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MEANWHILE IN NEW ORLEANS
Meanwhile in New Orleans ~ the Federal government continues to mis-manage and be" numbingly insensitive " to an epic human tragedy.
Tell me that the neglect of New Orleans has nothing to do with the fact that most of the victims are poor, black and democrats.
Just another example of where Bush's priorities are ~ but the Center for American Progress lays out the waste and mis-management facts for all to see .
Allen L Roland
Homeless For The Holidays
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney Amanda Terkel and Payson Schwin / American Progress Report
On Sept. 15, President Bush stood in downtown New Orleans and promised hurricane victims that he would help them rebuild their communities to be "even better and stronger than before the storm." But the administration's solutions have focused only on short-sighted quick fixes, not on the long-term interests of the 100,000 displaced families who remain in temporary housing. The federal government has allocated $7.15 billion on temporary and longer-term housing for Katrina evacuees, according to a Nov. 11 Brookings Institution analysis, with much of this money wasted on ill-thought out plans such as a $236 million deal with Carnival Cruise Lines.
As Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials appear today before the Housing Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee -- under the threat of a congressional subpoena after refusing to appear at a Dec. 8 hearing -- the administration still lacks a viable plan for rebuilding evacuees' communities. "We got people living in tents and automobiles. We got people living in barns. We got people living ...in tents," said Henry “Junior” Rodriguez, president of St. Bernard Parish. Taxpayer money continues to be spent on costly temporary devices and hurricane victims continue to live in the short term.
TRAILER HOUSING IS 'WASTEFUL': Nearly $3 billion of the federal money spent on housing Katrina evacuees has gone toward trailer and mobile-home "communities." As of Dec. 7, FEMA had installed only 39,000 trailers; 20,000 "are in place or await sites" and another 125,000 are on order. FEMA is currently "spending as much as $140,000 for each trailer and site for a family to use for 18 months." According to Scott Wells, the federal government's second-ranking disaster official in Louisiana, the administration's trailer program is "wasteful and counter to the long-term interests" of the displaced families. Instead, according to Wells, the administration should give the storm victims the congressionally-approved $26,200 in a lump sum: "This would allow [evacuees] to quickly get on with rebuilding their lives and afford them an immediate permanent housing solution.
It also saves the U.S. taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars. ... Temporary housing is not cost effective or customer-oriented." Not only is this temporary trailer fix costly, there are no guarantees it will remain temporary; victims of a 1998 tropical storm are still living in one of FEMA's trailer "communities."
FEMA'S 'ARBITRARY' HOTEL DEADLINE EXTENDED: Forty-two thousand evacuee families are still living in 4,000 hotels in 47 states and the District of Columbia. The program "has cost $350 million so far and at its peak included 85,000 rooms across the country."
FEMA originally set a Dec. 1 deadline for the hotel program, but on Monday, a federal judge extended the deadline to Feb. 7, calling FEMA's original deadline "numbingly insensitive" and "unduly callous."
" It is unimaginable what anxiety and misery these erratic and bizarre vacillations by FEMA have caused these victims, all of whom, for at least one point in time, had the very real fear of being without shelter for Christmas," wrote Judge Duval.
FEDERAL OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN AWOL: When First Lady Laura Bush visited hurricane-hit Gulfport, M.S., on Monday, she told hurricane victims, "Try not to be sad. It's very important for your children." But evacuees need more than just words of encouragement from the Bush administration.
On Dec. 8, HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson refused to attend a Katrina hearing by the Housing Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee. "I feel disappointment, and even disgust, with the failure of HUD to show up for this hearing...the biggest issue facing New Orleans right now is housing, and the Secretary of housing doesn’t show up. This is an embarrassment," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO). At that hearing, lawmakers grilled David E. Garratt, FEMA's Acting Director of its Recovery Division, on why the agency has been unable to properly distribute the $2,358 in rental assistance to which evacuees are entitled. Checks have often been lost in the mail or have arrived without instructions on what to do with the money.
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