Road Home

Today's Times Picayune gave an update on the Louisiana Road Home Program, for which Federal Government appropriated $10 billion. To date only 18 families have received any money for a total of around $650,000. Another 1,200 have received letters promising them a total of around $70 million. The program is expecting another 10,000 or so applications in the next month. I'm not a statistician, but I think it's fair to say that that isn't going to amount to much more than $1 billion. The article said another $1 billion would go to administration costs. Where is the other $8 billion going. Did those appropriating these monies know they would never have to hand over the cash, and inflated the number for PR?

The more disturbing thing about this is that the people who haven' t collected their money yet is that they are believed to be waiting to decide whether to rebuild or move away. This again comes back to the need for leadership from the City. Although the money may now be available, the chicken and egg of neighbourhood viability still dictates whether people can move on with their lives.