Posted on 11/26/2005 4:40:58 PM PST by Ellesu
Get a job. Find a place to live. Pull yourself up.
These are the things some people are saying about evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, about 12,000 of whom remain in taxpayer-funded hotel rooms in Georgia.
In the weeks after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, people across the country opened their wallets, homes and hearts to the victims. But three months after thousands of evacuees arrived in Georgia, some attitudes have shifted from compassion to something very different.
For Anna Corley, a 39-year-old communications worker from East Point, the change in attitude occurred while she was watching a television interview with a female evacuee. The woman was living in a Georgia hotel, in a room paid for by taxpayers, and complaining she wasn't getting enough help.
With that, Corley — who had donated clothes and money, and dropped off spaghetti and tomato sauce at a supermarket bin — changed her mind.
"Come on, people," Corley said. "Three months and they can't find a place to live? Oh, wait, they want to see how long Uncle Sugar will pay for it. How long did they think the gravy train ran? Have some self-respect and pride."
Corley is among a group of people disappointed, if not disgusted, with the thousands of evacuees still living in hotels — a program that has cost federal taxpayers $300 million. Some of these critics initially supported the evacuees, but now believe many hurricane victims are taking advantage of the generosity.
Corley's anger is driven in part by her own experiences. She said she was homeless 20 years ago, living in a Buick, after losing her job and a place to stay.
"I think we need to give them a hand up, not a hand out," Corley said.
Veronica Jones, a 25-year-old corrections officer from Lawrenceville, feels the same way. After volunteering at a Red Cross shelter — helping evacuees apply for assistance, talking them through the loss and dislocation — her sympathy has run dry.
"They drink and smoke marijuana all night. Don't work or go to school," Jones said. She said she formed her opinion by observing some evacuees living in her area.
Evacuees, for their part, say they've heard the harsh remarks. Sometimes to their face.
"It just adds to the hurt. It doesn't help," said Mike Washington, who lost his home and print shop in the New Orleans flood.
It is unclear how much public sentiment has shifted regarding the evacuees. Several metro Atlanta charities say they still see strong support for the hurricane victims.
"We're not seeing that kind of backlash," said Edward Powers, executive director of Travelers Aid of Metro Atlanta.
Emotional fatigue
This is a critical time for the hotel-dwelling evacuees. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has given them until Jan. 7 to get out. After that, FEMA will no longer pay the hotel bills.
The deadline has sent many evacuees scrambling to find housing, but several nonprofit groups helping them say it will be difficult to move thousands of evacuees into new housing in a matter of weeks. They fear some will end up on the street.
State Senate leader Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) said FEMA's deadline provides the prodding needed to spur the evacuees into action. "At some point, the government can't be everybody's mama," he said earlier this month.
Such thinking has been bolstered by public criticism of the hotel evacuees by radio talk show hosts. Local talker Neal Boortz called them "parasites with rights."
Suzanne Phillips, a New York City psychologist who specializes in trauma, grief and loss, offered another explanation for the waning sympathy among some people. She said people feel uncomfortable that the tragedy has continued this long.
"It makes them anxious that the problem doesn't go away," she said.
As time goes on, Phillips said, people become emotionally fatigued dealing with the despair and devastation of the hurricanes. Much of the disgust over the evacuees has been directed at those still in hotels. Phillips worries those opinions will taint people's perceptions about the many other evacuees who are living in apartments and homes.
In addition, the aftermath of Katrina has brought to light the issue of poverty in New Orleans. But rather than explore the complex causes of poverty, people often politicize the issue and dismiss the victims as unworthy of their sympathy, she said.
"If you dismiss it, you don't have to deal with it," Phillips said. "People start blaming the victim for not wrapping it up and getting on with it."
Forget the discount
Stories about evacuees cashing in their assistance money on expensive purses and big televisions make it easier to write them off, said Rick Cohen, executive director of the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy.
Washington, the New Orleans evacuee who lost his home and printing shop, is living in an apartment in Smyrna with his wife and 5-year-old son, sleeping on mattresses on the floor. They don't even have a table for his son to do homework.
He said he has been offered a job at $10 an hour for 30 hours a week. But he said his time was better spent working with insurance companies, applying for loans and searching out a new location for his business in metro Atlanta.
Recently he asked a department store cashier if the store was offering a discount for evacuees. She responded, "You all want everything."
Janice Ramsey is still looking for a job, having been on 10 job interviews. A former advertising worker for a Biloxi casino, she thinks interviewers worry she will hold the job only until she can return home. But she says she plans to stay in Georgia.
She's been living with her four children in a Days Inn in Stone Mountain, in a FEMA-funded room. The criticism of evacuees, she believes, is getting worse.
"It makes it seem like I'm a freeloader," she said.
Ramsey had just gotten off Section 8 public assistance when Katrina hit. Her father drowned, and she has been back and forth to home identifying and burying his body.
Most of the $6,000 she received in storm assistance is gone, she said, but she has found a rental home.
"I don't want nobody to have sympathy for me. All I need is a boost," she said. "I want to be independent, like I was before."
snip
In addition, the aftermath of Katrina has brought to light the issue of poverty in New Orleans. But rather than explore the complex causes of poverty...
It sounds like this lady found that some of the causes of poverty aren't so complex afterall.
Cynthia Tucker must be out sick with a hangover. Tomorrow this article will be retracted with an apology.
FGS. Free booze too.
Beyond ridiculous.
It was the first of the month and they sure as hell weren't going to be far from their mailboxes.
TAW
Doh! Better get a commission set up to figure that out. Pronto!
(rolls eyes
I like this sentiment in general, (it's a great tagline for welfare reform actually) but i do hope that we are paying enough attention to the mental health of the people that are dealing with being displaced. I can only imagine the depression that might set in for people that are prone to it. But I do agree that eventually people are going to have to become productive members of society and start contributing.
Unfortuantely, many Americans have no self-pride and thus evidently have no shame in sucking from the government teet.
Yes. My daddy lost his daddy when he was a baby and his Mama raised three kids off a piece of rough mountain land. He recalled the humiliation of walking past my future Mama's house carrying boxes of welfare food (way before food stamps.) He was sweet on her, and vowed that he would pull himself up from that.
He did. He was first in his HS class, but split to California and the CCC because he did not have a proper suit to give the speech. Later joined the Navy, served in the Pacific, got his education off a vets' program, married that woman and raised a fine family who know how blessed we are by his refusal to accept his circumstances.
There appears to be a lot of opportunity in New Orleans. However, if the hurricane forecasters are correct, problems like this have just begun. New Orleans could 'get-it' all over again next year, then what? If a cat 3-5 hits on the west side of NO, then, there will be 10k+ dead.
Can the country go through this again? I-10 east of New Orleans, all the way to Florida, was like something out of the book 'The Stand.' Stranded, hungry and dehydrated people out of gas, water and food in 95 degree weather were everywhere, some on foot.
I'm in Mobile and I've modified my hurricane plans after seeing that disaster on I-10, it scared me. When some supplies did finally begin to arrive, guns were used by some to shove their way to the head of the lines. The local sheriff said that anyone seen in a line with a gun would be arrested immediately for armed robbery, there weren't enough cops until the out of state guys began to arrive.
I donated for the rescue of the poor animals, they are the ones that need help..
I venture down to Key West a couple of times a year. If you have any idea where the house was built, I'll be happy to check it out and see if it's still standing.
I assume it's no longer in your family, pity really, considering the price of real estate in the Keys.
I showed an apartment to a guy form New Orleans. He was in Seattle looking for work at hospitals. He got a job pretty quickly after coming into town (into Seattle, that is.)
He decided to rent elsewhere, but I don't get how people who would be getting their apartment PAID FOR have not found housing (outside of the immediate vicinity of the Gulf Coast)
It's there, it's available, it's going to get paid for--what's the hold up?
The housing is not here. Some people, not ten miles from me, just got out of tents. Everything around here is full and I'm a ways from the worst hit areas. Houses all the way into western Florida were destroyed...all along the coast.
""parasites with rights."
ROFLMAO"
Boortz did not actually say this and he is royally P.O.'d at the AJC. What he said was they are like ticks moving to another part of the dog. Pretty good analogy for many of them.
That's a good idea. I'd trust private animal rescue groups to get the job done over the government. ;)
Anybody got a link to the story out of Denver(?) that had a group of men who claimed they were Katrina evacuees and got lots of free items and handouts? They were actually local bred, born, and raised jerks who scammed the system and I heard they got caught. Don't know their punishment, so will someone post this story out of Colorado??
That's why in my post I exempted the Gulf Coast. For those of the evacuees who ARENT in that area of the country anymore, there is no excuse.
I know this because I work in the apartment industry. Around the rest of the country there is and has been plenty of housing. One of the reasons FEMA made this rule (and exempted LA and MS, I believe) to eject people from hotels was that apartments WOULD be paid for, but hotels cost far more and there is available apartment housing. There's no reason for someone, say in Seattle, to not be in an apartment. Jobs? That's something else. It depends on where you are, what previous experience you have and how crowded the market for that particular skillset is in the area.
I would love to see some happy follow-up stories on the animal rescues. That story seems to have died and it was so close to the hearts of many of us here at FR.
Here is an update, but it's not all good news.
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