I hate to say it, but I am not feeling a whole lot of sympathy for folks in this situation.

Though more than 4,000 Louisiana homeowners have received rebuilding money only in the last six months, or are struggling with inadequate grants or no money at all, FEMA is intent on taking away their trailers by the end of May. The deadline, which ends temporary housing before permanent housing has replaced it, has become a stark example of recovery programs that seem almost to be working against one another.
Thousands of rental units have yet to be restored, and not a single one of 500 planned “Katrina cottages” has been completed and occupied. The Road Home program for single-family homeowners, which has cost federal taxpayers $7.9 billion, has a new contractor who is struggling to review a host of appeals, and workers who assist the homeless are finding more elderly people squatting in abandoned buildings.
Nonetheless, FEMA wants its trailers back, even though it plans to scrap or sell them for a fraction of what it paid for them.
“All I can say is that this is a temporary program, it was always intended as a temporary program, and at a certain point all temporary programs must end,” said Brent Colburn, the agency’s director of external affairs. He said there would be no extensions.

It has been 3 ½ years since Hurricane Katrina. Huge amounts of government assistance has been poured into the region impacted. Survivors of other disasters, like those of us who went through Hurricane Ike last fall, have received nothing near the level of assistance that was given to folks in New Orleans. Indeed, except for a few elderly and seriouslydisabled folks in my town, there is not a FEMA trailer to be seen despite a 12 foot storm surge. I was told flat-out that my wife and I didn’t qualify for a trailer or rental assistance because we had insurance to repair our house, even though it did not cover temporary housing for the seven months we were out of our home. We were expected to make due with our own resources, even in the immediate aftermath of the storm. I therefore cannot feel outraged that “temporary assistance” is ending for people who were impacted by a storm well over three years ago – and wonder why the New York Times doesn’t wander down here to Texas and investigate the relative lack of assistance that those of us in the Houston/Galveston area have received.

Posted by: Greg at 11:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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