aid said today, “Separate grants are available for those. That took a lot of money out of circulation.”

Projects Awarded within Harris County but Not to HCFCD

In fact, three of the four projects awarded to cities in Harris County fell into that category.

  • City of Pasadena: Flood Mitigation Project – $47,278,951.21 LMI Percentage: 65.37%
  • Jacinto City: Wastewater Treatment Plant Improvements Project – $5,319,717 LMI Percentage: 78.45%
  • City of Baytown: East District Wastewater Treatment Plant Phase II – $32,394,113.86 LMI Percentage: 52.29%
  • City of Galena Park: Water Plant Improvements Project – $5,482,123 LMI Percentage: 60.22%

Almost as much is going to water and wastewater plant improvements as flood mitigation.

Posted by Bob Rehak on May 26, 2021

1366 days after Hurricane Harvey

“We Must Streamline Disaster Recovery Before the Next Disaster”

By George P. Bush

George P. Bush is Commissioner for the Texas General Land Office (GLO), the state agency tasked with leading the disaster recovery process after Hurricane Harvey, the second most destructive storm in American history. This guest editorial is a response to yesterday’s post about disaster recovery taking more time than it took to win World War II. In it, Mr. Bush suggests specific ways to accelerate disaster recovery.

As June 1st rapidly approaches, Texas coastal communities are wondering what the 2021 Hurricane Season will hold. Will thousands of Texas families be spared, or will they endure hurricane-force winds and flooding with years of recovery ahead of them? 

Hurricane Harvey at its peak intensity as it hit Texas in August 2017. Photo courtesy of National Hurricane Center.

We cannot stop natural disasters from happening, but we can certainly speed recovery efforts. The Texas General Land Office (GLO) has administered recovery programs for seven of the 18 major declared disasters the State of Texas has experienced in the last 15 years. We know firsthand how exhausting and lengthy this process can be. After flood waters have abated and the debris has been cleared, communities face the next hurdle – navigating the arduous and overly burdensome bureaucracy shackling speedy recovery efforts. 

Cutting Red Tape

My GLO team and I recognize the importance of following procedures to safeguard federal funds, but also understand bureaucracy is an obstruction to recovery and mitigation. Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) appropriated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) take years to reach disaster survivors. One of the most frequent concerns we hear—from survivors, county and local officials, and other stakeholders—is that CDBG-DR funds do not flow quickly enough to communities in need.

These dollars should be deployed as quickly and flexibly as possible to support recovery with as few additional regulations as possible. 

First, we must ensure effective and efficient disaster recovery by providing the framework for programs and activities that provide disaster relief; resiliency; long-term recovery; restoration of infrastructure and housing; economic revitalization; and mitigation in areas impacted by Presidentially declared disasters. This begins with codification of CDBG-DR program rules and regulations. 

Reducing Upfront Delays

For every new allocation, a new series of rules are written and published in the Federal Register. In Texas we are currently implementing CDBG supplemental funding for 8 events governed by 22 separate Federal Registers (rule books for how funding allocations may be used). A good amount of those rules, such as the national objectives imposed and the range of eligible activities, remain largely the same each time, but others are entirely new. Based on our experience, it takes between nine to sixteen months for a Federal Register Notice to be published for allocations of recovery funding after the major disaster declaration takes place. These allocations must first be granted to a state or other grantee following a special appropriation from Congress. 

The Federal Register for the CDBG-MIT funds was posted two years to the day after Hurricane Harvey made its final landfall on the coast of western Louisiana. 

Inspector General Recommends Codifying Rules

HUD going back to the drawing board for each appropriation consumes critical time that could be spent setting up programs at the state and local levels if the rules were codified. In July 2018, the HUD Office of Inspector General (HUD OIG) issued a report that identified 59 common rules HUD issues when drafting Federal Registers. The same report recommended HUD work to codify the CDBG-DR program.  

Fund deployment speed can also be enhanced by:

  • Streamlining processes at the federal level and at HUD
  • Retaining and developing in-house knowledge
  • Empowering grantees to move with a purpose. 

Five Specific Recommendations to Expedite Process

There are several steps the federal government can take to expedite this process. Here are the five I consider to be the most impactful:

  1. Create Office of Disaster Relief and Recovery – HUD currently has several offices with jurisdiction over CDBG-DR funds. This creates a tangled web of bureaucracy when HUD drafts a Federal Register, approves an Action Plan, or a grantee must seek a waiver or other change to program, vastly delaying the distribution of funds. A distinct disaster recovery division headed by an Assistant Secretary with discretion over disaster recovery funds would limit stove-piped information, reduce redundancies, and expedite decision-making authority within HUD. This change alone would vastly reduce delays in program progress.  
  • Facilitate capacity building – HUD should provide grantees an initial amount of administrative funds prior to approval of the action plan and grant agreement. This would enable grantees to hire staff to provide technical assistance for drafting the action plan and begin to build programs while the action plan is being developed so recovery efforts would not be delayed 6+ months while the process concludes. Many grantees lack the resources to essentially operate on credit until these funds are made available.
  • Standardize programs and only post changes – Congress should pass legislation standardizing rules so the Federal Register only includes what you cannot do versus everything you can. This would lessen the time waiting for the rules to be written and allow grantees to begin working on the general premise of what the program cannot do.
  • Codify data coordination between FEMA and HUD – The federal government must build a capable national data system to coordinate data sharing between federal, state, and local agencies. FEMA collects a tremendous amount of data following every disaster. This data is used to inform HUD allocations as well as to develop needs assessments by grantees. However, there is not a system in place that enables this data sharing to happen quickly, safely and effectively. 
  • Codify allocation timeline – HUD is not currently restricted in how long it takes to allocate special appropriations of CDBG-DR and CDBG-Mitigation to grantees. Additionally, grantees cannot begin drafting hundreds of pages of state and local action plans until HUD issues the rules for use of funds in the Federal Register. 

Example of Delays in Current System

For example, Congress appropriated nearly $28 billion to help disaster-affected states rebuild on February 9, 2018. Two months later, HUD allocated $4.383 billion to Texas. At the time, HUD also stated it “will issue administrative guidelines shortly for use of the funds to address grantees’ long-term recovery needs.” However, this did not happen for nearly a year and a half.

On August 30, 2019, HUD finally published the Federal Register notice enabling the State of Texas to proceed in drafting an action plan for the CDBG-MIT funds. The Federal Register required a robust public outreach component. The GLO went above and beyond HUD’s mandates by extending the required 45-day public-comment period to 50 days and surpassed HUD requirements by hosting eight public hearings – three public hearings prior to the completion of the draft plan and five following publication of the draft plan. Prior to finalizing the draft of the action plan, the GLO responded to thousands of comments collected from 117 meetings and 936 individuals. 

While the GLO waited 16 months for rules for the action plan, it only took the GLO approximately five months to draft the nearly 500 page document, conduct a historic public outreach effort, respond to comments, make revisions, and submit the plan to HUD for approval. It then took nearly two months before the GLO received approval from HUD.

The turnaround time for announcing rules should be substantially reduced to expedite the use of disaster recovery funding for those in urgent need of assistance.

Reducing Redundancies, Implementing Common-Sense Reforms

Since 2011, the GLO has worked with hundreds of communities and several thousand families to repair homes; reimburse out-of-pocket home repairs; conduct buyouts and acquire flood-prone properties; strengthen infrastructure; and conduct major planning studies to support local government mitigation efforts. The success of our programs can be attributed in part to our staff of dedicated experts as well as our streamlined grant administration.

No additional regulations or rules are added to our programs beyond what the federal government requires. 

George P. Bush

The GLO has proven that you can expedite recovery by eliminating unnecessary regulations, pre-positioning resources and putting contracts in place before a disaster. Disaster survivors shouldn’t have to wait years for assistance. It is plain and simple – we can and should lessen the burden on families and communities by reducing redundancies and implementing common-sense reforms. 

Guest Editorial by Texas General Land Office Commissioner George P. Bush on May 8, 2021

1348 Days after Hurricane Harvey

GLO Announces Homeowner Assistance, Reimbursement Programs for Imelda

The Texas General Land Office will begin taking applications this Saturday, April 24, for Imelda assistance. $71,604,000 is available for Chambers, Harris, Liberty, Jefferson, Montgomery, Orange and San Jacinto Counties.

.Land Commissioner George P. Bush has announced locations of regional Homeowner Assistance and Reimbursement Programs (HARP) offices in advance of the 24th. 

Applicants will be able to schedule an appointment in person in advance for the same day that applications will be available online.

Money Can Be Used For…

The money will cover repair or reconstruction of owner-occupied single-family homes and reimbursement up to $50,000 for certain out-of-pocket expenses incurred for reconstruction, rehabilitation, or mitigation.

Repayment of SBA loans is also eligible for reimbursement.

Car submerged during Imelda in Elm Grove. Photo courtesy of Allyssa Harris.

Appointments Required for In-Person Assistance

“Thousands of homes in Southeast Texas were damaged during during Imelda, devastating the livelihoods of countless Texans,” said Commissioner Bush. “In advance of the Homeowner Assistance and Reimbursement Programs application being released, the GLO is announcing locations of offices to provide residents with help applying for assistance.

Evacuation from Elm Grove during Imelda. Photo courtesy of Keith Stewart.

Where to Get Help

All applicants must make an appointment before visiting an office location.

Appointments will ensure proper capacity under COVID-19 restrictions. Applicants may request additional hours.

Harris County
Location: St. Mark’s United Methodist Church
3811 N Main St, Baytown, TX 77521-3305 

Montgomery County
Location: North Montgomery County Community Center
600 Gerald St, Willis, TX 77378-3477 

Chambers County
Location: Chambers County Municipal Building
211 Broadway, Winnie, TX 77665-7781 

San Jacinto County
Location: Coldspring Area Public Library
14221 State Hwy 150 West, Coldspring, TX 77331 

Jefferson County
Location: First City Building 505 Orleans Street, Beaumont, TX 77701
Hours: By appointment only: Monday – Friday 8:00am – 5:00pm
By appointment only: Saturday 8:00am – 12:00pm         

Orange County
Location: Orange County Convention and Expo Center
11475 FM 1442, Orange, TX 77630-5227 

Pop-up Intake Locations
Hours: All by appointment only
Phone Number: 844-484-4277 (844-484-HARP)     

Main Regional Office:
Phone Number: 844-484-4277 (844-484-HARP) 

Liberty County residents are eligible. An office in Liberty County may be announced in the future. For now, work through the main regional office above (in Beaumont).

Online, Email, Phone Assistance

Interested homeowners may also visit http://recovery.texas.gov/harp to apply online or download a printable version of the application.

Additionally, applicants may email the GLO at cdr@recovery.texas.gov or call 1-844-893-8937 to get help applying.” Up to date office locations and additional information are available at http://recovery.texas.gov/harp. 

Before You Apply, Understand These Things

A single application can be submitted for reimbursement AND repair assistance.

However, an application must be submitted along WITH required documents for consideration.

HARP is “first-come, first-served,” and all homeowners are encouraged to apply immediately.

Households applying for reimbursement that do not meet the low-to moderate-income (LMI) threshold will be processed after the first six months from application opening, but may receive construction assistance prior to then, based on their application date.

HARP is only available for the homeowner’s primary residence.  

Documents You Need Before Applying

Potential applicants should review the Homeowner Assistance and Reimbursement Programs Checklist to have all applicable documents ready prior to applying.

Potential applicants can also find in-person assistance at regional HARP offices serving their area. In addition to a main office in each region, each county will have at least one application drop off location or satellite office. Additional satellite offices and application intake locations may be announced in the future and will be viewable at http://recovery.texas.gov/harp.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/21/21 based on information provided by the Texas General Land Office

1331 Days since Hurricane Harvey and 580 since Imelda

Harvey Repair, Rebuild Assistance Still Available for Harris County Residents

Assistance is still available for those who live in Harris County if you have not yet repaired or rebuilt your home damaged in Hurricane Harvey. Applications are NOT for reimbursement.

They are for repairs and rehab handled through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contractors, that meet HUD specs. So forget about marble floors and countertops, adding garages or extra bedrooms, or upgrading to top-of-the-line appliances.

As long as you live in Harris County and you meet the requirements, you can still submit an application. However, understand that Harris County (compared to the City) has far more funding available than applications in its pipeline. Also understand that you can apply through the Texas General Land Office (GLO), which now handles applications for HUD; you don’t need to go through the City or County directly.

Lloyd Nelms and family receive the keys to a rebuilt home.

Types of Help Available

The GLO can provide homeowner assistance through:

  • Repairing and rehabilitating homes
  • Reconstruction
  • Improving a damaged home so that it is more resilient against natural disasters
  • Elevating homes above flood level

How to Apply

How and where to apply depends on whether you live inside the City of Houston or out.

If you live in Harris County but OUTSIDE the City of Houston:
  1. Apply online here.
  2. Download and complete a paper application below. Applications can be submitted by email at harriscounty.glo@recovery.texas.gov or mail to Homeowner Assistance Program 2100 Space Park Drive, Suite 104, Houston, TX 77058. 
  3. Call 346-222-4686 or 1-866-317-1998 (toll free) and a regional office team member will assist with the application process.
If you live in Harris and are INSIDE the City of Houston:

This page explains all the necessary steps and documents: https://recovery.texas.gov/hap/houston. You also have three easy options.

  1. Apply online here.
  2. Download and complete a paper application below. Applications can be submitted by email at houston.glo@recovery.texas.gov or mail to Homeowner Assistance Program 2100 Space Park Drive, Suite 104, Houston, TX 77058. 
  3. Call 346-222-4686 or 1-866-317-1998 (toll free) and a regional office team member will assist with the application process.

All Documents Necessary Before Apps Will Be Processed

Applications, including all necessary documentation, must be completed and submitted BEFORE the GLO and its partners will begin processing it for eligibility. Each application submitted must be individually evaluated to determine eligibility. Please use this checklist for reference whether you live inside or outside of the City.

Without enough qualified applicants, GLO will be forced to send the money back to Washington. So hurry, before the money goes away or runs out.

What to Expect

Potential applicants can watch this video about What to Expect.

The GLO created this video about homeowners who received assistance through this program. Here’s another showing a homeowner who just received keys to a rebuilt home.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/15/2021

1295 Days since Hurricane Harvey

Why Does Flood-Mitigation Funding Take So Long?

On Tuesday this week, Harris County Commissioners Court erupted into heated discussion over flood-mitigation funding for Halls and Greens Bayous. Construction delays had to do with the length of time for awarding grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Then, in a cosmic coincidence, yesterday, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) sent out a press release announcing $135 million in HUD flood mitigation grants – for 2016 floods that happened under President Obama.

Ironically, the GLO press release pointed out that 2016 grants were for repetitively damaged areas. And in the five years since the 2016 floods, we’ve also had Hurricane Harvey, Tropical Storm Imelda, and a record-setting 2020 hurricane season.

Reading the release felt like getting hit by three buses while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. That prompted a call to the GLO, which administers HUD grants in Texas. I asked a simple question.

“What Takes So Long?”

When I asked the GLO “Why does flood-mitigation funding take so long”, they referred me to this page. Key takeaways include:

  • Congress didn’t appropriate money for Disaster Declarations in 2015, 2016 and 2017 until February 9, 2018.
  • Texas received $4.3 billion from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for all those years.
  • Before the GLO could distribute those funds, it had to wait for HUD to develop and publish rules in the Federal Register governing the distribution of those funds. That took 1.5 years.
  • Then the GLO had to develop a state action plan. That required developing another set of rules, holding public meetings around the state, soliciting public comments, responding to the comments, and getting HUD approval of the plan. HUD finally approved the state action plan on March 31, 2020.
  • Then GLO had to translate the plan into Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Korean before publishing it.
  • To be fair to everyone across the state, GLO then holds a “competition” to find the most worthy projects. The criteria for “worthiness” include multiple factors. But the biggest in HUD grants are: percentage of low-to-moderate income families being helped, how economically distressed an area is, and total expected benefits for dollars invested. For instance, when comparing applications for a $10 million grant that will help 1,000 families to a grant for the same amount that will help a 100,000 families, the latter would win.
  • But to determine that kind of information, applicants need to conduct preliminary engineering studies before they can even file applications.
  • The GLO must wait for all applications to be submitted, evaluate the applications, rank order them, and see how many will fit within available funding. In the case of the grants just announced, the GLO received requests for almost TWICE as much funding as they had available. The average over the years exceeds 3X. For Harvey, it was 5X.
  • HUD must then review and approve the grants.
  • GLO distributes the money.
  • Finally, mitigation projects can begin.

Are All These Steps Necessary?

When you look at the list above, each step sounds reasonable. But there may be ways to collapse steps and speed up the flood-mitigation funding process. Why, for instance, do you need 1.5 years to publish rules specific to these floods in the Federal Register? Why not have a generic set of rules for all floods and adapt the boilerplate as needed?

I also asked if a way existed to shorten the process by eliminating the competition. After all, its easier to approve one application than compare it to hundreds. Their reply: “Competitions are the only fair way to do it.”

Should We Go Back to Earmarks?

The current competition system replaced an earmark system whereby Congress directly allocated funds to certain projects in certain districts. Earmarks sped up construction, but had many problems of their own. For instance, unnecessary projects often went to the districts of congressional leaders. That sometimes deprived other areas with greater needs.

However, the competition system for flood-mitigation funding has obvious problems, too. It has spawned whole industries of grant writers, project managers and people who know how to navigate traps in the convoluted application process.

I talked to one project manager today who told me about a grant that cost more to apply for than the grant was worth.

Hopefully, that doesn’t happen often. But when it does, we have proof that bureaucracy has become more important than the taxpayers it serves.

More about GLO/HUD Grants Announced This Week

For the record, out of the $135 million in grants announced yesterday, Harris County received $10 million for cloverleaf drainage improvements in Carpenters Bayou. City of Houston received $8.2 million for flood mitigation in the Alief Forest Area. Baytown, Freeport, Sweeny, and Jacinto City also received grants.

This table shows where the money went.

For descriptions of individual projects, please click here.
Texas Counties Affected by 2016 Floods. MID stands for Most Impacted and Distressed Areas.

Hurricane Harvey Competition Results Not Yet Announced

Winners of the first round of the Hurricane Harvey Mitigation Competition are expected to be announced in late spring or early summer. The GLO received 220 extensive applications totaling more than $5 billion in requests for the $1 billion in available funding (Round 1).

The Hurricane Harvey State Mitigation Competition for flood-mitigation funding is open to cities, counties, COGs, state entities, and special purpose districts. Examples of projects include flood control and drainage improvements, infrastructure improvements, green infrastructure, public facilities, and buyouts. Each proposed project must have a total proposed cost between $3 million to $100 million.

What We Need

Getting disaster relief 5-10 years after the fact is the largest disaster of all. We need Congress to reform the process to speed up the delivery of flood mitigation funding. How many homes and businesses that flooded in 2015, flooded again in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020? And what were the associated costs? Did repeat-flooding damages for these years due to funding delays cost more than the amount of mitigation funds appropriated by Congress? Somebody, somewhere has that information.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/12/2021

1291 Days since Hurricane Harvey