Check-Out Time for Hurricane "Hotel People"
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Label me cruel and inhumane, but I think five and a half months is enough and the Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita "hotel people" should be persuaded to come up with alternatives.
FEMA and a federal judgeagree:
Clearly at some point this money has to dry up and this program wind down. Personally I think 30 days would have been sufficiently generous; 90 days would have been erring on the side of benevolent caution.
But almost six months? Skyscrapers can be built in less time, but temporary dormitories can't be? That's not disaster relief, it's bureaucratic inertia.
Those who owned their homes should have received their insurance checks by now. Those who are simply going to walk away from it all and start over somewhere else have had adequate time to make plans, or at least to "make plans to make plans." And the remainder can be surely be housed somewhere other than a New York City hotel.
We should not be at the end of the beginning, or even the beginning of the end. This should be the end of the end. As heartless as it may sound, enough is enough.
And while we're on the subject -- where's New York City's disaster money for our recent blizzard?
More thoughts from The Phalanx.
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Back in October, I blogged the following:
Of course, "guilt by association" is not a valid reason to criticize the hotel program -- these people needed shelter. But note the past tense -- "needed." It's time to move on and clean up the fiscal wreckage from Katrina and Rita as well as the tangible wreckage.
FEMA and a federal judge
A judge let the federal government Monday drop some 12,000 families made homeless by last year's hurricanes from a program that has put them up at hotels nationwide.Keep in mind that this ruling was not about cutting off victims' aid entirely or about evicting them from the hotels. FEMA simply wants to stop direct payments to the hotels -- hotels not just in the area but across the country, including here in New York City. And still some advocates and activists are upset.
FEMA has promised the evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that they will still receive federal assistance that they can use toward hotel stays or fixing their ruined homes, although the agency will no longer pay for the hotels directly.
Attorneys for the evacuees tried to get U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval to issue a temporary restraining order, saying the forthcoming money from FEMA won't be enough for reasonable living accommodations or for hotel stays.
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In Louisiana, officials offered shelters to those leaving the hotels, but according to FEMA, only one family needed sheltering.
Clearly at some point this money has to dry up and this program wind down. Personally I think 30 days would have been sufficiently generous; 90 days would have been erring on the side of benevolent caution.
But almost six months? Skyscrapers can be built in less time, but temporary dormitories can't be? That's not disaster relief, it's bureaucratic inertia.
Those who owned their homes should have received their insurance checks by now. Those who are simply going to walk away from it all and start over somewhere else have had adequate time to make plans, or at least to "make plans to make plans." And the remainder can be surely be housed somewhere other than a New York City hotel.
We should not be at the end of the beginning, or even the beginning of the end. This should be the end of the end. As heartless as it may sound, enough is enough.
And while we're on the subject -- where's New York City's disaster money for our recent blizzard?
More thoughts from The Phalanx.
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Back in October, I blogged the following:
Expect a GAO report, followed by a lot of political huff-and-puff, followed by a Congressional investigation, followed by more huff-and-puff, followed by ... absolutely nothing.Well, here's the first part:
The GAO report found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under the emergency cash assistance program -- which included the debit cards given to evacuees -- based their requests on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.See also this previous post.
In other instances, recipients improperly used their debit cards intended for food and shelter for $400 massages, a $450 tattoo, a $1,100 diamond engagement ring and $150 worth of products at "Condoms to Go."
Of course, "guilt by association" is not a valid reason to criticize the hotel program -- these people needed shelter. But note the past tense -- "needed." It's time to move on and clean up the fiscal wreckage from Katrina and Rita as well as the tangible wreckage.
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- Ladies and Gentlemen, Malibu is Burning...
- FEMA to Taxpayers: Drop Dead
- What Price Perfection?...
- Do the Katrina Hotel People Have "Tenant Rights"?
- Check-Out Time for Hurricane "Hotel People"
- Spending Like a Drunken Bureaucrat...
- "It's the Most Blunderful Time of the Year..."
- FEMA Based Payouts on Weather Maps, Not Actual Damage
- We're from the Government and We're Here to Help
Posted by Kip on
13 February 2006
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