Posted on 02/07/2006 8:28:34 AM PST by Ellesu
Due to the end of the FEMA-funded sheltering, the State of Louisiana is opening emergency shelters and has established a toll free number to assist hurricane victims who will be evicted by FEMA from motels and hotels on Feb. 7. “I have instructed my state agencies, led by the Department of Social Services, to immediately stand up emergency shelters for those who are ineligible for additional FEMA housing assistance and face eviction. Meanwhile the state will continue to work on permanent solutions for their families.” Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said in making the announcement today. “I am troubled that FEMA has continued to reject the state’s request for solutions, particularly in light of its failure to deliver temporary housing options to meet the needs of our Louisiana citizens,” Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said in making the announcement today. According to the Louisiana Hurricane Housing Task Force, FEMA estimates that 900 families in Louisiana will lose their hotel privileges on Feb. 7 and another 2,200 families will lose the privileges on Feb. 13.
The Governor instructed the Department of Social Services and the Louisiana Hurricane Housing Task Force, along with the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness, to begin working immediately to find a solution to house these citizens when it was learned that FEMA rejected the state’s request for federal solutions.
In an effort to provide needed crisis counseling for affected families, Governor Blanco instructed DHH to provide La Spirit Crisis Counselors at the shelters, staging areas and hotels from which a significant number of evacuees will be leaving.
The state has established a toll-free hotline for displaced citizens in need of emergency housing. They will be asked questions about their needs, and then be advised as to the shelter options available to them. The phone number for Louisiana Hurricane Emergency Shelter Hotline is 1-866-310-7617.
Beginning tomorrow, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development will mobilize vans from state agencies to pick up residents deemed ineligible by FEMA at their hotels. They will then be taken to regional staging areas and transported to emergency shelters.
“It is not our desire to remove families from hotels and motels to a shelter, but at this point it is our only solution to meet the immediate needs of the affected families,” said Col. Bill Croft, special emergency housing coordinator for Governor Blanco. “We will continue to work with U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to find long term solutions to meet the needs of Louisiana citizens.”
Beginning tomorrow, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development will mobilize vans from state agencies to pick up residents deemed ineligible by FEMA at their hotels. They will then be taken to regional staging areas and transported to emergency shelters.
Finally running with the pre-Katrina plan, eh?
Is this malingering by state officials who have been determined to max fed monies?
Blanco and Nagin sure must be desperate to get those voters back to Louisiana.
New Orleans is by no means the only place prey to (Not In My Back Yard) NIMBY squabbles. Voices have been raised against trailer parks throughout Louisiana. Of the state's 64 parishes, 32 have banned any new group trailer sites in the wake of the storm, while 24 have approved them with certain conditions or restrictions, according to FEMA. Only eight parishes have asked FEMA to bring in group parks with no conditions.
In neighboring Mississippi and Alabama, the governors relaxed their codes, making it easier for FEMA to set up trailer park sites, according to James McIntyre, an agency spokesman. Stressing that FEMA "cannot place units without state and local approval," he said Louisiana has in some cases helped grease the wheels to help get trailers, but more often the wheels are stuck. In the past four months, more than 100 potential trailer sites have been yanked from consideration, in some cases by elected officials, decisions that McIntyre said had cost the state about 17,000 trailers.
But local officials are anything but united in their views, particularly in New Orleans, the jurisdiction with the greatest need. When the City Council passed an ordinance giving members the final say on trailer placement, Nagin vetoed it, declaring the measure moot because a declared state of emergency gives the executive the exclusive power on temporary housing decisions. Last week the council unanimously overrode that veto. A possible court battle looms.
'Not in my back yard' cry holding up FEMA trailers
And then there is the other problem:
BATON ROUGE -- More than 85 percent of Hurricane Katrina evacuee families housed in hotels in Louisiana have received Federal Emergency Management Agency checks to pay for apartments or other housing, but have not moved from their hotel rooms.
Besides picking up the tab for hotel rooms, FEMA has approved checks totaling $2,358 -- $786 a month for three months -- for about 8,500 of the 9,890 households in 9,701 Louisiana hotel and motel rooms as of Monday morning. FEMA records show 18,789 individuals in the rooms.
"The first three months' payments may not have been spent appropriately," said FEMA public information officer Kelly Hudson, since so many families have not moved into apartments or houses. "We have gone the extra mile but they need to be participants in their own recovery."
It gets worse. There is a hotel on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans that had been housing Katrina victims since October on FEMA's nickel. In January, the hotel decided to opt out of the FEMA program and "evict" (I hate to use that term becasue it isn't appropriate here) from their hotel.
The evacuees went to CDC got a court order and restrained the hotel from evicting them as long as FEMA was paying the bill.
---Good post. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.