"I like the idea of actually paying lodging for a particularly needy family..or providing gift cards."
That will be appeasing and caving in to the enemy forces. You fight fire with fire, not with handouts and fear.
Those who are most fearful, proceed to make the first donations. I'm not gonna come to the aid of these thugs.
I'd rather see the thugs hung from the nearest lightposts myself...I'd like the thugs to NOT be rescued at all..left to succumb to diseses and violence.
BUT.... I was talking about other refugees, the innocents. I don't think all of New Orleans was populated by thugs, but it's the thugs making the news.