Quoted:
Quoted: Katrina "victims" will no longer to get free electric (as they have for the past year). Funds ran out and NOW they wonder what they will do now for lighting. ITS CALLED GET A FRIGGIN JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is simply amazing how people expect everything to be given to them for free
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Can anyone point me to a news article about this? |
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3676263.html"When this Katrina situation developed, we welcomed people with arms wide open," he said."We never scrutinized who should be coming into the city, we never turned anyone back. In the same way New Orleans cannot now say that everyone who is disabled, or cannot work, should have to stay in Houston."
Shortly after Katrina struck New Orleans — and with Houston's shelters and hotels full — Mayor Bill White and other local officials devised a plan to provide long-term housing for evacuees.
More than 80,000 evacuees signed up for the program, which provided one year of rent-free living in an apartment as well as free electricity and gas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is reimbursing Houston for the housing program's expenses.
A major component of this initiative, city officials said, has been reaching out to those evacuees in Houston apartments to help them obtain job skills and find employment.
"Our overwhelming concern is one of helping people get back on their feet, and then helping them find a job," Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. "That's what the Houston mentality is, this is a working town."
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/05/katrina/3441703.htmlTen weeks after Hurricane Katrina touched off the largest U.S. migration since the Dust Bowl, the welcome mat in Houston has proved to be the most plush in the nation.
Because of its proximity to New Orleans, Houston harbored the largest share of evacuees fleeing the Aug. 29 storm and the devastating flood that followed — an estimated 150,000 people. Not quite a month later, Hurricane Rita brought another, though much smaller, round of storm-ravaged people this way. Now, the city's response to the disasters has been so generous that a third wave of evacuees — those who had landed in other Texas cities — may be en route as well.
What's the lure? In addition to a $2,358 stipend from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the city is offering evacuees a voucher good for 12 months of rent in clean, safe apartments, with free electricity and gas heating. The housing program, the most expansive of its kind in the U.S., is expected to cost Houston about $220 million, though it expects reimbursement from FEMA.
The city already has issued about 35,000 vouchers, ranging from one-bedroom apartments for two people to four-bedroom apartments for larger families.
More than 12,000 vouchers have been cashed in, each signifying an evacuee family has signed a lease. The city then pays the landlord directly.
John Walsh, a deputy chief of staff for Mayor Bill White who has spearheaded the program, said he expects at least 60,000 evacuees to find housing here because of the program.
By contrast, Atlanta has made virtually no provisions for long-term housing, and Dallas has sought to house fewer than 1,000 families.
"Very early on," noted Walsh, "the mayor said, 'These are our neighbors, they are in need, and we will help them.' "