Supporting recovery efforts in Texas

"Disaster management projects can be incredibly complex. And they’re never easy. For many ICF employees, it’s the most important work we’ll ever do in our careers. Our teams in Texas are working around the clock to make sure the work is done right and done as quickly as possible. We put our personal and professional integrity and passion into the work we do every day.”

-Andrew LaVanway, Senior Vice President, ICF

Addressing critical infrastructure needs

We partnered with the Texas General Land Office (GLO) to implement the Local Infrastructure Program, a subrecipient-administered program designed to assist in repairing, replacing, and fortifying infrastructure for impacted communities in Texas.

Challenge

Design a large-scale infrastructure program to help 30 HUD-Designated Most Impacted and Distressed Areas and an additional 48 eligible impacted counties, while considering how each region was impacted differently.

Solution

A regional approach to restoring impacted infrastructure has been vital. Our team helps design programs that address each region’s unique situation. We also provide subject matter expertise and trainings to regional GLO Grant Managers and subrecipients, assist with developing applications and technical tools, and help oversee program implementation.

Housing project management

Damage caused by Hurricane Harvey continues to impact Texas citizens. We’ve been on the ground since January 2019, partnering with state and local officials to enable home reconstruction or rehabilitation for those affected by Hurricane Harvey. We provide a range of housing regulatory, project implementation, and program oversight assistance for more than $1.8B in housing rebuilding assistance. The programs we support include the Homeowner Assistance Program, Local Buyout and Acquisition Program, and Homeowner Assistance and Reimbursement Program.

Challenge

Communicate among multiple vendors, builders, and stakeholders across a vast geographic area to identify issues and bottlenecks, implement solutions, and ensure program policy is being applied consistently.

Solution

We developed and facilitate quarterly all-hands meetings that include state staff, builders, and implementation vendors to present programmatic policy changes, new tools, and updates. This forum allows stakeholders to discuss challenges and solutions in real time. These sessions also help identify opportunities for process improvement, which has led to increased overall efficiency and more Texas residents returning to their homes faster.

Planning and mitigation

We help Texas GLO implement and oversee over $10 billion in Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) and Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) programs. Within seven weeks we helped the state roll out the Resilient Communities Program (RCP), which provides local governments the opportunity and funding to update their comprehensive plans, land use plans, zoning ordinances, and building codes.

Challenge

Encourage program participation among communities that are reluctant to prioritize planning and resilience activities. While mitigation activities provide valuable protection from future disasters and reduce risk of damage, many communities hesitate to invest in mitigation activities because they don’t understand the long-term benefits.

Solution

Our team developed and shared messaging to help communities understand the critical nature of mitigation planning and encourage them to prioritize these activities. We also provided customized planning tools, including a GIS mapping tool, to empower the most vulnerable communities to make data-driven decisions, and a program that helps communities update their hazard mitigation plans.

Financial management

Tracking, managing, and reconciling financial data is no easy task, especially when projects involve hundreds of different stakeholders and vendors. We led the effort to help Texas GLO improve a cumbersome reconciliation process and improve oversight of their budgets.

Challenge

Reconcile all GLO Harvey CDBG-DR expenditures, purchase orders, invoices, and contracts for vendors across various systems.

Solution

Using our team’s grants management and analytics expertise, we developed and implemented a cloud-based platform to streamline the reconciliation and budget management process for financial and program data across 70 CDBG-DR programs totaling $10 billion. This includes a comprehensive grants management system that maintains real-time reconciliations of accounts across CDBG-DR expenditures, invoices, purchase orders, and contracts. These tools and systems enable staff to see financial conditions and monitor the progress of their programs in real time.

"We are proud to bring our decades’ long experience in disaster management to Texas. We’ve made extraordinary progress working with state and local officials and other contractors on recovery programs. Our priority is always to work in the best interest of impacted citizens.”

-Andrew LaVanway, Senior Vice President, ICF

Outreach, intake, and application support

We supported the City of Houston’s CDBG-DR program, managing the outreach and intake portions. We made sure residents knew about the program, met with a case manager as needed, and were able to initiate an application for relief funds.

We also supported three of Harris County’s eight CDBG-DR programs: the Homeowners Assistance Program, the Buyout and Acquisition Program, and the Reimbursement Program. Of those, we were directly responsible for outreach, intake, and the initial application submission process. We did not determine applicant eligibility or run the case management system.

Challenge

Allocate billions of dollars in funding to help Houston area residents rebuild after Hurricane Harvey.

Solution

Open housing assistance centers and leverage community outreach and media campaign services in digital, paid search, paid social, print, and radio to maximize program participation.