Katrina victims will lose homes when FEMA ends temporary-housing efforts

[Robbien]

Source: Clarion Ledger

Joe Stevens used to be a commercial fisherman - until diabetes took his legs. He used to have a daughter - until her suicide left him caring for two of her three children. He used to have a house in the Lyman community - until a tornado spun from Hurricane Katrina took that too.

Stevens, 52, now is facing the loss of the mobile home he has been living in for the better part of two years. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is working to draw its emergency-housing program to a close by March 2009, but some deadlines are earlier. Stevens said he was told he had until today to find an apartment, although FEMA officials deny threatening anyone with that deadline.

. . .

There are 6,334 FEMA trailers and mobile homes still in use on the Coast, housing about 16,600 people. Approximately 1,200 others are in motel rooms, having been moved out of trailers by FEMA because of high formaldehyde levels.

An analysis of FEMA households at the beginning of May by the Back Bay Mission, a faith-based organization assisting Katrina survivors on the Coast, found that 82 percent of occupants made below-average income and one in three were over 60, had special needs or both.

. . .

"It's those with the lower incomes, those who are on fixed incomes who often are disabled, and those who are the working poor who essentially were able to make it without any type of subsidies from the government prior to Katrina," she said. "They are not able to afford to live in their communities now."

Read more: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080601/NEWS/806010376/1001/news

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From another article
New Orleans' homeless are mostly native to area
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5810643.html

NEW ORLEANS — Mayor C. Ray Nagin recently suggested a way to reduce this city's post-Katrina homeless population: Give them one-way bus tickets out of town.

Nagin later insisted the off-the-cuff proposal was just a joke.

-------

The (tent city) inhabitants are natives like Ronald Gardner, 54, an HIV-positive man who said he had never before slept on the streets until Katrina. Or Ronald Berry, 57, who despite a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis, said he had lived on his own in a rented house in the Lower 9th Ward, for a dozen years before Katrina. Both men receive disability checks of $637 a month, not nearly enough to cover post-hurricane rents.

"If I could just get a warm room," Gardner said, sitting on the cot under which all his belongings are stored, "I could take it from there."

[sakabatou]

1. How much fail can this nation endure?!

[Spouting Horn]

2. For how many

years must the Federal Government provide housing to the Katrina victims?

[annabanana]

7. Since the Federal Government did not maintain the levees at the

capacity that they claimed they had, they should provide housing until they can be made whole.
If this man lived in a rental property that cost him that much per month.. he should once again be in rental property at that rate.

[sakabatou]

8. Because we all know

the poor can eat cake, right?

[Spouting Horn]

9. I do hear SPAM

is getting quite popular again.

Pass out some SPAM vouchers.

[DRoseDARs]

3. So is Myanmar take its cues from FEMA or is FEMA taking them from the junta?

Either way, the relief phase isn't over you assholes! :mad:

[ohio2007]

4. Some are told to eat frogs, others crawfish ?

snip
The government and the people are like parents and children," the paper said. "We, all the people, were pleased with the efforts of the government."


"Myanmar (Burmese) people are capable enough of rising from such natural disasters even if they are not provided with international assistance," the newspaper said.

"Myanmar people can easily get fish for dishes by just fishing in the fields and ditches," the paper said. "In the early monsoon, large edible frogs are abundant."

"The people (of the Irrawaddy delta) can survive with self-reliant efforts even if they are not given chocolate bars from (the) international community," it added.

snip
http://www.bangkokpost.net/topstories/topstories.php?id=127914

[robinlynne]

6. exactly my thought when I saw the tv reports on myanmar.

[ohio2007]

5. "Give them one-way bus tickets out of town." Mayor C. Ray Nagin

He should vacation in Burma to see how their month old disaster relief plan is working