Ready or Not, Katrina Victims Lose Temporary Housing

[babylonsister]

Ready or Not, Katrina Victims Lose Temporary Housing


Lee Celano for The New York Times

Earnest Hammond, 70, with cans he collects to pay for repairs to his hurricane-damaged home.

By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: May 7, 2009


NEW ORLEANS — Earnest Hammond, a retired truck driver, did not get any of the money that went to aid property owners after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

He failed to qualify for one federal program and was told he missed the deadline on another. But he did get a trailer to live in while he carries out his own recovery plan: collecting cans in a pushcart to pay for the renovations to his storm-damaged apartment, storing them by the roomful in the gutted building he owns.

It is a slow yet steady process. Before the price of aluminum fell to 30 cents a pound, from 85 cents, he had accumulated more than $10,000, he said, almost enough to pay the electrician. But despite such progress, last Friday a worker from the Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered a letter informing him that it would soon repossess the trailer that is, for now, his only home.

“I need the trailer,” said Mr. Hammond, 70. “I ain’t got nowhere to go if they take the trailer.”

Though more than 4,000 Louisiana homeowners have received rebuilding money only in the last six months, or are struggling with inadequate grants or no money at all, FEMA is intent on taking away their trailers by the end of May. The deadline, which ends temporary housing before permanent housing has replaced it, has become a stark example of recovery programs that seem almost to be working against one another.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/us/08trailer.html?_r=2&partner=MYWAY&ei=5065

[ananda]

1. I guess they can form their own special Bushamaville.

nt

[Soylent Brice]

2. messed. up.