Katrina/Rita: new contracting site & more

A new federal Web site opened this week, the Hurricane Contracting Information Center. It's introduced by the Sec'y of Commerce over here, and the HUD Katrina/Rita hurricane resource page is now linking to it.

Incidentally, the KDHAP interim operating regs are still on HUD's Public and Indian Housing sub-page, where they've been since October 4, but a reorganization of the hurricane resource page makes them a little bit harder to find by clicking through, so I'm just noting the change so nobody gets lost. Oddly also, the reorganized resource page (in the "General Information" column on the right) tells landlords and multifamily property owners to post their vacant units at Homeland Security's SWERN.Gov page -- although doubts have been raised about SWERN's effectiveness for small-scale offers of housing, and FEMA has finally started promoting the privately organized hurricanehousing.net site, which has been functioning as an alternative.

Of course tax credit landlords are required to list their vacant units at SWERN to qualify for the IRS' emergency income and non-transiency rule waivers, but if anyone knows of any indication that SWERN is now more effectively handling offers of single vacant apartments (as opposed to blocks of housing and other large-scale resources) please do let us know in comments here.