That's right.
While Governor Blanco was giving the speech of her political life, so said one New Orleans article; while Disney resumed shooting a movie in what was New Orleans; while Mardi Gras festivities are still being planned for later this month, and while Coretta Scott King was being eulogized in an Atlanta suburb as two Bush presidents squirmed...
Katrina evacuees were being turned out of their temporary housing in hotels across the country. At least 25,000 hotel rooms, some housing whole families of four or more, are affected.
Where will they go and what will they do?
FEMA said it gave people every possible opportunity to request an extension.
"We've bent over backward to reach out. We've gone door-to-door to all of the 25,000 hotel rooms no fewer than six times. And there are individuals who have refused to come to the door, refused to answer. There are people who have run when they saw us coming those are the ones that are now moving on," Kinerney said.
FEMA maintains that as many as 80 percent of those being forced to check out this week have made other living arrangements, ranging from trailers to receiving federal rent assistance to living with relatives.
I don't agree with this scenario.
In New York, around 50 protesters including both evacuees and activists gathered at the steps of City Hall to protest the evictions.
In Oakland, Calif., demonstrators carrying signs and chanting "Evict FEMA" tried to present an eviction notice to employees at a FEMA branch office.
Additionally,
The lucky few who do get temporary housing assistance from FEMA are faced with difficult decisions. Families will receive $2,358 for three months, less than $800 a month. That's no longer enough to afford even a one-bedroom apartment in New Orleans, where rents now start at around $1,100. To make matters even more difficult, Godnick says recipients aren't allowed to use the $2,358 to pay security deposits or utility costs. Those who don't have resources to pay their own deposits have to either convince landlords to waive them or seek help from private charities.
Because FEMA's temporary housing assistance isn't enough to cover rent in New Orleans, evacuees -- including homeowners whose houses were destroyed in the post-Katrina flooding -- are being told to resign themselves to starting over in states with more affordable housing.
"FEMA's response has been, 'We've got housing all over the country, we just don't have it in New Orleans. These people need to move,'" says Washington. FEMA spokesman James McIntyre told the Times-Picayune: "People now will have to make some hard choices. We have mobile homes and travel trailers available in parishes in northern Louisiana, or they can take advantage of housing opportunities in other states or metro areas."
Urban cleansing.
The Times Picayune closer to home published this:
The 900 families or individuals facing the Tuesday cutoff essentially were people "who did not want to talk to us" and didn't apply for an authorization code that allows them to stay longer in the hotels, said FEMA spokesman Jack Brandais. A larger impact is expected Monday, when FEMA is scheduled to begin eliminating financing for 2,200 hotel rooms in the state. In the New Orleans area, officials have said many people staying in hotels will keep the federal help until March 1, the day after Mardi Gras.
[...]
As he moved out his belongings, Melvin Robinson, 40, said he did talk to a FEMA representative by phone and was told he didn't qualify for an extension of his hotel stay because the agency is paying apartment rent for his family in Dallas, and wouldn't support two residences for the family. Robinson, a Regional Transit Authority bus driver, said he must be in New Orleans to keep his job but has no place to bring his family. "When I tried to get an extension, the FEMA lady on the phone, she was so unruly, she said, 'That's not my problem,' " he said.
Of course. As another FEMA official put it succinctly, evacuees have to take personal responsibility, after spending about $500 million for their housing for six months.
At the French Quarter Holiday Inn on Royal Street, federal support was severed Tuesday for 36 rooms used by storm victims, said general manager Darrius Gray. FEMA plans to cut off support for 80 rooms Monday, and five more in March, he said. Gray said the hotel has offered to allow those losing the federal help to remain in their rooms longer, paying a reduced price themselves. But he said most of the hotel's messages to people threatened with loss of their rooms haven't been returned.
"I can't probe too much," he said. "I do not know their intentions."
This, in a place where mental health facilities are nil, where depression, suicides and drinking and drugging are up, where people have few jobs, and where racial and class discrimination is now openly tolerated. No doubt, some may have a place to go, but others do not. And some may have given up.
In a Salon.com article about the impending evictions, a Children's Defense Fund official put it this way:
If FEMA deadlines aren't extended, "you're going to see folks homeless -- truly homeless and out on the street," says Mary Joseph, director of the Children's Defense Fund's Katrina Relief and Recovery for Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. None of New Orleans' homeless shelters are in operation and so all the city can offer is a patch of expensive, rain-soaked parkland. "I am scared," says Tracie Washington, a local civil rights lawyer who has represented Katrina evacuees facing eviction from their hotels. "Every indication says to me that we are headed for a catastrophe if we don't do something quickly."
Donovan Caesar was a recent graduate of Loyola University when Katrina hit. He is currently attending the University of Toronto to do graduate work in psychology. He just returned to New Orleans to see friends, who are still depressed and covering up their sorrows with drink:
Tension is at an all time high as people are ready to return to life as normal, but everything is blocking that process. Racial tension is one part of this. It is openly said by some how much better New Orleans is now that there is no "crime" -- which in New Orleans is a racist codeword for "black people." I was actually called a nigger while standing outside a bar and when I tried to flag a cab, for two hours every single one passed me by and picked up white people standing a block away from me. Racism has always been a problem in New Orleans and in the five years I lived there, I definitely dealt with my share of it. But even I can say it was never this bad.
The other tension is the rich-poor divide. As many people lost everything they had while others were completely spared, there is open hostility against those who managed to survive this disaster unscathed. However, instead of helping those in need, the rich have decided to lobby against the poor. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, in an attempt to buy time to decide what else to do, has sent thousands of trailers as temporary housing for the displaced people of New Orleans. The problem is, where to put them? Given the conditions of the areas most affected, the only solution is to place them in the neighbourhoods that were less affected. This has sent the Uptown (rich) community into an uproar. They have argued against helping the displaced people because placing trailers in their yards will lower the property value of their houses. I am not joking, there are hour-long discussions of this topic on TV.
Somehow, despite the racism and the class divides, I really did believe that when troubled times came, and people really needed to depend on each other, they would put their differences aside and band together. And there are many stories of such a thing happening, but there are also many stories where that is most definitely not the case. This heartlessness hurts me more than anything else, that not only can you lose all that you have but after losing everything you have you can not even depend on the support of your government or your own community.