Small Business Adminstration Katrina FAIL.

[KamaAina]

With the fifth "Katrinaversary" at hand, the Gulf Coast will magically reappear in the M$M, just for a week or so. :eyes:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100824/ap_on_bi_ge/us_katrina_money

As a loan officer for a federal agency that was supposed to help homeowners and businesses get back on their feet, he had high expectations he could make a difference. But he recalls how he was forced to turn away many qualified applicants because of what he says was pressure from his supervisors to close files quickly....

• Country clubs, yacht clubs, exclusive private schools and megachurches received millions in loans from the agency founded in 1953 with a mission to "aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns." Some of the more substantial operations rebuilt bigger and better, often contradicting SBA rules that say damaged buildings should be repaired only to their original state.

• Homeowners and businesses in higher-income areas were more likely to get a loan than those in lower-income areas, according to AP's analysis of SBA data by ZIP code. "The truth is that only the wealthy moved through the system easily," said Gale Martin, another former SBA loan officer. "If you were of a certain income, we funded you first, which is not the way the system is supposed to work." Martin contended that contrary to the SBA mission to especially help people who didn't always have the means to rebuild, applicants with higher credit scores and bigger incomes were cherry-picked for processing first because those files could be closed quicker.

• A disparity also existed along racial lines. For example, the predominantly white, wealthier Lakeview section of New Orleans had the city's highest ratio of approvals to rejections, while the lowest approval rates were in poorer, mostly black areas like the Lower 9th Ward. But a racial disparity was clear even among economically similar areas. SBA approved nearly 66 percent of loan applications in a predominantly white part of suburban St. Bernard Parish but approved only 42.1 percent in a predominantly black, adjacent section of eastern New Orleans with comparable median household income. SBA officials said they don't collect information about race on loan applications, but try to reach out to applicants in poor neighborhoods. Civil rights leaders say the agency hasn't done enough to help.

Heckuvajob, Bushies! :grr: :banghead: