HIS_RFI_04282022.docx

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION/SOURCES SOUGHT – Housing Inspection Services Programs

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), on behalf of the Disaster Recovery Branch, has developed this Request for Information (RFI) to solicit market research information from the industry.

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY. It is not a Request for Proposal, a Request for Quotation, an Invitation for Bids, a Solicitation, or an indication the Government will contract for the items contained in the RFI. This RFI is part of a Government market research effort to determine the scope of industry capabilities and interest and will be treated as information only. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responses to this RFI are strictly voluntary and the Government will not pay respondents for information provided in response to this RFI. Responses to this RFI will not be returned and respondents will not be notified of the result of the review. If a Solicitation is issued, it will be announced on the Official U.S. Government Website: www.SAM.gov, at a later date, and all interested parties must respond to that Solicitation announcement separately from any response to this announcement. This RFI does not restrict the Government's acquisition approach on a future Solicitation.

NO PROPOSALS ARE BEING REQUESTED OR ACCEPTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS SYNOPSIS AND NO CONTRACT SHALL BE AWARDED AS A RESULT OF THIS RFI.

No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this RFI or any follow up information requests.

The purpose of this RFI is to receive industry comments on the draft Performance Work Statement including, but not limited to, technical questions and comments, contract pricing considerations, contract type, business size of capable and interested companies, and the most applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code for the competitively contracted services for the Inspection Services requirement.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/FEMA’s mission is helping people before, during, and after disasters. One of FEMA’s responsibilities is to ensure the effectiveness of emergency response personnel in responding to emergencies and disasters. Types of disasters and emergencies that could happen in the continental United States and locations outside the continental United States include, but are not limited to, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, cyclones, tornadoes, blizzards, acts of terrorism, tsunamis, and avalanches.

FEMA’s Housing Inspection Service division contracts with industry partners to provide the government services to conduct residential structural damage and personal loss evaluations of citizen survivor residences sustained through manmade and natural events as requested through Presidential Declarations. FEMA currently employs a government workforce of roughly 100 inspectors who conduct initial damage evaluations immediately after disaster declaration and at the closure of each event. Statistically, this staff has satisfied the assessment of nearly eighty percent (80%) of declared events representing twenty percent (20%) of returned inspections. Conversely, 20% of declared events represents 80% of all inspections conducted, typically occurring during hurricane season or through no-notice events such as large-scale earthquakes.

The requirement to mobilize a large number of inspectors immediately following a Presidential Declaration has historically been a daunting task. While FEMA understands this challenge, the timely assessment of residential damages remains paramount to the Individual Assistance program to avoid prolonged survivor displacement and the utilization of emergency resources.

The PWS performance model faces three challenges for the contracted services to overcome. The first is a robust steady state cadre to augment FEMA’s staff when conducting twenty percent (20%) of disaster activity. The second conditional challenge is to have the contract inspector cadre conduct inspections for a typical hurricane season returning up to 150,000 inspections in 60 days. The third is deemed catastrophic in nature whereby the volume of work exceeds 150,000 inspections and to be returned within 60 days.

Conditions within this scope of work:

Historically FEMA has issued multiple vendor awards for this service. Future procurement of these services may result in either multiple-award or single-award contracts.

FEMA will furnish laptops for desktop reviews and disaster related administrative functions, tablets to conduct inspections (current use of iPads), software to include a damage assessment application (Automated Construction Estimator - ACE) and review and assignment capability through the National Emergency Management Information System – NEMIS) application, associated licensing, and MS Suite applications.

Vendors are currently unable to use any automated technology features that could connect with FEMA systems due to FEMA IT compliance. FEMA’s Technology Division has been updating FEMA’s inspection software to accommodate an iOS platform along with user alerts for damage level inspections. The removal of automated systems requires the vendor to be reliant on staff to perform repetitive functions.

Future HIS procurements may permit the use of ATOs (Authority to Operate), however no such authority has previously been achieved and the minimum time for approval is expected to exceed 12 months. Therefore, it is anticipated that an ATO will be difficult to obtain within the initial operational period, and performance of these services under a future contract should not be dependent upon approval of an ATO.

FEMA will provide vendor with access to data containing applicant personal identifying information (PII) and recorded damage information through a secure portal for use on Government Furnished Equipment (GFE). Certain summary information that does not contain PII, such as the count of returned inspections by a specific inspector, may be extracted into contractor systems for analysis and use. No third party or vendor provided software will be permitted to be used on a FEMA government system during performance of these services.

FEMA’s in-house inspector cadre has begun to work the majority of smaller events, especially those less than 5,000 inspections (but this capability may extend up to 10,000 inspections). It is anticipated that future HIS procurements will detail a 15/85 split of work (FEMA/Contractor) where the majority of work will likely occur during the fall hurricane season. Prior to the hurricane season it is expected that the contracted inspectors will have completed low amounts of inspections for other disasters prior to the elevated activity.

The typical return rate for an inspector’s daily production for onsite inspections is six per day.

The following chart displays a five-year inspection assignment history.

Five-year historic issuance of inspections

The North American Industry Classification System code is 541350. The Small Business Size Standard for this action is $8.0 million. Comment by Andargatchew, Dagmawi: Jason, can you plz verify the current size standard? The 2019 published data was the latest one I could find, so not sure if the dollar amount has changed.

The Government requests that respondents offer their experience and recommendations for the following questions and issues related to the draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) requirements. The Government recommends that the respondent first review the draft PWS to gain better insight regarding the questions below.

1. Is the draft PWS clear, concise, and/or sufficient for an interested party to develop and submit a comprehensive proposal in response to a solicitation?

2. If the draft PWS is not clear, concise and/or sufficient to communicate a coherent requirement, then what clarifications, modifications or alterations would you suggest to allow the draft PWS to be more articulate?

3. Describe your company’s ability to establish and maintain an inspector cadre to meet FEMA’s contractual requirements.

a. Include capability to increase staff for seasonal elevated activity.

b. Include capability to efficiently and effectively train requisite staff and track competence.

c. Include capability to rapidly incorporate and communicate/distribute inspection scope/guidance changes to ensure continuity.

d. Include capability/systems providing for rapid deployment and tracking of deployed and available resources.

4. Does your company have the sole capacity to deliver the services as outlined in the draft PWS or would you require partnership with another entity? And if another entity is required, what would that partnership look like, i.e., joint venture, teaming agreement, or prime/subcontractor arrangement?

a. Do you have any existing partnership arrangements?

5. Does your company have the capacity to deliver the services as outlined in the draft PWS not only for a single task order, but for multiple, simultaneous (or nearly simultaneous) task orders? Briefly describe your company’s capabilities?

6. Please describe your company’s capabilities to support the needs of the Government requirements as detailed in the draft PWS at other than Continental United States (OCONUS) locations, such as Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, and American Samoa.

7. Discuss any concerns, comments, or recommendations your company may have with the attached draft PWS.

a. Include concerns/risks regarding feasibility of any particular requirements, specifying perceived constraints and providing proposed revision(s)/condition(s) that would make requirement consistently achievable.

No inquiries will be answered at this time. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the market research. Again, this document is merely for market research and planning purposes only and does not constitute a commitment, implied, or otherwise, that a procurement action will be issued, nor will the Government pay or reimburse for information solicited or produced and may not be construed as a commitment by the Government to enter into a contract. In the event a solicitation is developed, it will be assigned a formal RFP number and the announcement will be published on www.SAM.gov.

Vendor comments may be incorporated and used to develop the final PWS as well as the solicitation.

Responders to this RFI will not automatically be notified of any potential solicitation; therefore interested parties should be vigilant in looking for, and must respond to, the official solicitation announcement when it is posted on .

Submissions must be submitted electronically as a Microsoft Word or an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF); no other document format or type will be accepted. It is important to note there is a system wide size limitation on e-mail attachments of 5MB per e-mail message. It is highly recommended that respondents check the total size of the response before sending and, if necessary, submit responses on sequential e-mails.

All responses to the RFI shall be submitted by email to Jason Morgan, Contracting Officer, DHS/FEMA. E-mail address: Jason.Morgan@fema.dhs.gov no later than May 13, 2022 at 5 PM EST.