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Evacuees 'trapped' in their dream homes
KHOU Houston ^ | Monday, November 28, 2005 | Christina Lee

Posted on 11/29/2005 4:39:00 AM PST by Flyer

With Christmas around the corner, a group of Katrina evacuees worry they can't give the holiday to their kids.

Hauling home a Christmas tree is at least a $30 cab ride.

For Sheryl Lee whose New Orleans home was destroyed, her brand new house is a "dream come true," she said as she wiped tears from her eyes.

Yet for all that it offers, it is also a trap.

"No way to get to a shopping or nothing," Lee said.

The Clarke Springs subdivision, with its neat rows of humble homes, sits outside the beltway. The nearest Metro bus stop is a 30-minute walk.

Sheryl and her neighbors, all Katrina evacuees placed by the city of Houston, do not own cars.

"It's not close by too many things. So far out," said Colette Montgomery, Katrina evacuee.

Neighbors believe at least 40 Katrina families live in the Clarke Springs subdivision. What they're worried about now is whether they can provide Christmas for their kids.

Like all kids, Sheryl's 9-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son love Christmas, but look around and you won't find a single decoration because hauling home a tree is at least a $30 cab ride.

"And that kind of money I don't have right now," Lee said.

With no car, not only is a job hard to come by, so is Christmas.

"Although they [children] lost everything they had once before, but I could try to get them just a little of it. Might not be all, but it's a little," said Lee.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Louisiana; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: evacuees; hurricane; katrina
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To: dinodino

I guess not knowing anything about this woman or the others in her situation there, but knowing what it's like to live in area isolated from any stores or public transportation, I'm not ready to feel the 'bah humbug'.


81 posted on 11/29/2005 5:31:47 AM PST by Brooklyn Kid (What's it to ya? ) ((....west of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar.................))
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To: Skooz
Wait for the ACLU to get involved and sue based on the fact that this woman in entitled to 40 acres and a mule.
82 posted on 11/29/2005 5:32:04 AM PST by neodad (My ex-wife is stuck on stupid.)
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To: Flyer

Let me think... 40 families in the same area... No transportation...

Uh... Do you think you could get together and come up with something?


83 posted on 11/29/2005 5:32:07 AM PST by Poser
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To: BureaucratusMaximus

>>Of course I do all the maintenance and repairs myself though.

Which is yet another skill you applied yourself to and learned, beyond your job skills and frugal-living financial skills, all of which you show evidence of in a short post. None of which, I'm afraid, this woman will ever have.


84 posted on 11/29/2005 5:32:08 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Guns themselves are fairly robust; their chief enemies are rust and politicians) (NRA)
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To: Gone GF
Sorta hard to carry a week's groceries or all your Christmas presents that 30 minutes.

Problem Solved:


85 posted on 11/29/2005 5:32:12 AM PST by add925 (The Left = Xenophobes in Denial)
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To: dinodino
OK, suppose they do walk to the store and get gifts free from merchants. You still need to get the gifts wrapped. Gifts don't wrap themselves you know. Oh, and someone will have to cook the holiday treats. And what about the cookie crumbs which might fall to the floor - can't just have them laying there or it will attract ants. Need to get someone in there to vacuum them. Might save some money by having the vacuuming done by whoever we can hire to pick up the spent wrapping paper. You're being short sighted in only focusing on getting to the store.
86 posted on 11/29/2005 5:33:15 AM PST by DancesWithBolsheviks (This space for rent.)
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To: Flyer

Tell em my tv is broke and I am fishing for one of them there plasma screens.....lmao


87 posted on 11/29/2005 5:33:18 AM PST by meanie monster (http://sa3bin.com)
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To: apackof2

I believe Santa came a little early for these folks. They lost the old house and got to move to a new one. They even received cash money to spend on manicures, trips to the casino, topless bars and other essential things. He could have left a lump of coal or something of that nature.


88 posted on 11/29/2005 5:33:19 AM PST by seemoAR
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To: television is just wrong
God Bless you! Your children will remember your sacrifices, everytime they look into the mirror! You are a good parent and that's what counts!

My daughter is on her second round of braces. The dentist badgered me into them when she was in 4th grade, when she was 18, wisdom teeth messed up her mouth. At 19 she had braces again, $6,000 on us! Thank goodness for payment plans. Last payment due next month.

89 posted on 11/29/2005 5:34:15 AM PST by alice_in_bubbaland (New Jersey gets the corrupt government it deserves!)
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To: Brooklyn Kid

So, contact YOUR church and then volunteer to organize a shopping shuttle for the needy and helpless in your neighborhood. Or better yet, go to wherever this woman is and volunteer to do so there.

Your idea, now make it work. I'm not sure who it is you think "should" develope the idea. It won't put a chicken in a pot for the hungry if you just discuss recipes with them, or try to when most aren't willing to listen. If you think finding the chicken, prepping and cooking the chicken and then providing the table, chairs and service for to eat the chicken is the best way to feed those who are without, then do that. But, the idea is usually to give in reason with what one has, not to prove ideas or whatever, but to give according to one's means.

And what means most of us are talking about is suggesting that this woman will eat the chicken and return in a few months to ask where the next chicken is and when you're serving it and if not, why not. She needs to learn how to motivate herself to get (and cook) her own chickens or learn what a TV-Dinner is when she can't find a chicken.

It's not the end of the world and she has so much to be grateful and thankful for, that, well, I'd sorta' think she would be out trying to find opportunities for herself to give to others from all that she has.


90 posted on 11/29/2005 5:36:16 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: Flyer
Here are the "humble" homes they've been given:

Take the virtual tour here:
http://www.apartments.com/partner/vtour.aspx?page=vtour&view=7&property=143908.2&p=switchb&state=TX&partner=switchb&prvpg=20#photos

These people have no right, no right whatsoever to complain. The gimme gimme gimme more more more attitude makes me sick.

91 posted on 11/29/2005 5:36:36 AM PST by ItsOurTimeNow (Aslan is on the move...)
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To: Flyer
But But sob sob I cant get to the store to buy popcorn snivel whine I need a car maybe a nice SUV for the children and I.
92 posted on 11/29/2005 5:37:45 AM PST by bikerman
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To: caver

"If she never had a car, then I have no sympathy."

I would assume some of these folks are just lazy, but others who lived in the city never needed a car. They rode buses and streetcars and had stores close to their homes. My late grandmother lived in a very modest house off Carrollton in N.O. and never even learned to drive. She walked two blocks to the streetcar or the bus most of the time, and she also had family that helped her out, including a sister next door.

Had she been alive and moved to the same place these folks are (in her case that wouldn't have happened because she had 10 children, 8 still alive), she would have been just as lost as they are now. And my grandmother was NOT a helpless person.

Does the government or taxpayer owe these people a Christmas? Of course not.


93 posted on 11/29/2005 5:37:50 AM PST by Gone GF
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To: Flyer

At least they are calling them Christmas trees.


94 posted on 11/29/2005 5:38:37 AM PST by Liberty Valance ("Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." - oh, and Merry Christmas!)
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To: DancesWithBolsheviks

You are so very right. My apologies! Having a veritable army of paid servants to wait on me and to attend to my every need, as I do, I often forget about the poor unfortunates who must live through the brutal pain of daily suburban life. Vacuuming and going to the store are only two examples of this hellish existence...


95 posted on 11/29/2005 5:41:57 AM PST by dinodino
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To: Brooklyn Kid

Suggesting someone take responsibility for themselves and begin to experience gratitude and generosity accordingly is not exemplifying "bah humbug". Quite the contrary.

Most people who are ungiving never are happy, don't regard what they have as being adequate to meet their needs and judge others negatively for not giving enough to them.

There's this expression, "an attitude of gratitude." When you're grateful for your life, that you are housed (much less a "new home"!), that you even have children who are alive and with you...a thirty minute walk seems like nothing!

Get a dratted bicycle. Call a neighbor. Attend a church and ask for some sort of network helps for basic transportation. Sign up for ride-share, save for a one-time taxi ride home...there's so much this woman could do, I mean, make her own decorations and enjoy herself and her children and laugh and sing and love one another! That's a Christmas many people with illustrious things never experience.

This woman's plight is so minor, it's pitiful that she's feeling down and without. Just pitiful. Not that she lacks things but that she lacks gratitude and character.

Someone in her neighborhood could and should help, yes, for the Holiday but I fear that unless this woman gets some other intervention, she will always be complaining about not having a ride, being too isolated, nothing, no one, not enough...


96 posted on 11/29/2005 5:43:16 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: dinodino

Glad you found your compassion:) I too am hoping my maid will be able to hire a maid for her maid this Christmas.


97 posted on 11/29/2005 5:45:15 AM PST by DancesWithBolsheviks (This space for rent.)
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To: BureaucratusMaximus
You are assuming they WANT to get a job. I doubt they had one before the storm. Their mode of transportation in NOLA before Katrina was probably the flooded buses.

These freeloaders are just dead-enders.
98 posted on 11/29/2005 5:45:46 AM PST by hotshu
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To: Gone GF

Yes, that's a good point. I would assume that your Grandmother and her children were of a different mindset and wouldn't have looked to the taxpayers to help them out. It's a different world today.


99 posted on 11/29/2005 5:45:49 AM PST by caver (Yes, I did crawl out of a hole in the ground.)
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To: sgtbono2002
"Its AMERICA land of the free. Free homes, freecars, free paychecks."

Where do I sign up???

100 posted on 11/29/2005 5:47:19 AM PST by sweetliberty (Stupidity should make you sterile.)
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