Please keep them coming, you educate us all with your first hand experience.
We did meet some pretty good folks that had lost everything of financial value, as near as we could tell.
These men would not stop working until their families were taken care of, usually out of pocket. One guy rented a trailer in Venus (50 min south of Dallas) rather than have his family spend a second night at the arena. Lets just say that Venus TX is not located on any D/FW tourist guides, and they felt it was better than the arena.
You wouldn’t believe the trash apartments that landlords would rent out under gov’t assistance programs. I was amazed to hear that some of these places were described as “better” than what they left in NO.
**Background** Our company served mostly rental homes in southern Dallas county. Southern Dallas does not have many large scale tenements, but does have 40,000 homes that are rental units. Like many areas that were built shortly after WW II, age has not been kind to the area. Lots of good neighborhoods, even more places that are shuttered and covered in burglar bars. Also, many of the cheap homes and apartments built in the 80’s are now beyond realistic repair.
Think $450 month rent to working folks, and the same place may rent for $1200 to Section 8. Between the landlord vultures and the subsidized tenant vultures, HUD is just that much more fresh carrion to them.
And when they tried to close the arena weeks after Katrina, there were dozens of families still there. Complaining to every TV camera in sight.