Two Views . . .
November 17, 2005
FEMA is cutting aid for hurricane evacuees staying in hotels and motels. Up to this point, they have been paying the bills on top of providing further monetary support. This aid is being cut, from my understanding, rather abruptly and right before the holidays. Here are two very different takes on the situation – the first is off of BBC; the second is an e-mail we received at school today. Thoughts?
One View:
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), in charge of the relief effort, has paid evacuees some $274m (£159m) since hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Almost 54,000 families are still living in hotels and motels in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.
Fema wants people to move to temporary accommodation before finding new homes.
"There are still too many people living in hotel rooms, and we want to help them get into longer-term homes before the holidays," said David Paulson, acting director of Fema.
"Those affected by the storms should have the opportunity to become self-reliant again and reclaim some normalcy in their lives."
From 1 December, most families staying in hotels will either have to pay the bills themselves or cover the costs with Fema housing aid."
Second View:
"If you have seen the headlines today you know that FEMA will end the hotel voucher program on December 1. This means that for the tens of thousands of evacuees still in hotels, many of them will be homeless in two weeks. Most were told (as we were) that they needed to find housing by the end of the year. Last night the statement was issued by FEMA that in two weeks, they will stop paying….right in time for the holidays. Many folks are still waiting on their first or second FEMA check to arrive and are waiting penniless in their hotels for assistance to arrive.
This is an emergency. We are already receiving calls from panicking evacuees and many more will call when the word gets out. FEMA is trying to put a flyer notifying evacuees of the new deadline under their hotel doors today or tomorrow. If we do not help people get into permanent housing they will be back into shelters. They are tired and many feel depressed and helpless. We need to make sure they do not end up back at the shelters."
Posted in uncategorized by Sarah
StCasserole said:
November 24th, 2005 at 10:24 pm
It may seem that FEMA has paid for evacuees to stay in motels long enough. However, if you’ve seen the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana, you know that building codes aren’t up yet, permits to rebuild aren’t being pulled as yet, many areas don’t have electricity or water and so on. If you lost you home, you could put up a camping tent as many have done here. Cold weather makes it a bit uncomfortable. If you are waiting for a FEMA trailer, you may or may not receive one anytime soon. I don’t know what you do if you lived in an apartment building that blew away. Do you put your FEMA trailer on the slab of the apartment property or in the parking lot of an apartment you no longer rent?
Lots of problems still. The world has moved on but people down here are in misery.