Simply Politics & News

[sarals]

Nowhere to Call Home

<< six months is not nearly enough... a friend of mine had her house catch on fire... it took over a year to fix everything so she could move back in >>

Published: February 13, 2006

The worst natural disaster in modern United States history has turned into our collective national shame. When the most powerful nation on earth cannot find long-term housing for its own hurricane victims in almost six months, there is no other word to describe it.

Last Tuesday the government stopped paying for about 4,500 hotel rooms for storm evacuees. By March 1, all but a few people with extenuating circumstances will have to leave their hotels. So will those staying aboard cruise ships, many of whom are the police officers, firefighters and other government employees keeping the city from dying once and for all.

Phasing out these stopgap accommodations is not, in itself, a problem. The problem is that many of the families being ejected have no homes to which they can return. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's answer was to provide trailers. It was a poor solution given that the emergency trailer parks tend to concentrate misery, but still better than nothing. Yet, as Jennifer Steinhauer and Eric Lipton reported in The Times last week, of the 21,000 trailers requested for New Orleans, only about 3,000 have been placed, set up and occupied. And the problem is larger than just New Orleans. Several other parishes are waiting for more than half of their trailers. FEMA says that it has the trailers ready to go, but that local governments won't approve sites and utility companies won't provide services.

Struck once by an unforgiving hurricane, the victims now face a perfect storm of poor response: a federal government of terrible administrators and a locality that is legendary for political dysfunction. The federal government's inept handling of the aftermath mirrors its inept handling of the rescue and relief operations. And watching the outbreaks of pettiness among lawmakers in the Louisiana Legislature is enough to turn one's stomach.

What is needed is work that solves the immediate problem and also contributes to the long-term solution. That means rehabilitating existing housing. FEMA is working on a pilot program to refurbish a 325-unit apartment complex. The agency says that the mayor's office has identified 20,000 apartments that could potentially be rehabilitated. Federal, state and local resources should be brought to bear in getting those homes fixed and reoccupied. Not next year, but right now. The same goes for the trailers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/opinion/13mon2.html?th&emc=th