Posted on 02/13/2006 2:59:04 PM PST by blam
Storm Victims Leave Hotels for Sofas, Cars
Monday February 13, 2006 10:16 PM
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
Associated Press Writers
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - About 12,000 families made homeless by last year's hurricanes began checking out of their federally funded hotel rooms around the country Monday after a federal judge let FEMA stop paying directly for their stays.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency promised the evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that they will still receive federal rent assistance that they can put toward hotel stays or other housing. But the agency will no longer pay for their hotel rooms directly.
Earlier in the day, attorneys for the evacuees pleaded with U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval for a last-minute reprieve, saying the rent assistance will not be enough for decent living accommodations or continued hotel stays.
``These people are going to be homeless. We've heard from a lot of people who are going to be sleeping in their cars,'' said Bill Quigley, a lawyer for the evacuees.
But Duval denied the request.
FEMA said the majority of those checking out had made arrangements for other housing. But some said they had nowhere to go except their own cars, a relative's couch or back to a shelter.
Mary Smith looked for a bus to take her to one of the lower-income neighborhoods across the Mississippi River in suburban New Orleans, where she was told she might find a rental.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Oh here is a suggestion ... go get a job and pay for it yourself
ping...
Sounds like a plaaaaaaaan, Mo.
BTW, I love your tagline.
What have these people been doing for the last five or six months? Did they seriously think that their losses, as tragic as they may have been, entitle them to a lifetime supply of rent and spending money?
What? Oh, they for the most part were already career public assistance recipients even before Katrina? That explains the entitlement attitude, then. Nevermind. :-P
Jeeez, didn't this happen six months ago? I think it may be time for the displaced people to consider other options.
And in the mean time...families in the other 49 states who have lost their homes to fires, tornados and other national disasters continue to receive nothing from FEMA.
Also heard a real gem on the radio this afternoon about some people using their FEMA cash cards/checks to get tattoos and buy pornography among other "important" things they needed.
Why can't they read the want ads and get a job to pay for their own place? Oh, some can't read. Well, there are literacy programs at local high schools. Nobody has to remain helpless.
Well, I don't imagine there are a lot of jobs available in that area right now, and the few habitable housing units are expensive and have mile-long waiting lists. BUT I keep hearing that huge numbers of trailer homes that have been paid for with our tax dollars are sitting idle due to various bureacratic and logistical screw-ups.
Oh good, now they can spend their "rent assistance" for booze and dope like they are used to. That evil government should have never sent THEIR money directly to the landlords anyway.
For the love of God no more whining from Katrina victims! I haven't heard anything from those losing everything in Mississippi, Alabama etc. How much more time do they need to get a job and a place? Most of them didn't work before all this happened and now getting comfortable with someone else footing the bill for room and board-so wonder they don't want to get a job-it's all free for them. No more whining!
I guarantee you that there are some of those folks who would stay in a hotel FOREVER if FEMA kept paying the bills.
Oh here is a suggestion ... go get a job and pay for it yourself
YOU GOT IT
I think a few bought Gucci Purses as well as Diamond earrings and Banana Republic clothes! I guess if you are going to have govvie pay the bill you might as well live like the entitled star you think you are...
Why can't they help re-build there city? I thought the contractors were paying 15.00 per hour?
HEY...HEY! Behave yourself. These people don't vote democrat for no reason!
; )
That's not true. FEMA has put out lots of money always whenever there is a big disaster. Florida, Mississippi, Alabama all received FEMA help for their various disasters last hurricane season alone.
The problem is a large bunch of poor people who seldom left their neighborhoods except to perhaps go to work or school has been displaced, and they are whining, and acting helpless and playing to the press, and the press, which created a lot of the impression that only New Orleans was getting relief has created a monster.
You don't hear the stories about people like my niece who moved on to another city and started up a business there which is doing fine. Or the 300 or so people from New Orleans who stayed in Utah and have taken the hand up instead of just a hand out. Or all the other people who moved on, got new jobs, new houses and got on with their lives. And this is in part because the media finds they are not newsworthy. But a lot of people did just that.
But FEMA deserves to get wacked, what with the way they threw money around without accountability...and they are part of the problem.
But...but...but I thought that living in a hotel room for the rest of my life was a good idea?
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