Hurricane victims losing hotel rooms

[Caution]

NEW ORLEANS --Twelve thousand families left homeless by hurricanes Katrina and Rita will lose their federally funded hotel privileges Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Saturday.

This will be the second wave of evacuees weaned off the federally-sponsored hotel stays within two weeks. Last week, the occupants of roughly 4,500 rooms lost FEMA funding for failing to register with the agency.

FEMA said it would continue to pay for families in 5,000 hotel rooms across the country.

Of those departing on Monday, FEMA officials said 10,500 families, or 88 percent, have received rent-assistance checks from the agency, said Libby Turner, FEMA's transitional housing director. The cash can be used to pay for an apartment or to continue their hotel stays. It can also be put toward fixing their ruined homes.
SNIP

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/11/katrina_families_to_lose_hotel_privileges/

[G2099]

1. i suppose they will have to live and sleep on the street

while billions of american tax dollars are sent to other nations . . . and the beat goes on 24 hours a day . . .

[boobooday]

2. Meanwhile, back in Arkansas

There are thousands of manufactured homes, rotting in a cow pasture. They were originally intended for Katrina victims -- another example of the "can-don't" spirit of our current regime.

Bush is perfectly willing to overrule the constitution when it suits him, but he won't cut through FEMA red tape and other regulations to get this housing to people who need it.

[rodeodance]

3. there is no Fed. poliitcal will to help these displaced families.

-- another example of the "can-don't" spirit of our current regime.

[Army]

4. Not Kicking Them Out

Because they can continue to pay for the rooms themselves, the deadline is not "the equivalent of an eviction," she said. "This is just about the billing of the room -- it will no longer be billed to FEMA."


I don't know, I don't think they deserve rent free housing for the rest of their lives. On a case by case basis, if a tornado knocks down your Iowa farm house, you don't get free lodging from the government, so this doesn't really hurt my feelings.

[Akoto]

5. It may not hurt your feelings, but ...

You apparently have no idea of what disarray a situation like this can put your life into. I lost my house in hurricane Jeanne. I'd lived there all of my life, and suddenly my family was homeless. Our paychecks barely allowed us to make ends meet as it was, moreso since the decline of the economy. Living in a hotel room out of our own pockets would not have been an option.

We were fortunate in that our insurance company reached us in fairly short order. However, we still had to live with an elderly relative who had enough space for us. That lasted for months, because every hotel room was filled, every house was rented and every long-term shelter was packed. Finally, an old acquaintance of ours met up with us and offered to rent us his old house. We're still living there, because contractors were so overloaded that it would've taken months for an *inspection* of our house, much less repairs.

Finally, we sold the ruins and our property to an investor, and we bought a much smaller house up north. We're moving soon because we can no longer afford the rent here, which was partially paid for through the money we'd gotten from the house.

Circumstances came together and allowed us to survive with a roof over our heads. Many people aren't so lucky.

[strategery blunder]

6. There's a big difference between a tornado in IA and the destruction

wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

In the case of your tornado scenario, the homeowners' insurance companies will only have a handful of claims to process, and they will be able to do it reasonably quickly. People would be able to get on with their lives after maybe a month or two.

In the case of the destruction of hundreds of miles of coast, including a major city, insurance companies, contractors, assessors, et cetera would be completely swamped (no pun intended). Rebuilding that could be done in six months in Iowa will take years to complete on the Gulf Coast, simply because of the difference in the scale of the damage, damage that is several orders of magnitude greater.

Of course, it doesn't exactly help things along when FEMA drags its feet and no one in power seems to care...

[strategery blunder]

7. Kick

:kick:

[Mnemosyne]

8. .

[GoddessOfGuinness]

9. Why in hell haven't they constructed CCC style

camps? It helped people before...

[zann725]

10. "Rent assistance" checks? Welfare, you mean? Betting it's not a cent more

And THAT won't pay 'rent' for anyone, anywhere...unless there's 10 or more sharing one room.

But as Babs Bush said (last time she was last seen), "Most of them weren't that well off. This is better for them."