Supporting recovery efforts in Texas

Damage caused by Hurricane Harvey continues to impact citizens across the Lone Star State. ICF has been on the ground since January 2019 partnering with state and local officials to help get residents back on their feet and on the path to recovery and rebuilding.

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We’re proud to support the Lone Star State across the entire disaster lifecycle. Keep reading to learn about some of the ways we’re helping Texas communities.

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 communities in Texas impacted by Hurricane Harvey.

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 training to regional GLO Grant Managers and subrecipients, assist with developing applications and technical tools, and help oversee program implementation.

Key results

We reviewed 168 Hurricane Harvey infrastructure applications for a total of over $359 million—all completed within the state’s deadline. In order to approve the applications, ICF completed 197 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) reviews. We developed or redesigned 35 processes and tools to promote consistency, accuracy, and compliance through the life cycle of projects. ICF also has performed 288 construction management tasks such as reviewing draws, amendments, closeouts, and more.

We now provide construction management oversight of the approved projects.

Handling keys

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 develop 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.

We also launched innovative and user-friendly solutions—Duplication of Benefits (DOB) database, closeout review data platform, and reporting—that reduced any manual application review processes, improved quality control with automated workflows, and empowered grant managers to efficiently review and close out projects.

Key Results


(as of July 2023)

5,600+

Homeowner Assistance Program Construction Completions

570+

Homeowner Assistance and Reimbursement Program Applications Approved

330+

Homeowner applications for buyout assistance reviewed

$12M+

Closing and soft costs reviewed for eligibility and obligated for payment requests

TXGLO

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; developed innovative application intake and eligibility review management data platforms to empower the most vulnerable communities to make data-driven decisions; and launched a program that helps communities update their hazard mitigation plans.

Key contributions

Created a resilience assessment tool that helps identify regulations and plans that should be updated to ensure structures withstand future disasters.
Created a program that gives local governments the opportunity and funding to update their comprehensive plans, land use plans, zoning ordinances, and building codes.
369 mitigation applications for resilient infrastructure projects and hazard mitigation planning reviewed, resulting in $1.9 billion in funding.

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 and CDBG-MIT totaling $10 billion. This includes a comprehensive grants management system that maintains real-time reconciliations of accounts across CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT 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. 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.

Key results


(as of July 2023)

$10B+

Program funding managed

32K+

Vendor invoices and subrecipient payment requests reviewed

38K+

Invoice records created

8,500+

Purchase order accounting line reviewed

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.

Key results in Houston and Harris County


(as of December 2019)

13,000+

number of Hurricane Harvey survivors we’ve connected with.

33,400+

number of calls handled by call centers

16,000+

number of attendees at 160+ mobile team events

181,000+

number of doors knocked

3,075+

number of applications for relief funds we have submitted to the City for review
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