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In February, the Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ gave a New Orleans family, who was displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the keys to a house in Hickory Hill that church members said the wife selected. They got a $75,000 house for free. But we discovered that the family sold it without ever moving in.

HOUSTON - Evacuees from Hurricane Katrina have contributed to an increase in Houston's annual murder rate, which could climb this year to its highest level in more than a decade, police said. Houston had 316 homicides as of Oct. 16. That's an increase of 25 percent from the 252 slayings tallied at this time last year, putting the city on pace to record nearly 400 killings before the end of 2006. "We recognize that the homicide rate is up as far as raw numbers and as well as percentages relative to the population," Capt. Dwayne Ready said. "We also recognize...

11 News has learned more about an agreement between the mayors of Houston and New Orleans to send back to Louisiana any evacuees who commit serious crimes here. Mayor White hopes the proposal will appease some angry Houstonians. The agreement was first mentioned publicly in a heated meeting Wednesday night on Westside crime. "We want the New Orleans residents to go home," said one frustrated resident. One year after Katrina, Houston's welcome mat appears to be fraying around the edges. "Our taxes are too high to be putting up with this mess," a Westchase resident told Mayor White Wednesday. The...

Katrina fatigue erupted into anger and frustration Wednesday night, as more than 1,700 west Houston residents urged Mayor Bill White to send evacuees home to New Orleans. One year after the city of Houston welcomed at least 250,000 evacuees, more than 100,000 New Orleans natives still remain. West Houston residents who gathered Wednesday at Grace Presbyterian Church to address increases in violent crime over the past year in their community said evacuees are to blame. White and Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt had come to the church to discuss details of a new police division on the west side that...

Palatine Church Wants Woman Out By The End Of The Month (CBS) PALATINE -- In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Chicago area residents opened up their hearts and wallets. Now, nearly a year later, a suburban church is evicting the family it took in. CBS 2's Alita Guillen reports on a single mom who has no place to turn. For the past year, Keisha Moran and her three children have called a three-bedroom Victorian home, but that's about to change. The St. Paul United Church of Christ in Palatine owns the home, and the parish wants them out by...

In a Fox News free "World" video "Stepping In: Hezbollah providing relief to evacuees" Fox News reporter Jonathan Hunt from Beirut, Lebanon says that the refugees arriving in Beirut "don't just support Hezbollah, but they feel they are a part of the organization." Am I wrong in concluding that the Lebanese civilians are terrorists? The U.S. is sending aid to the Lebanese military. It is under the control of the Lebanese Prime Minister Senior Fraud who we've previously heard on Fox passionately mouthing the rhetoric of anti-Israeli terrorists, calling Israel a criminal war machine, murdering women and children, attacking civilian...

by Mark Finkelstein July 20, 2006 - 08:13 Heart-rending images of small children being lifted across a fence. Outraged American/Lebanese evacuees describing indiscriminate Israeli bombing. A Lebanese man with blood on his shirt after his brother was killed by an Israeli bomb. And the only two reporters on the scene reporting from Beirut. That was the way the 'Today' largely saw fit to cover the Middle East conflict this morning. While none of the words or images are necessarily inaccurate [and we were treated to one evacuee heartily thanking Pres. Bush], they utterly fail to tell the whole story. Yes,...

PARIS (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to Cyprus where he intends to take up to 120 evacuees from Lebanon home to Canada on his Canadian Forces plane. Harper announced the surprise side trip on his week-long European diplomatic tour after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday afternoon. "Because of the seriousness of the situation and our relative proximity to Cyprus, we have decided to take the Canadian Forces aircraft we have been travelling on to help airlift evacuees back home," Harper said in a statement. "The aircraft will be stripped...

6/16/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- It's been more than eight months since Hurricane Katrina displaced thousands of people. Veterans who stayed at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss., were among those who had to leave. More than 400 of the 600 residents were evacuated to the AFRH here and have been without most of their personal belongings since September. "The only thing I brought with me was three shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of shoes and a towel -- that's it," said Leonard Drozal, a World War II Marine Corps veteran. "I miss my computer." Since...

This winter, FEMA put up over 300 Hurricane Katrina evacuees in New York City hotels. Almost all of them have gone back to their lives, their jobs. But not Theon Johnson. He’s currently sprawled out watching Halloween 5 on one of the two full-size beds in his room at the JFK Airport Holiday Inn. He is one of four evacuees still living in a hotel in the city. The others left in February and March, when, after spending more than $500 million, FEMA stopped paying for hotel rooms housing some 40,000 evacuees across the country. That left many scrambling for...

HOUSTON - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin met with his Houston counterpart Wednesday to plan ways to help homesick Hurricane Katrina evacuees - and even some criminals - get back to Louisiana. Nagin and Houston Mayor Bill White said three centers, with information on housing and job opportunities in New Orleans, will open in Houston, and a Return to New Orleans Housing Task Force will be created. Nagin also said he didn't want the "small segment" of evacuees arrested for various crimes to burden the Texas criminal justice system. Authorities are discussing how some evacuees could be moved from jails...

BOWDOINHAM, Maine - A Maine family is in shock after the Bowdoinham house they donated to a family who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina was trashed and abandoned, reported WMTW-TV in Portland. Albert and Nancy Poisson of Dresden decided to let William and Frances Gardner and their two daughters live in the house for a year, free of charge. But last week, the Poissons found some of their appliances gone, their hardwood floor marked up and trash strewn throughout the house. The Poissons found the Gardners through Catholic Charities of Maine and said they had been unable to track the...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Math scores for fifth-grade students displaced to Texas after last year's hurricanes are lagging significantly, mirroring similar low scores in reading. Just 45 percent of the 2,396 fifth-graders who enrolled in Texas schools after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita passed the math portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, according to the Texas Education Agency. Statewide, 81 percent of Texas fifth-graders passed the April 4 math exam. Students must pass the test before they can advance to sixth grade. Officials blame students' low scores on New Orleans' poor schools, the trauma of being abruptly uprooted from...

Katrina welcome mat threadbare; lawmaker drafting ouster bill: HOUSTON -- The crowd gathered inside a west Houston high school auditorium to hear from their congressman was already aggrieved over issues ranging from illegal immigration to road building when the topic turned, as it often does these days in Houston, to the estimated 150,000 evacuees from Hurricane Katrina still living in the city. "I am getting fed up with the criminals and troublemakers from New Orleans," Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) told constituents last week. "We're certainly ready for those people to go home as soon as possible." "Send 'em home," echoed...

New Orleans has long been pivotal in the struggle for black voting rights. During the Civil War, free blacks there demanded suffrage; their efforts resulted in Lincoln's first public call for voting rights for some blacks in the final speech of his life. Once these rights were won, New Orleans blacks took an active part in politics, leading to the establishment of the South's only integrated public school system. But rights once gained aren't necessarily secure; after Reconstruction, blacks in New Orleans lost the right to vote. As Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote at the time of the Civil War, "revolutions...

(Katrina Evacuees Board Louisiana-Bound Buses Before Dawn to Vote for New Orleans Mayor...) LAKE CHARLES, La. - Cara Harrison drove 140 miles Monday just to vote for the next mayor of New Orleans, and she wasn't alone. Hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees boarded buses before dawn Monday in Texas and other states for the long trip to Louisiana, where they could cast early ballots starting Monday at 10 satellite voting centers set up across the state to give displaced residents a voice. "We need to be a part of the political process," said Harrison, an evacuee from the flood-devastated Ninth...

To: National Desk Contact: John Yembrick, 713-567-9388; Web: http://www.Usdoj.Gov/Usao/Txs HOUSTON, April 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Edward Good, 41, a Hurricane Katrina evacuee who lived in Conroe, Texas after the storm, was convicted today of conspiring to commit wire fraud based on his scheme to fraudulently obtain Louisiana Department of Labor Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) debit cards. United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Don DeGabrielle announced today that Good pleaded guilty to the federal felony charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Mr. Good's sentencing is scheduled for July 14, 2006. At sentencing, Mr. Good faces a maximum...

NEW ORLEANS -- By Louisiana's latest official count, 1,292 people are known to have died in the state because of Hurricane Katrina. About 1,280 -- the number changes daily -- remain missing. Hundreds of people were sucked into the Gulf of Mexico by Katrina's retreating tsunami-like storm surge and will never be found. But the state-run, federally funded Find Family National Call Center is discovering that hundreds of others have used the storm and the nationwide diaspora it triggered to escape a troubled or painful past. They do not want to be found. The center's 90 or so workers immerse...

Crime is up. Schools are overcrowded. Hospitals are jammed. Houston welcomed a flood of hurricane evacuees with open arms. But now the city is suffering from a case of 'compassion fatigue.' In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Houston earned a loving moniker among many of the evacuees who sought refuge there: the Big Heart. This, after all, was the city that housed, fed and mended more than 150,000 survivors in a herculean effort that won national acclaim. Houston officials mounted what is believed to be the biggest shelter operation in the country's history, including MASH-like megaclinics that took on problems...

Hurricanes sparked a tragic migration from the Gulf Coast, and changed the state forever Craig Schneider, Anna Varela - Staff Sunday, February 26, 2006 It's taken a lot of helping hands to prop up Connie McDowell's life. After Hurricane Katrina wrecked her home near New Orleans, she moved to Cobb County, three children in tow, no job in sight, and a lifetime of possessions washed away. She needed help. Crosspoint Presbyterian Church off South Cobb Drive provided clothes and meals. The Latin American Association helped pay the deposit on an apartment. The federal government provided some money. And Homestretch, a...