MSNBC LBN: Judge won't make FEMA keep paying for Katrina hotels

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Breaking News > Judge won't make FEMA keep paying for Katrina hotels. Details soon.

more details:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11324550/

Hurricane victims in hotels lose battle
Judge denies appeal to make FEMA continue paying bills directly

NEW ORLEANS - A judge denied a last-minute request Monday that would have forced the federal government to continue paying directly for hotel rooms for 12,000 families made homeless by last year’s hurricanes.

FEMA has promised the evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita that they will still receive federal assistance that they can use toward hotel stays or fixing their ruined homes, although FEMA will no longer pay for the hotels directly after Monday.

Attorneys for the evacuees tried unsuccessfully to get U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval to issue a temporary restraining order. The lawyers argued the forthcoming money from FEMA won’t be enough for reasonable living accommodations or for continued hotel stays.

[Beetwasher]

1. You're On Your Own, Suckers

Your fault for being poor. :sarcasm:

[jobycom]

7. Not just "poor" people...

(I got the sarcasm, this is just carrying your comment further, not disagreeing with it).

People lost their homes and businesses and then found out insurance wouldn't cover a lick of it because they had built outside of flood plains and didn't have flood insurance. So people who were once comfortable, even middle class, are now homeless, jobless, possessionless, and still in debt for houses and businesses that are just concrete slabs. Their savings are dwindling or gone by now.

The Republicans always preach that people should rely on themselves instead of government, and this is their chance to force people to do that. They just sort of overlook the fact that we all paid taxes expecting government to be prepared for situations like this, so they are stealing the money we paid in good faith. If they want to change the function of government they should pass laws to do it, not rob the treasury while refusing to fulfill government's legal obligations.

And SHAME on the judge who made this ruling. May he one day have to rely on BushCo and the Bloodbath Republicans for his well being. No, then again, I don't wish that on anyone.

[Lochloosa]

12. Good post jobycom. What a lot of people do not understand

is that 87% of the people in NO that are now homeless OWNED their homes. These were not just poor renters, they were the middle class neiborhoods of a Major City of the United States.

I hate these people!

[jobycom]

13. Exactly. I tried to explain that a few times. Even in the Ninth and Lower

Ninth, where the media was so horrified by the "poverty," a lot of people owned their homes. They were not exactly poor. The media just equates "black" with "poor" too often.

And the area around 17th Street was a middle class to upper middle class neighborhood. It's just sitting empty, waiting for the federal government to fulfill the promises BushCo made.

I hate them, too. I hated them for Iraq, and even Afghanistan, and still do, but it's even more personal now.

To be fair to the judge, it isn't his fault that FEMA is not following through on their legal obligations, but he's still letting them off too easily.

[LisaM]

2. What about the Red Cross?

I dontated to them multiple times (because it was generally the only charity people were collecting for where I was; I also gave money to animal rescue groups.)

[Coastie for Truth]

5. After the initial storm - the Red Cross is a network of

volunteers with Rolodexes and favors to call in.

Generally, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army can "refer" people and help them with the paper work - and security deposits and rent until Section VIII vouchers come in.

As a result of some medical issues I do not go out "in the field" any more ( :cry: - I really miss the contact with the clients) - I audit the vouchers and debit cards -- and the "cash burn rate" is high

[951-Riverside]

11. The Red Cross is everywhere....

except where they are needed.

This was true during Katrina flooding in New Orleans.

[Bridget Burke]

3. The main story on that page: "Katrina Fraud, Waste...

& Dozens of Arrests"

WASHINGTON - The scope of fraud and waste tied to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts widened Monday, as officials announced charges against 212 people and investigators questioned decisions ranging from $438-a-day lodging to unoccupied mobile homes that are now sinking in mud.

Two reports released by the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department’s office of inspector general detail a series of accounting flaws, fraud or mismanagement in their initial review of how $85 billion in federal aid is being spent.

In the case of mobile homes, the Homeland Security audit found that FEMA bought 26,000 for $900 million only to find its own regulations prohibit using them in flood plains.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11326973/

If FEMA had done its job, nobody would still be in the hotels. People would have better places to stay.

Of course, if the government had done its job concerning levee maintenance & restoration of wetlands--fewer people would have lost their homes in NOLA.

[cal04]

4. Judge: FEMA Can Halt Direct Hotel Payments

A judge on Monday turned aside a last-minute attempt to force the federal government to continue paying directly for hotel rooms of 12,000 families made homeless by last year's hurricanes. The Federal Emergency Management Agencyhas promised evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita they will still receive federal assistance that they can use toward hotel stays or fixing their ruined homes, though FEMA will no longer pay for the hotels directly after Monday.

Attorneys for the evacuees tried unsuccessfully to get U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval to issue a temporary restraining order aimed at forcing FEMA to continue the direct hotel payments. The lawyers argued the forthcoming money from FEMA will not be enough for reasonable living accomodations or for continued hotel stays.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060213/ap_on_re_us/katrina_evacuees_hotels_9
:mad:
Fema screws up and people have to pay.

[Catherine Vincent]

6. The judge must be a republican.

[jobycom]

8. Apparently, Republicans hate him passionately.

I just googled him, and there are several pages calling for his impeachment for earlier extending FEMA's obligation to pay for the hotel rooms. He's also shot down the Louisiana "Choose life" license tag and ruled in favor of online gambling.

Neal Boortz calls him a "leftist Clinton appointee," which means nothing except that he can read and write, so he's beyond Boortz's comprehension.

[nofurylike]

9. i despise.... aaaaaiiiieee!!!!! K&R!

[xchrom]

10. and the hammer drops on those who

can least afford it.

with this admin -- who can be surprised -- the best i hope for is that this raises the general pissed offness level around the country.

[bucklebone]

16. I hate to see people dumped in the street...

However, there is an insurance term called "malingering" which you see in reference to disability insurance. And what creates malingering is that you make someone so comfortable while they are collecting benefits, that there is no reason for them ever to want to get off of the benefits.

That's probably what is at play here. If you give people an open-ended stay at a hotel, then they will probably take you up on it.

I know if it were me and my family, I would be out there doing what I could to peice my life back together.

I know many don't have that luxury (single-parent, kids, no job, etc.) but maybe there is a governmental safety net that could house, clothe and feed a family before they end up in the street.

[xchrom]

18. what they want is to go home.

why didn't the federal government take into account that they were doing a lousy job of taking care of that?

imagine being thousands of miles from your home -- someplace you do not want to be -- living in accomadations that are not yours -- and being told every month that you cannot go home?

very easy to call people ''maligering'' if you don't have to live in their hotel room.

this is february -- and mississippi still hasn't received the assistance they need for their gulf coast -- so we should fire everyone fucking up their lives?

[Maddy McCall]

20. What an offensive post. I just can't begin to tell you how mistaken you..

are.

Katrina victims are not staying in hotel rooms because they like it. They are staying in hotel rooms because they have NO WHERE ELSE TO GO.

Your post is basically the same as saying (erroneously) that "welfare queens" stay on welfare because it's such a good deal that they have no reason to get off of welfare.

I'm a single-mom Katrina victim. I've been in the midst of the wreckage, although it's not as bad in my area as it is in NOLA and on the MS Gulf Coast. Please tell me more about this "governmental safety net that could house, clothe and feed a family before they end up on the street." I may need your knowledge as I encounter the many people in my area who lost their homes and jobs, who are still "malingering" in hotels here.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

14. Let's call ma-barker-bush. I'm sure she would have plenty of

suggestions about what to do with them. She was quick to comment on their great good fortune right after the hurricane.

[Rockholm]

15. Damn those activist judges.

[cal04]

17. Appointed by Clinton :(

PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES TWO U. S. DISTRICT JUDGES
President Clinton today announced two nominees to serve on the U. S.
District Court: Stanwood R. Duval, Jr. for the Eastern District of
Louisiana and Catherine D. Perry for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Stanwood R. Duval, Jr., 52, has been with the Houma, Louisiana law firm
of Duval, Funderburk, Sundbery & Lovell as an associate and a partner
since 1966. He has also served as Parish Attorney for Terrebone Parish
Consolidated Government and as Assistant City Attorney for the City of
Houma. He earned both his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Louisiana State
University. Duval and his wife, Deborah Barnes Duval, have two children
and live in Houma, Louisiana.

[AzDar]

19. That's fine...They can finally go home to their Bush business-crony

no-bid-contract-reconstructed neighborhoods; the ones taxpayers have spent 100s of millions of dollars to repair and restore in the last few months, right?
Oh, yeah...I forgot.