The Louisiana Recovery Authority says the defective Chinese dry wall is too much for the state to handle.
The legislature set aside $5 million to help affected homeowners but now lawmakers are realizing that's not even close to what's needed.
The LRA hoped to pass a resolution Tuesday to move forward the process of remediating dry wall problems, but because there are so many unanswered questions, that action was pushed back for a month.
The LRA estimates three to four-thousand Louisiana homes have tainted Chinese drywall and the push is on to help those homeowners.
"We'll try to get that $5 million out pretty quick - in the next 60 days. I think we can do that," said LRA Executive Director Paul Rainwater.
The legislature allocated that amount for drywall remediation during the last session but that's just a small piece of what it could cost to fix the problem.
"At the time we thought it was a relatively small problem. It's not. It's obviously a national problem and something the federal government should be looking at. It's not only happening in recovery homes but it happened in new construction homes here in Baton Rouge," said House Speaker Jim Tucker.
Solving the state's defective drywall issues has proven to be complicated. There are many unanswered questions, including how to determine who is eligible for help.
"You have to prove to the federal government that it is actually a Chinese drywall problem and that's very frustrating for people but it's just the reality of what we have to kind of have to work through," said Rainwater.
At this point it looks like the $5 million will be put into the Road Home program fund and distributed from there, but the LRA says you don't have to be a road home recipient to apply for help.
Members of the LRA, along with State Senator Julie Quinn will be in Washington next week trying to get help from the federal government.
"The LRA board voted today to direct our staff to put together a new action plan, which will be published for public comment for 10 days and then go back to the LRA board for its approval. One option on the table is a discussion of putting $5 million for aiding homeowners with contaminated drywall problems in the Road Home program," said LRA spokeswoman Christina Stephens.
If homeowners would like to get more information, they can contact the LRA by phone at 225.342.1700, by e-mail at
info@louisianarecoveryauthority.org, or by visiting
http://www.lra.louisiana.gov/
