FEMA is back in the news today. Some activists from A.C.O.R.N. in Houston want FEMA to continue to pay rent for folks who got kicked off the rent voucher program and to pay the three months or so backrent. FEMA doesn't want to do that. The state of Louisiana is fighting a bill FEMA wants paid, whether some of it was due to fraudulent claims or not. Government investigators are saying that FEMA squandered a bunch of money. Seems to me like everyone is complaining about the wrong stuff.
I myself have ties to New Orleans and I mourn for her as I once knew her bright shining like the sun. Yes, it hard to lose everything in one fell swoop. I've been through that too with a different disaster.
How long must FEMA pay rent for the folks displaced by Katrina? It's been more than a year folks. Ya mean ya couldn't get your shit together in a year and get a job or apply for public assistance or disability in that span of time?
Meanwhile, New Orleans is being rebuilt after a fashion. The little shotgun houses and garage apartments in the poorer sections [read: closer to the water and more below sea level than the richer sections] are gone. A big fancy casino is now operational. There are tons of jobs in New Orleans and not enough people to work them.
The problems which caused the massive flooding were patched, not permanently fixed. Wetlands are nature's way of protecting against what happened. The Corp of Engineers don't want to hear that though. So structural bandaids have been applied to the levees.
The government is still being blamed for not getting people out. Does the city have an evacuation plan in place now? Do the people living their now have their own individual plan to get out, should another Katrina storm do it again?
Meanwhile, people are bitching about being cut off from FEMA's nipple. What is this crap? "I deserve the money." Unbelievable. No, wait. I do believe it. Arrrrgh.
radical sapphoq
These sources were researched in writing this post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/us/07fema.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4384743.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4387296.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/4387623.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/
la-na-briefs7.4dec07,0,5346678.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
1 comment:
In the real world people who live in areas that are below sea level and next to the ocean move because it is not feasible anymore ... We see this sort of thing in 4th world nations and here we are constantly propagating it in New Orleans ... You note they haven't fixed their congressman who had 90,000$ of Katrina money in his freezer for bribes ... The people who were there not working for decades still aren't surprise surprise ... It might make me look like a hate monger but New Orleans was a problem long before Katrina and Katrina only made it worse because of the pity that was created for people that gave up a long time ago because of the pity ;-) JC
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