Thousands of Katrina evacuees EVICTED from hotels, now homeless

[Bluebear]

What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them. - Barbara Bush




NEW ORLEANS - Hauling everything he owned in a plastic garbage bag, Darryl Travis walked out of the chandeliered lobby of the Crowne Plaza, joining the exodus of Hurricane Katrina refugees evicted from their hotel rooms across the country Tuesday.

More than 4,500 evacuees were expected to check out of their government-paid hotel rooms Tuesday as the
Federal Emergency Management Agency began cutting off money to pay for their stays.

Far more people — a total of more than 20,000 storm victims — were given extensions by FEMA until at least next week and possibly as long as March 1, said FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney.

FEMA said it gave people every possible opportunity to request an extension.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060207/ap_on_re_us/katrina_evacuees_hotels_7

[CottonBear]

1. Poor Darryl Travis just wanted to stay in his city.

:cry: This is so inhumane and immoral. :cry:

[Hubert Flottz]

2. They needed the extra money to pay Brownie for helpig out those

extra several months, after he was canned.

[marmar]

3. And we should trust FEMA?

Sorry, our six-month period of giving a damn is over. Fend for yourselves, we've got budgets to cut.

:cry:

[Bluebear]

4. Budgets to cut and trillions more for Iraq. Sorry, chump. nt

[sasha031]

5. this is so horrible

I'm speechless,
this is not Amerika:cry:
A little piece of you
The little peace in me
Will die
For this is not america

Blossom falls to bloom
This season
Promise not to stare
Too long
For this is not a miracle

There was a time
A storm that blew so pure
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have
The faintest idea

Snowman melting
From the inside
Falcon spirals
To the ground
So bloody red
Tomorrows clouds

A little piece of you
The little piece in me
Will die
For this is not america

There was a time
A wind that blew so young
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have the faintest idea

This could be the biggest sky
This could be a miracle
This could be etc

[democrat_patriot]

6. Where are the trailers?

Where are the temporary shelters that were supposed to be built?

Where is the assistance to help these people find employment? They more than likely have no internet job search capabilities, no proper interview clothes, and no address to put on an aplication.

[Angry Girl]

7. They're sitting around, empty. Here's the official stats:

For whatever THEY're worth.... (you know it's a LOT worse)

Travel Trailers Sitting Empty - 2872
Mobile Homes Sitting Empty - 2582
http://www.house.gov/genetaylor/arch.TTHMSittingEmpty.htm

[democrat_patriot]

20. Another problem: Evacuees in say, Texas have no

way to get back to NO where the trailers are.

Maybe they can walk.

[sasha031]

9. that's right, most had jobs, owned homes, had skills

but when you are torn from your existance, all resources are gone. you join the residents who live under bridges.

[Breeze54]

19. Isn't that the definition of homelessness?

"most had jobs, owned homes, had skills
but when you are torn from your existance, all resources are gone.
you join the residents who live under bridges.".......

......who used to have jobs, owned homes, had skills!!

:shrug:

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9262
A Day in the Life of the Homeless in America
By Sharon Cohen
The Associated Press
Sunday 27 February 2005

From villages to large cities, homelessness has spread like dye
through the weave of America’s social fabric. A single day in the
life of the homeless reveals hundreds of thousands without shelter,
and blame goes to everything from the lack of affordable housing
and unemployment to drug abuse, mental illness and a flawed foster
care system. The family sleeps in a single room, its walls bare and
windowless, its cracked concrete floor crowded with plastic storage
bins and three mattresses: one for dad, one for mom and daughter,
one for the three young sons.
Fluorescent lights will flicker on at 6 a.m., to start their new day.
This room in an old red-brick factory-turned-shelter in Chicago is
home for the Torres family.They consider themselves lucky to be here.
They have a warm place to stay. They have three meals a day.
And they have each other.
The family is among an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people
who, on any given night in America, lack a real home.

Homelessness exploded as a politically potent issue during the Reagan era
of the 1980s, and according to some estimates, the number of those without
a permanent place to live has doubled in the last 20 years....
More at Link...

Asshole pigs!!
:grr:

[ClintonTyree]

43. The trailers are sitting on lots.........

outside of New Orleans, they have to be "released" by FEMA and of course the red tape in Washington is slowing things down to a glacial pace. FEMA won't pay more than $10,000 for trailers that cost $16,000. The trailers are sitting there, waiting to be "released" but FEMA won't spend the money. It's needed in Iraq, it's needed for Halliburton. :grr:
Some people have been waiting since September for FEMA trailers, they never come. It's sickening. FEMA says they can't stay in the Hotels any more, they need to get a trailer. :wtf: FEMA WON'T GIVE THEM ONE! This country is sick right now, very sick. And the disease is known is "bushamerika". :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Spinzonner]

48. Maybe they could just load 1.5 billion $'s on a plane

and fly it down to NO to deal with all the needs.

Oh, wait, they only do that in Iraq where there's no accountability.

How silly of me.

[blogslut]

8. The band-aid falls off

to reveal the festering wound. Get ready for some serious shit, America.

[Karenina]

11. This is much "cleaner"

than boxcars and ovens and carefully kept statistics. We'll NEVER KNOW the death toll...

[Swamp Rat]

25. .

:hug:

[Bluebear]

28. .

[lies and propaganda]

29. i feel such guilt for leaving there years ago.

now all i want is to be there so I can help in taking these lying bastards down.

[Binka]

31. On Purpose. Murderers. Mass Fucking Murderers.

:cry: Beyond the beyond.

[Disturbed]

13. An over privileged hag talking about the

underprivileged. Her sons are all thieves, liars and assholes.

The Neo Fascist Bush Admin. have failed America and are plundering the Nation. I feel that another American Revolution may be rising soon.

[muglywump]

47. get a life

[Breeze54]

21. bandaid?? lmao!

Welcome to the 1980's and 1990's!!!
:hi:
Oh boy!!! Here we go again!?!...
er..ah...naw!
Here we just keep going to: "The Reagan 'I don't recall' Era"!!
as in...backwards!!!

:nuke:

I guess the Senator from N.O., LA; wasted her vote to not filibuster Alito??
No amount of ass kissing will stop the GREED!!
:shrug:

[Javaman]

38. all this admin* knows how to do is put on band-aids...

cut finger - band-aid
broken arm - band-aid
gun shot wound - band-aid
IED - band-aid
flooded destroyed city - band-aid
illegal spying on the U.S. citizens - band-aid
lying to the world about WMD's - band-aid
swiftboating a decorated/wounded Viet Nam vet - purple band-aid


these people* are pigs. One day they will rot in hell and I hope the whole world is watching.

[sasha031]

10. and where is the glorious media in all this

chasing run away brides again, they dropped the ball once again on this.

[SoCalDem]

23. Poverty is not sexy..It's too close to home..

Poverty is a swarm of gnats that buzz around your face..annoying to endure, but some can just go inside and get away from them..and DO just that..

Super-poor with no fixed address don't vote anyway, and that's all politicians care about..getting votes.

By now there could have been whole communities of modular houses, in real neighborhoods, built in safer areas, and plenty of time to sort out the real estate problems later, but of course that would have meant funneling money directly to the affected people, without the trickling of pennies through closely held fingers of many people in between.

[Oilwellian]

39. Where is the media?

They were busy covering McCain's little hissy fit yesterday.

How sad that these people were kicked to the curb on the same day Mrs. King was eulogized.

[WillyT]

12. Hey Everybody... Kick And Recommend This Please...

:kick:

[shance]

14. Our money needed by Katrina residents/now homeless is going to more wars.

This is the most inhumane treatment I have ever witnessed.

I don't recognize my country anymore.

[this_side_up]

15. Brownie struck again and not many knew

Feb issue of Consumer Reports magazine
page, #59 - The Selling It page

It it titled Heckuva Quote, Brownie

Last August, before Hurricane Katrina had hit even a radar screen, a NC reader sent us a promotion he had received for flood insurance. Our reader was annoyed about the pitch, period. But what struck us was what it said and who sent it.

Flooding is not covered by your homeowners insurance policy. And...the federal government is unlikely to
provide help in most cases of flooding.

Sincerely,
blah blah

````````````
Which cases of flooding WILL Fema help? Whites only?
The rich (all skin colors) only? Politicians?

[napi21]

16. What's the real story on the extentions?

I know they announced on every news program and every chanel here in Ga. that if you needed an extention, you MUST call FEMA (by a certain date) or they will stop paying the hotel/motel for you to stay there. Even here in Ga., the next day, they announced that there were thousands who never called.

Was this all for show? Why didn't the extentions happen like it sounded like they were supposed to?

[ClintonTyree]

44. At the MOST........

they can get an extension until March 1. That's it, that's the "drop dead" day. Really. Everyone could drop dead after that and the bushies wouldn't care. Like they care now. :eyes:

[KamaAina]

46. Some of these people had never even registered to begin with

Travis, 24, and his five childhood friends — all in their 20s — had been living on the floor of another evacuee's hotel room, never having registered.

The Bushies want you to think these evacuees were living off the fat of the land in fancy hotels. This group, at least, was sleeping six to a room, and since they had never registered, couldn't possibly apply for the extensions. "I admit it! I'm Jean Valjean..."

[stillcool]

17. The Irony of it all....

Coretta King's funeral having political overtones....can't imagine why.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
Martin Luther King: Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered..

[Angry Girl]

18. The ethnic cleansing of New Orleans will go down in history

Bush's Great Purge, they will call it.

Look what they did to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a city that was a third black in the late 1800's. Today it's 99% white, all accomplished through disease and war.

[Nothing Without Hope]

30. Exactly. And New Orleans will go to wealthy owners of new casinos and

luxury housing who are Bushie cronies...wait and see.

And as for the thousands of people in the hurricane-devastated areas OTHER THAN New Orleans, just forget it. :sarcasm: The government surely has, and the media has enabled it.

[EFerrari]

22. George Bush, strong on defense.

I hope he can keep my city safe, too! :sarcasm:

[WillyT]

24. Kick Again !!!

:kick:

[EFerrari]

26. Kick and read and recommend please!

[WillyT]

27. Kick !!!

:kick:

[NewDemocrat92]

32. More hypocrisy

This comes after the fake praising of Coretta Scott king, while behind the scenes, spitting on everything she stood for.

These guys only went to the King funeral to continue their strategic campaign to win black votes for the Republican party. And unfortunately, they will probably succeed.

[zippy890]

33. no money for housing people

2 trillion dollars for an illegal war

beyond disgusting

George Bush doesn't care about black people.
low income people.
he only cares about helping the rich get richer

[Trevelyan]

34. Remember all the bait and switch during and just after Katrina

the $3,000 credit card, then taking it back, a journalist raising his eyebrows to camera when he heard of another promise snatched away from desparate people...

http://katrinamemo.blogspot.com/

Belacio had a link to some of the Katrina victims testifying before Congress, Rep. McKinney called for the hearings and Pelosi leaned on the Democrats not to attend. Many at DU were against attending but after reading the article, I don't know if it was the right thing.

Christopher Shays was DISGUSTING bully a woman testifying and calling her a liar when she spoke about being put in a Concentration Camp with armed guards and badgered and insulted. The link to MSNBC shows this disgraceful lack of decency. shays is about to chair another bush scandal investigation. We need to target Shays and others for ouster from the Congress.

Katrina Survivors to Congress
128k mp3s: rt-click -> save as
1. Why all the M-16s?
2. Concentration Camps
3. They Blew it
4. Show Us The Levee
5. Martial Law
http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9863

[Trevelyan]

35. K & R -- Everyone is sick of emailing Congress but do you think we could

have a media and congres blast to help these people. I'm sure that FEMA lied and "lost" applications, and didn't log in people who called for an extension and many people might not have seen it on TV.

Sibyl Edmonds in the link to her whistleblowers site from http://www.JustACitizen.com (with petition for Congress to release the redacted 911 report pages...PLEASE SIGN) has a very angering article on how NSA tries to destroy whistleblowers with an article on Russell Tice and another whistleblower:

"When this retaliation first starts, there's a tendency by bosses to use code words like 'delusional,' 'paranoid' and 'disgruntled'" said Soeken. "Then they use psychiatric exams to destroy them. They kill the messenger and hope the PR spin will be bought by the public."

Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit advocacy group, told Cybercast News Service that "psychiatric retaliation" is a knee-jerk reaction against whistleblowers.

"It's a classic way to implement the first rule of retaliation: shift the spotlight from the message to the messenger. We call it the 'Smokescreen Syndrome.'" Superiors investigate and brand the whistleblower for anything ranging from financial irregularities, to family problems, sexual practices, bad driving records or even failure to return library books, Devine said. "It's a form of abuse of power."

[azurnoir]

36. a couple of things

the date for the cut off is not random they want the hotel space for Mardi Gras and if that's not bad enough the GOP spin is something like- "these people have been staying in luxury resorts for months at tax payer expense and if we continue to allow this they just won't have any incentive to help themselves".
Keep in mind this is going on while * is mugging at Mrs. Kings funeral.

[peacebuzzard]

37. The Awful Truth

http://www.gonzoskatrinasite.com/gen1/awful_truth.htm

The Trail of Tears 2005.

[Swamp Rat]

40. kick

:kick:

[flashdebadge]

41. It is sad that there are people homeless, but many of those were told to

re-apply for aid. It would have been granted. The man in the picture above looks young, healthy and is probably skilled. Houston is one of the cheapest cities to live. He and many of the others will be able to find work and be self supporting with a little effort. My prayers are with those who lost so much.

[gatorboy]

42. Thousands of mobile homes are still parked in Hope, AR, by the way.

Around 5,000 actually. Homes that were suppose to go to these people...

[leftchick]

45. omg, these poor babies...

Jawain Robinson, 11, right, helps carry a bag with some of his family's belongings as they leave the Astor Crowne Plaza on Canal Street in New Orleans Tuesday Feb. 7, 2006. They are among 90 hurricane evacuees forced to leave the Crowne Plaza Tuesday after the Federal Emergency Management Agency cut off hotel aid to any who failed to heed warnings to register with the agency by a Jan. 30 deadline. Thousands of evacuees were expected to leave their federally-funded hotel rooms Tuesday as FEMA began cutting off money to pay for their stays.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

:cry: