Struggle to repair New Orleans homes is compounded by fraud

Bloodsucking Contractors leave with checks in hand and work unfinished

NEW ORLEANS — Herreast Harrison wanted to rebuild after Katrina and thought she did everything right: She hired a contractor who seemed kind and listened to Christian music on the job. Months later, she said, he pocketed $57,000 and walked off with work undone, leaving a mess behind.

Harrison said it took thousands more to put things straight.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina, complaints about contractors continue, swamping legal aid attorneys and watchdog groups alike. Victims are left coping with shoddy work, incomplete work and sometimes outright fraud.

"It seems like it's going on and on," said Cynthia Albert, a spokeswoman for the local Better Business Bureau.

Katrina, which pummeled southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, destroyed or damaged most of the occupied housing in New Orleans in August 2005. Long after the floodwaters receded, ravaged neighborhoods provided ample opportunity for shady operators to make a fast buck off desperate people.


Thousands of complaints
In New Orleans, vast swaths of some neighborhoods are still devastated. A recent count put the number of federally issued trailers here at nearly 3,000, most outside homes people are trying to rebuild.

By one estimate, for every licensed contractor working in the state there are five who aren't licensed. Thousands of complaints have been filed, and hundreds of criminal investigations have been conducted across the Gulf Coast.

Many wind up as civil matters. All too often in such cases, neither the homeowner nor the contractor has left a paper trail of what is expected and delivered.

"The one message I'd like to leave with the public is, 'Please do your homework before you hire somebody' and 'Please hire a licensed contractor,' " said Paulette Holahan, chief of screening for the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office.

Asked if the total amount residents could have been bilked out of runs into the millions, she answered: "Collectively? Easily."

After Katrina, there were waves of complaints as homeowners, flush with insurance proceeds, turned to workers who promised fast, cheap results. The volume of work at hand kept legitimate contractors busy but also offered easy pickings for scam artists.


Few options for victims
Some, lawyers said, were fly-by-night outfits whose operators could leave the area or the state after getting money upfront for work they never did. Lawyers and watchdogs also suspect there have been contractors who have been overwhelmed by the low-bid work they took and wound up leaving houses unfinished.

Some homeowners, after the storm and fighting contractors, have little fight left for court. And even if they do, it can be difficult to track down bad contractors.

The state licensing board deals with complaints about unlicensed work, not damages or blame, and fines it levies go toward a contractor education campaign. There is no reimbursement fund for victims, who's recourse often is the courts.

In spite of having 25 investigators, "we don't have ... the foot soldiers or the strength to really offset the tide," said Charles Marceaux, the board's former executive director.

Continued>>>
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5965738.html