A real-life example--FEMA is not interested in helping hurricane victims..

[CoffeeCat]

I belong to a Bible Study/Book club, and one of the members (Amy) shared with us that she recently took in a Katrina family.

What she told us absolutely floored everyone in the room.

Amy and her husband met the hurricane survivor (Jim) and his four-year old daughter while dining at a restaurant. Jim asked for directions to Minnesota, and they ended up talking with Amy and her husband for more than an hour. Jim was trying to find relatives many states away, from his original home in NOLA. Amy asked the man and his daughter to come and stay with her family until they got on their feet. He agreed.

Amy and our community, as well has Amy's church have rallied around this family to really help them. They've given them clothes, food, a roof over their heads, a job, furniture, a cell phone, and they've given Jim's daughter a spot in a local Christian preschool with tuition paid.

Amy told us all about the paperwork that Katrina survivors are required to complete if they are to receive aid. Jim, an intelligent man, could not wade through the complicated papers. Amy and her husband tried to help, but they couldn't make heads or tails of the pages and pages of documents.

Amy hired their CPA to fill out the paperwork. It took their CPA TWO FULL DAYS to fill out the paperwork--between calls to FEMA that were made to clear up confusing wording and contradictions.

Jim is an intelligent man. He couldn't fill out that paperwork. Amy and her husband both have college degrees. They couldn't figure it out. It took a CPA two days, and several phone calls to FEMA, to wade through it.

What are the poor doing about these papers? What are the people with very little education doing? What about the elderly or those who have lost loved ones and are too traumatized to take this on? Is anyone helping them? I doubt FEMA is!

It's pretty obvious that FEMA is purposely creating barriers--to prevent people from getting the help they need.

Jim and his 4-year old daughter will be fine, in the long run. Many hurricane survivors will be fine--because of kind, caring people in this country who want to help--despite the roadblocks that our government is putting in front of them.

Anytime you start believing that Bush is actually doing something--please remember this story. He didn't care when the levies needed funding. He didn't care when people were dying of thirst five days after Katrina hit. He didn't care when people were dying in the rafters of their houses or stranded on the hot pavement.

He doesn't care now--as people are thrown out into the world with a mountain of complicated paperwork that requires a tenacious, $200-an-hour CPA to fill out!

[redqueen]

1. It's intentional.

The less money they have to pay out to survivors, the better, in their greedy eyes.

Sickening, isn't it?

[FreedomAngel82]

2. The people running FEMA now don't want to help

They don't care about helping people. Why else did Bush put someone in charge of FEMA like Brown? And why else are they making everything so complicated for people to get help? Why else did they stop the card stuff? And I'm glad that there are people out there willing to help. People and congregations around the country have been really helping out a lot.

[SeattleGirl]

3. That seems to be their modus operandi: make it so

difficult to get the help you need that you either throw up your hands in frustration, or botch the paperwork so badly they can refuse to help you because you did it "wrong". This makes me want to scream!

Thank God for people like Amy and her husband, and for all the other kind-hearted, truly compassionate people in this country who have reached out in ways big and small to help the people affected by the hurricanes!

[CoffeeCat]

5. That's exactly right...

Amy said that Jim mentioned that many people he knew had their paperwork rejected because they filled it out incorrectly!

It's such a crime!

These are real people.

They are given three months' rent (which is a really good start), but what about food and help with finding a job.

Three months rent--probably around $2,500 is a temporary band-aid. These people lost EVERYTHING--through no fault of their own. And their supposed to move to new cities, find jobs, a place to live and start completely over--many of them with children--with $2,500?

Gee, a person who has a slip-and-fall at a local grocery store can get six figures--but someone who had their house and all possessions destroyed by a hurricane--you're misfortune is only worth $2,500?

If the government doesn't want to help--they should just say that.

America erroneously believes that these people are being helped, because of the lofty sound bytes Bush spewed standing in front of that haunted church.

Katrina survivors are being dumped. It's really sickening.

[Solly Mack]

4. They hope is survivors will just give up and not file the paperwork

government (or someone within government) can keep the money and then blame the victim - "but they didn't file the paperwork"

it's disgusting