Homeowners, FEMA at Odds Over Retrofitting

After the Northridge earthquake caused $35,000 worth of damage to her North Hills home, Gloria Van Gieson decided she was going to protect herself from such exorbitant damage in the future by seismically retrofitting her home.

She paid a contractor $1,800 to bolt her home to its foundation after being assured by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that it would pick up the tab under a special funding program.

But when the work was done, Van Gieson was astonished to learn that her application for reimbursement was rejected. The reason: FEMA inspectors said her house had already been bolted to the foundation before she hired a contractor.

“I never thought of crawling under my house myself to check,” she said.

Van Gieson is not alone. In the past few months, FEMA has rejected about 1,000 applications for retrofitting reimbursement, mostly because contractors had retrofitted homes that FEMA officials say already met seismic codes. In almost all cases, the work involved foundation bolting.

Most homeowners who paid about $2,000 for the work and were rejected have appealed to FEMA and have written their city, state and federal representatives for help.

In response to complaints from homeowners such as Van Gieson, Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Feuer is asking city officials to investigate possible fraud on the part of contractors.

“If fraud is involved, the appropriate investigative agencies must be asked to determine what can be done in terms of civil litigation or prosecution,” Feuer said in a motion that will be discussed today at a meeting of the council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Earthquake Recovery.

But getting to the bottom of the controversy may be a difficult proposition. The dispute has developed into an exercise in finger-pointing, with homeowners blaming FEMA and contractors, contractors blaming FEMA, and FEMA blaming contractors.

FEMA has so far paid out about $92.5 million to retrofit homes and businesses, and another $16 million to bolt down about 11,000 homes, according to FEMA officials. To qualify for the FEMA reimbursement program, a homeowner had to have at least $100 in earthquake damage and had to submit an application by July 17.

But according to some homeowners and others involved in the controversy, FEMA may have to share some of the blame for the dispute.

Some homeowners say FEMA sent mixed signals early in the funding program because it approved retrofitting work on some homes that had pre-existing bolts. As the July 17 deadline approached, they said FEMA began to restrict qualifications, thus rejecting more and more homeowners.

Makio Tomita, a Northridge homeowner, said a FEMA inspector came to his house before he hired a contractor and assured him that FEMA would pay for the retrofitting work, even though the home already had bolts in the foundation.

But after Tomita paid a contractor $2,900 for the retrofit job, FEMA rejected his application for reimbursement.

“To me it sounds like FEMA ran out of money and so now they are rejecting applications wholesale,” he said.

Itzcik Weinstein, who owns Weinstein Construction Co. in Sherman Oaks, said FEMA was unfair for rejecting applications on many of the homes his firm was hired to retrofit.

He said he was “shocked, irritated and upset” by the rejections and the suggestions that he and other contractors may be investigated for fraud.

Although Weinstein was not the only contractor to provide foundation bolting services, his company was one of several in the Valley that aggressively advertised for customers, even using telemarketing to tell homeowners about their services and FEMA’s promise to provide 100% reimbursement.

Weinstein said many of the hundreds of homes his firm worked on had pre-existing bolts in the foundation that did not meet FEMA guidelines. For that reason, he said, his workers installed a new set of bolts that met FEMA guidelines.

In many such cases, he said, FEMA paid for the work without question. “Many people got their money,” Weinstein said.

FEMA guidelines require that foundation bolts be no more than six feet apart and within 12 inches of any corner. But Weinstein said his firm found that pre-existing bolts in many foundations were spaced too far apart or did not meet other FEMA specifications.

FEMA officials disagree, saying the previous bolting did meet seismic codes. They have requested that the state attorney general’s office investigate contractors for possible fraud.

“It’s not reasonable for a contractor to crawl under a house, find a building that is up to code and charge the customer to bring it up to code,” said Leland Wilson, FEMA’s federal coordinating officer.

Wilson said FEMA began to reject many requests for retrofitting reimbursement late last year after the agency started to inspect work done by contractors and found that, in many cases, the retrofitting was not needed.

“The bolting is the only problem we are getting flak on,” he said, “and I really have to question [the contractors] on that.”

Caught in the middle are homeowners such as Van Gieson, who works as an international tour guide.

She believes the blame should be shared by FEMA and the contractors--in her case, Weinstein Construction.

“FEMA approved many other homes like mine,” Van Gieson said. “On the other hand, Weinstein comes along and doesn’t tell me that my house was already bolted.”

Van Gieson was so upset about being rejected by FEMA that she called together about 40 other homeowners from throughout the San Fernando Valley who had also been rejected to meet at her home to discuss strategy.

One of those attending the gathering was Louis Brandt, who said a Weinstein company worker told him that his North Hills house did not have any bolting at all. After paying Weinstein $1,890 to retrofit the house, FEMA rejected his application, saying his foundation already had bolts that met the seismic code.

“The bottom line is that Weinstein outright lied,” he said. “I can’t find too much to blame with FEMA.”

Weinstein denied that his workers could have lied to Brandt. “There is no way that any of my guys would say there are no bolts when there were,” he said.

On the other hand, Alma Patotzka, a North Hills resident who also attended the meeting, said she told a FEMA representative that her house already had bolts in the foundation and was told that the agency would nonetheless reimburse her for new retrofitting work.

But after the work was done, FEMA rejected her $2,740 application. “It was FEMA’s fault,” Patotzka said.

A Van Nuys contractor who did about 50 retrofitting jobs, of which five were rejected by FEMA for reimbursement, agreed with Weinstein that FEMA should share the blame for approving some homes that had pre-existing bolting but rejecting other, similar homes.

The contractor, who asked not to be identified, said he retrofitted three tract homes in Sherman Oaks, all built in the same year and with the same design. He said FEMA approved the reimbursement for two of the homes, rejecting the third, saying it had pre-existing bolts.

“FEMA never said anything about not paying for homes with pre-existing bolts on the other two,” he said.

Wilson acknowledged that there may have been some “possible miscommunications” between homeowners and FEMA representatives. But he said FEMA agents cannot guarantee that the agency will reimburse homeowners for a retrofitting job until an inspection of the house is done.

“Our operators on the help line cannot tell from over the phone if a home meets the code,” he said.

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Groundwork for Controversy

Some San Fernando Valley homeowners may have to shoulder the cost of what they thought was FEMA-approved seismic retrofitting done on their properties. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has rejected their applications for reimbursement, contending that the work was unecessary.

REDUNDANT WORK: FEMA claims that most of the homes involved already met seismic codes. The agency’s guidelines require that foundation bolts be no more than six feet apart and within 12 inches of any corner.

Source: Times Staff