Lawsuit Filed to Force FEMA to Continue (NOLA evacuee) Housing Vouchers

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Lawsuit Is Filed to Force FEMA to Continue Housing Vouchers
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: May 20, 2006

Lawyers for New Orleans evacuees filed suit in Houston yesterday, asking a federal court to stop the Federal Emergency Management Agency from ending housing benefits for tens of thousands of people who fled the flooding of Hurricane Katrina. The evacuees had been issued 12-month housing vouchers by local governments but are now being told by FEMA that they must pay rent or leave.

The class-action suit, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, says the agency has made "arbitrary, inconsistent and inequitable housing decisions without using any ascertainable standards" and describes the situation of several plaintiffs who, it contends, received vague or contradictory letters from FEMA or were denied further housing assistance for false reasons....

***

The vouchers provided, in most cases, one year of housing and utilities to about 55,000 families, and were issued by Houston and other cities with the understanding that FEMA would reimburse them. Last month, agency officials said that nearly a third of the families — some 8,000 in Houston alone — were ineligible for such assistance.

But the mayor of Houston, Bill White, said many of the ineligibility rulings from FEMA were wrong. Some evacuees were told that their homes in New Orleans had not been damaged badly enough to qualify for assistance: that someone else in their household had already qualified for assistance elsewhere; that they failed to appear in person for an inspection of their home; or that their housing assistance had been withdrawn because a signature was missing from their paperwork.

Some were even told that they were not eligible for housing assistance because they had received a voucher, though the vouchers were being discontinued....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/us/20vouchers.html?_r=1&oref=login