The Mississippi Katrina Homeowner's Grant program website has officially announced that they will no longer update the status of applications for the program on their website. This came as a big shock to us considering that they never began updating the status of applications for the program on their website.... However, the blurb where the application information used to be stated that future updates would be sent via postal mail.
And so we are waiting for our check.
We received an envelope from the MDA on Saturday. I think we were both rather excited to find it there... And I'm quite sure that Dave checked the envelope several times for a check before actually reading the letter that was enclosed. But that's all it was -- a letter. A letter letting us know that they have received our application. (Uh.. we knew that. Thanks.) And also that they are in the process of sending out inspectors to assess damages. (Uh... we knew that.. They were here already.. Twice.) And that they would prosecute anyone they found guilty of fraud to the fullest extent of the law. (Yes. Yes. We knew that too.)
And that was it.
I wonder if they sent this highly informative letter to all 19,000 applicants? The price of paper and postage alone would have cost somewhere around $5000. That doesn't even include the cost to pay the government employees who took the time to type, print, and stuff this missive. Let alone the cost of pre-printed envelopes which aren't cheap either.
I know, I know... Several thousand dollars really does seem like a drop in the bucket when you're tossing around a figure like 3 billion dollars... But I'd like to point out that no one hoping to benefit from this program is going to get 3 billion dollars. The pie-in-the-sky figure for us is $150,000. According to the visitmississippi.org website - the average cost of a home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is $115, 367. That cost of course would include the lot on which the home stands... so we would have to deduct at least $15 to $20 thousand before we come close to the 'insured value' of the average home on the Gulf Coast... Let's keep the figure of $90,000. We are no longer talking about $150,000 obviously -- but we're not done yet... We need to reduce that amount by whatever insurance settlements and FEMA payments were received. If your $90,000 home was reduced to a slab - FEMA promised to pay a maximum of $10,400 for home repair. In addition, according a recent news article - the average insurance payment (if there was one at all) was approximately $20,000. After reducing our $90,000 insured value by FEMA and insurance... we're now hoping for a home grant of about $50,600. (And this to rebuild 115 thousand dollar home at the new construction rate of $100 per square foot or a total cost of $180,000 based on an average square-footage of 1800)
Once you start playing with the real figures and realize that a few thousand dollars difference could make or break you (when, by the way, the MDA has already set the guidelines for appealing a grant decision based on a minimum of $10,000 dispute)... You can't help but wonder why they decided to pull website access to grant status updates.....
We'll keep watching the mail and keeping the world posted.
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