Emergency lodging assistance from Corporate Lodging Consultants | 02.14.2008 | 09:04:53 | Views: 5972 | ID: February 14 '08: Corporate Lodging Consultants provides first responders a place to stay when a disaster strikes by working with local, state and federal emergency management officials. Through its Emergency Lodging Assistance program, the company can provide "lodging reimbursement for pre-qualified individuals from designated disaster areas," the company's website said. The ELA program is funded through FEMA and administered by CLC. CLC currently has established relationships with "nearly 15,000 hotel properties throughout North America." After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September 2005 respectively, FEMA was working with the Red Cross through the Special Transient Accommodations Program. However, the program "was administered by a web of state governments, local municipalities, housing authorities and charitable organizations," a FEMA CLC case study wrote. "While well-meaning, these governmental entities lacked the payment processing expertise to pay landlords on a timely basis, collect adequate data to track the program and implement audit procedures to prevent fraud," the case study continued. Once FEMA began its cooperation with CLC, officials were able to administer more than $80 million in "individual rental assistance payments to 7,000 landlords for 30,000 apartments." Overall, CLC was able to process rooms for more than 700,000 refugees for a total of four million room nights after both hurricanes.
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