Gulf Coast towns closing trailer parks

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: UPI

PASCAGOULA, Miss., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Cities and towns along the U.S. Gulf Coast are closing impromptu trailer parks housing nearly 65,000 families left homeless after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"It's an act of tough love," Pascagoula, Miss. Mayor Matthew Avara told USA Today in a story published Friday.

"We don't want to put any unneeded hardship on any of our people," Avara said, "but at the same time, we've got to move forward, and the way to move forward is to close down these parks."

Homeowners from Alabama to Texas must show progress in rebuilding or get rid of the trailers, issued as temporary housing by the Federal Emergency Management Administration, say local and state authorities.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/09/28/gulf_coast_towns_closing_trailer_parks/2929/

[hobbit709]

1. Hard to show progress in rebuilding

When the money from the government and the insurance companies is not forthcoming.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. The reasons they cite are asinine

Officials trying to get rid of them cite complaints of crime in trailer parks. They say the trailers are unsafe in bad weather and stand in the way of recovery.

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070928/NEWS/70928014


What genius came up with the notion that making people homeless, rather than living in FEMA trailers, would reduce crime and make said people more safe in bad weather?

Better yet, who is stupid enough to buy that load of BS?

[RushIsRot]

3. Well, yeah. The assets will be needed soon to spread the war to

Iran.

[uppityperson]

4. "tough love"?!?! WTF? How about housing and cutting red tape so they CAN rebuild?

"Advocates for those living in the trailers say housing remains in short supply and rebuilding efforts continue to be bogged down by state and federal bureaucracy."

If you don't have a place to live, and don't have a job, or money to support yourself while you rebuild, IF you've managed to get through the rebuilding red tape, how the hell are you supposed to?

k&r if it isn't obvious.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. It would appear they're supposed to become homeless

After all, these people a laying up in FEMA trailers and disfiguring the landscape with their very presence.

When they become homeless they had better have the good taste to drift away and be invisible.

[pitohui]

10. well there is certainly no shortage of jobs, there is a labor shortage

anyone who is not working who wants a job in southeast louisiana must have a pretty serious disability or disqualification

if you don't have a job at this point, you need to accept that you are too disabled or too elderly to work and look for other answers

people who are severely disabled/elderly should certainly not be encouraged to live in a trailer in a hurricane prone area where they will need to evacuate, in some areas, those trailers must be evacuated even for a tropical storm

[uppityperson]

5. Kick and looking for recs.

[tom_paine]

6. How about showing that "tough love" to those theivin' Bushie Contractors

I'll bet the stolen loot flowing out of the Gulf Coast from these Bushie Contracts given without oversight to Bushie Contractors is at Saudi Arabian levels (20-40%, I would guess, is stolen nowadays and in various ways).

[CountAllVotes]

8. K&R

:dem: :kick:

[pitohui]

9. well you can argue both sides of this -- VERY slow progress in parts of louisiana

it has been two years and the situation has changed

instead of a heavily inflated housing market where it was impossible to rent or buy a home because of exploding prices after katrina, then we have a slowly collapsing housing market, instead of encouraging people to remain in hurricane prone areas, then there should be incentives to get some of them to move to some of this becoming-affordable property inland

example -- where you could not get a house in jackson, ms in october 2005 except if you paid crazy over the market prices, now there are plenty of them on the market many "reduced"

it is not necessarily bad to discourage people from remaining on vulnerable coastline and instead moving inland to some of the housing that is now becoming available in safer parts of the country

people who have the very least in the way of financial resources are the very people who should be discouraged from living in trailers in hurricane prone regions for the simple reason that in some areas if you live in a trailer you are supposed to evacuate every time there is a tropical storm coming, much less a full blown hurricane, and people just won't do that for financial reasons or because it becomes a repeat hassle, so inevitably by encouraging people to remain in trailers near the coasts is a guarantee that people will be kept in harm's way

either we believe in global climate change and the atlantic hurricane cycle or we don't

personally i'm a believer, and it's too bad we don't have the courage to have a humane public policy that encourages people to move to higher ground

there is no one on either side of the aisle who has a bit of courage to make tough choices or unpopular decisions -- keeping people in trailers is a terrible decision, clearly, making them homeless is equally terrible -- there should have been other answers way before now

[Megahurtz]

11. "Tough Love"

How dare they use that phony line! :grr: They don't love these people, they never did!

They would probably rather close down the Parks so they could build Million Dollar Homes
and Resorts just for more $$$$$$$$$$$$. As if that isn't obvious.

[Jazzgirl]

12. Another K&R.

This is a travesty!