Attachment 1-SOW.pdf

US Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Statement of Work

USDA FS, Southern Research Station

Forestry Sciences Lab – RWU 4952

320 E Green Street

Athens, GA 30602

Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief

Funding in Communities Impacted by Natural Disaster

Project start date: March 1, 2026

Contents Project

General Information

1.0 Scope of Work

2.0 Background

Contractor Requirements

3.0 Technical Requirements /Tasks

4.0 Government Furnished

5.0 Deliverables / Schedule. Timely submission of deliverables is essential to successfully completing this requirement. Please see the table below

6.0 Travel

7.0 Contractor’s Key Personnel

8.0 Security Requirements

9.0 Data Rights

10.0 Section 508 – Electronic and Information Technology Standards

Project Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief Funding in Communities Impacted by Natural Disaster

General Information

1.0 Scope of Work

This contract supports research examining the distribution of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR) to communities, and ultimately to non-industrial, private property owners. Real property owners with informal homeownership (also called heirs’ property) may be constrained in their ability to access CDBG-DR funding because these owners cannot demonstrate ownership in their property. Informally owned property includes homes/land for which there are no formal documents (i.e., deeds, titles) in the current owners’ name.

This informality severely curtails these owners’ ability to recover financially following traumatic, weather-related events or other natural disasters.

This contract will examine informal property ownership in four cities and surrounding counties impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in Fall 2024--Asheville, NC; Tampa, FL; Greenville, SC, and Atlanta, GA to:

1) Assess the number of informal properties in these cities and adjacent counties. This assessment will also include estimates of the number of forestland owners who hold property informally.

2) Categorize the various levels or types of informality, as informal ownership exists along a continuum from milder to more extreme forms.

3) Determine which kinds and costs of legal services would be required to formalize property titles for the different types of informally held property.

4) Identify those properties most likely to be eligible for CDBG-DR funding tied to Public Law 118- 158.

5) Trace CDBG-DR funding from HUD to state and local levels.

2.0 Background

Property owners experience damage to their real property following environmental perturbations, including felled trees resulting from strong storm events. To recover and rebuild from these events, most of these property owners will need financial assistance from either insurance or public sources, i.e., federal, state, or local governments. Both private and public providers require proof of undisputed, real property ownership in the form of a deed evidencing their ownership. However, real property owners who own their properties informally, that is, in situations when an owner’s name does not on the property title or other bona fide instrument proving ownership (because the owner received the property via default means of interstate succession) are not typically eligible to receive CDBG-DR funding.

For these informal owners of real estate to prove ownership, they will need a full title examination by real property attorneys to confirm who the present owners of the property are. This examination formalizes or regularizes informal property titles, which involves creating a new title or deed that explicitly lists current owners. Formal titles are essential for participation in capitalistic markets (e.g., credit, real estate, resource extraction) because this conversion conveys to creditors that both property owners and the associated physical property can be traced and verified. This verification plays a crucial role in creditors’ determination of whether they will extend credit to property owners. It also allows property owners access to government funding like CDBG-DR grants, again a key factor in post-disaster recovery. Thus, identifying constraints faced by individual property owners in their attempt to access public funding could help to stabilize communities over the longer term.

Contractor Requirements

3.0 Technical Requirements /Tasks

Phase I

For the four cities/counties impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton (Asheville, NC; Tampa, FL; and Greenville, SC; Atlanta, GA) in Fall 2024, the contractor will quantify the number of informally held real properties in the respective places, identify any geospatial concentrations of such properties in these cities/counties, and assess whether concentrations can be distinguished by the type of informality associated with these properties. The latter task will allow for an assessment of property “title health.”

The contractor will also examine property titles for three properties in each city/county to demonstrate how quickly sufficient title work can be completed to develop a legal opinion about the title and promulgate the documentation needed for owner participating in any disaster recovery program. This analysis is part of a larger disaster related research project the Southern Research Station (SRS-4952) proposes to conduct on the urban wood economy in each of the aforenamed cities/counties.

Specifically, the contractor will perform the following tasks:

3.1 Informal property Identification and Mapping

● Work interactively with SRS-4952 Forest Service research scientist to develop a database of informally owned, residential property parcels, derived from publicly available parcels or other property parcels accessed by the contractor or SRS-4952. This task will be completed for cities and counties that include Atlanta, GA, Asheville, NC, and Greenville, SC. This task is optional for Tampa, FL.

● Use any other appropriate data sources, in addition to parcel-level tax and ownership records to determine likely informal property.

● This determination will exclude multi-unit developments (e.g. condominiums) and properties with centralized disaster management organizations (e.g. Home Ownership Associations).

3.2 Title Complexity Stratification

Informal properties will be stratified in the following manner—

● Severe: Properties with 5–7 generations of ownership within the family or properties owned by very large families, which often require extensive family tree development and complex title (legal) work.

● Moderate: Properties with 3–4 generations of ownership within the family, requiring moderate effort to identify co-owners and clarify ownership.

● Low: Properties that have been recently inherited, typically involving 2–3 generations of ownership, and are more straightforward to document and resolve.

3.3 Visual Analysis and Mapping

● Produce geospatial heat maps showing concentrations of informal property in each city.

● Generate a separate visualization highlighting geographic clusters by estimated title complexity.

3.4 Title Work Demonstration

Select three representative informal property parcels per city/county (one per complexity category) and complete sample title work:

• Construct family trees

• Conduct title research

• Draft legal memos or opinions suitable for disaster recovery documentation

• Estimate time and cost required for each level of complexity

3.5 Research Contribution

• Meet regularly (timing to be determined) with US Forest Service Principal Investigator

(PI) and other members of the broader research team.

• Provide written content and data visualizations for the USFS research paper.

• Contribute findings on informal property density, legal barriers, and the potential for integrating timely title resolution into disaster preparedness strategies.

Phase II

3.6 Research Contribution

Research CDBG-DR funding at its source, HUD, to determine how HUD administers this aid to states and how the funding is ultimately accessed by property owners in the four city/county study areas. A key part of this analysis is to identify constraints heirs’ property owners may face in accessing this funding at the local level. This work will examine the flow of resources related to Public Law 118-158. Phase II is dependent upon additional funding.

• Trace the transmission of CDBG-DR funds from the federal to both the state and local levels

• Identify the requirements for both municipalities and landowners to receive this funding. “Tracing” funding means identification of administrative and bureaucratic levels and offices that deliver funding from federal resources.

4.0 Government Furnished

N/A

5.0 Deliverables / Schedule

Timely submission of deliverables is essential to successfully completing this requirement. Please see the table below.

*Customary progress payments will be used per FAR 32.501-1. Invoicing may occur no more than monthly. Percentages in above table represent the percentage of total contract value. Contract total % at each milestone will not be exceeded without acceptance of all associated deliverables.

6.0 Travel

If additional funding is secured, the contractor may travel to one relevant meeting and conference to deliver project results. The exact meeting title and locations cannot be determined at this time. Possible locations and dates include convenings at the Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis office in Knoxville, TN in Fall 2026; the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in spring or summer 2026; or at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, MA in winter 2027. Each meeting is expected to last 2 to 3 days.

Travel costs (i.e. lodging per diem, meals & incidental expenses (M&IE)) must be separately identified and submitted for approval. Travel and M&IE must be limited to rates established by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in the location where work is performed. Refer to GSA link below for per diem rates based on locations where work is performed.

https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates

7.0 Contractor’s Key Personnel

Team assigned to project shall have expertise in Geographic Information Systems and statistical analyses broadly, and prior work with and knowledge of natural resource management concepts and practices.

Project Administrator

The Project Administrator shall an employee of the prime contractor and be responsible for overseeing the key components of the analysis, including developing a plan of work for the data analyst to estimate

Delivery date Milestones & Deliverables Percent of project cost*

Within 6 months of project start

Informal Property Database for three or more cities 20%

Within 6 months of project start

Title Complexity Stratification 20%

Within 8 months of project start

Heat Maps (General + Complexity-based) 10%

Within 12 months of project start

Title Work Case Studies (12 total) 10%

Within 12 months of project start (pending additional funding)

Trace CDBG-DR funding from HUD to state and local levels 15%

As requested, finalized by project end

Written Contribution to USDA Forest Service Final Report and or research paper

10%

Final invoicing upon acceptance of final deliverable and full contract completion

15% https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates informal property and its concentration in the four cities/counties. The administrator will also use his or her expertise to perform title work and determine the degree of informality associated with identified properties.

Minimum Qualifications of Project administrator

1. Law degree from an accredited law school.

2. Minimum 5 years experience as a real property attorney.

3. Minimum 5 years experience with heirs’ property title clearance.

8.0 Security Requirements

All data collected shall be kept strictly confidential and made available only to the research team. No reporting of manuscripts or presentations shall be made without the consent of the Forest Service Principle Investigator.

9.0 Data Rights

The data shall be owned by the USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station.

10.0 Section 508 – Electronic and Information Technology Standards

N/A