FEMA pay puzzles landlord [paid $6000 - never housed any evacuees.....]

St. Petersburg Times ^

[Sub-Driver]

FEMA pay puzzles landlord

The owner of the Madeira Beach apartments got two checks but never housed Katrina victims. The $6,000 is being returned.

By JUSTIN GEORGE Published October 4, 2005

MADEIRA BEACH - Liz Taylor opened her mother's mail last week to find two checks worth nearly $6,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The checks were written to Sandcastle Apartments, owned by Taylor's mother, for housing Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

But Sandcastle never housed any evacuees.

In fact, the two Madeira Beach units haven't been rented since spring.

"I was shocked when they came, and certainly I never considered cashing them," said Geraldine Taylor, 86. "The way it was written out, I could have cashed it!"

She asked her daughter to investigate.

Liz Taylor, 47, of Tampa sent an e-mail to Corporate Lodging Consultants of Wichita, Kan., which sent the checks. The consulting company works for the American Red Cross, which FEMA uses to administer a lodging reimbursement program.

Kyle Rogg, Corporate Lodging senior vice president, saw the e-mail from Liz Taylor with the subject line, "Wrong Check." He called her back within minutes.

"Our preference would be that situations like this never happened," Rogg said Monday.

[Sub-Driver]

our government at work.......

[rightinthemiddle]

Bureaucrats...Democrats...

[Conspiracy Guy]

The waste will fill the Gulf of Mexico thus eliminating hurricanes as a future threat in the area.

[KarlInOhio]

Corporate Lodging Consultants of Wichita, Kan., which sent the checks. The consulting company works for the American Red Cross, which FEMA uses to administer a lodging reimbursement program.

FEMA -> Red Cross -> Corporate Lodging Consultants -> final recipient.

Not much overhead there. < /sarcasm>

My suspicion: Someone in the chain got a 20% (or 30% or 50% ...) handling fee on passing out government money, so some extra rental locations were added to the list with the expectation that the checks would be cashed and a commission could be billed to FEMA.

[Pessimist]

"The consulting company works for the American Red Cross, which FEMA uses to administer a lodging reimbursement program."

So, our money goes through: The fed gvt -> ARC -> Consultant -> recipient (wrong one at that).

Wonder how much of it is left after that grand tour.

I read a story about how FEMA coughed up several hundred grand a few years back for people here in Cleveland after a thunderstorm - primarily for washers and dryers due to basement flooding. (Curiously, I read this in a FLA newspaper expose about FEMA, not our local rag sheet). They checked w/ appliance dealers around here and found no noticeable up-tick in washer or dryer sales anywhere near that time.

Is this not always the case w/ gvt?

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Screw that, I would have cashed the checks.

[WasDougsLamb]

The $6,000 is being returned.


At least there is some honestly assosiated with the Katrina "bilking American taxpayers out of their money" Hurricane of 2005

[Hildy]

Kudos to the people for returning the check and making it public how already the fraud and waste has begun. Of coures, nothing will happen. It never does.

[aimhigh]

The $6,000 is being returned.

One check returned, 1,000 checks cashed without a 2nd thought.