Build it Back has had so many problems that we at The Forum would sometimes read it as Break My Back, for just a second, whenever a new flub was revealed. Nothing new this time – just a scathing audit of the Single Family Program this week by City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who looked back at the period June 1, 2013- August 1, 2014 to see how the recovery effort has been managed thus far and determine recommendations for moving forward.
Stringer announced that the City’s Office of Housing Recovery Options paid $6.8 million to contractors for work that was flawed or incomplete. He calls the City’s handling of Sandy recovery efforts “a case study in dysfunction.” Consultants were not managed properly and thus double-billed the program or, in many cases, billed for “no activity reports whatsoever.”
What about staffing? URS Group, Inc., a subcontractor paid to assist with intake of applications and provide customer support, was supposed to hire housing recovery specialists who had at least two years of experience and a BA in social work or related fields, yet Stringer’s audit revealed that out of 154 resumés, none show a degree in social work – and actually, only 29 percent show any kind of bachelor’s degree. These were the “experts” who were on the front lines handling storm victims’ concerns, many of whom reported that the staff members didn’t even seem to understand basic information about the BIB program.
Another problem for storm victims who were already frustrated: during the year-long period surveyed, more than 100 procedural changes, in conforming to 64 federal laws and regulations, were made to the Single Family program of Build it Back, affecting the application process and the required forms. This confused people further and delayed their receiving aid.
The good news is that, according to Stringer, “there has been definite progress” on Build it Back under the de Blasio administration. Stringer cited the fact that City staff have been supervising BIB contractors and had also helped expedite the application process. Perhaps most notably, the administration set up a single point of contact protocol, in response to one rather frequent complaint of Superstorm Sandy victims. Applicants were constantly being shuffled to new staff members unaware of their cases and as a result had to submit documents and duplicate paperwork multiple times. A further result was that communication between applicants and caseworkers or other staff was hindered. The Build it Back argument was that it was too expensive to assign individual specialists to cases.
The administration has made an effort to mitigate these problems, but Stringer questions why URS and Solix, another subcontractor, have been rehired without registered contracts – rather, with “informal agreements” that they will be paid, in order to continue operations. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or even a city comptroller) to see that the City can’t possibly effectively manage subcontractors working outside of valid contracts. The administration also intends to renew the URS contract. As Stringer put it, “contracts are only as good as the people who manage them.” It’s been demonstrated that URS hasn’t performed well, so why rehire them? In fact, one of Stringer’s recommendations is to give the City more direct management capacity over Build it Back, and remove the middle-man consultants.
The HRO needs to give BIB the appropriate staffing to review all the cases and validate existing data. And subcontractors, if worthy of rehire, should be hired only under valid contracts. There needs to be better oversight of invoicing and spending, too, because we don’t need Build it Back money going to anyone other than storm victims or those directly helping them to rebuild their homes and their lives. It’s been two and a half years since we were hit. Enough already with the band aid solutions.
