Housing
March 28, 2007
Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans faces a major crisis with homelessness, reports The Christian Science Monitor. Already taxed to the breaking point on many fronts, the city has a homeless population that is now approximately double what existed before the storm — in a city half its previous size. Facing a severe shortage of affordable housing, displaced residents returning to the city along with an influx of construction trade workers are being forced to sleep in everything from cars to flooded-out houses to long-abandoned motels, as Katrina relief workers from across the country still struggle to fill gaping holes in the city's social services.
See Christian Science Monitor article
March 2, 2007
President Bush's visit on Thursday to New Orleans and Mississippi avoids areas that still show the worst of Katrina's wrath in favor of rebuilt homes, reports National Public Radio. Critics say many federal funds earmarked for the rebuilding effort are not being spent.
March 1, 2007
Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu has announced the award of $9.6 million in federal recovery grant money to more than 280 owners of historic Louisiana properties damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, reports The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. Landrieu, noting that the state has received more than 1,200 eligible applications for a share of the $12.5 million appropriated by Congress for damaged historic properties in Louisiana, said he only wished he could have done more. The grants, which range from $5,000 to $45,000, are not part of the state's "Road Home'' assistance program for owners of severely damaged homes.
February 28, 2007
Each day, people are coming and buying stakes in New Orleans, a city that still has less than half the population it had before Hurricane Katrina, reports USA TODAY. People continue to move out, some after returning and becoming overwhelmed by the neighborhoods of empty houses, a crime wave and a general uncertainty about the future. Amid the comings and goings, New Orleans is evolving, trying to find its footing in a post-Katrina world. The blank-canvas feel of the city has attracted a wave of newcomers who will help shape its future: entrepreneurs, young idealists, urban planners and longtime lovers of New Orleans' unique charms.
February 27, 2007
Joining a chorus of critics of the Road Home grant program, a consortium of churches on Monday called for a federal investigation of the contract between the state and ICF International, the company earning up to $756 million to parcel out billions in federal flood recovery aid. Speaking in front of a Lower Ninth Ward church on a still-devastated block of St. Maurice Avenue, ministers from All Congregations Together pronounced the $7.5 billion program a failure, citing the tiny percentage of applicants who so far have received money to fix or hand over their flood-damaged properties, reports The Times-Picayune.
February 26, 2007
While New Orleans haggles over a master redevelopment plan, people in some neighborhoods have been rebuilding on their own, reports The New York Times. They are forming partnerships with companies, universities and nonprofit organizations to help gut homes, assemble volunteers and find pumping equipment. Rebuilding has not been easy. For those who choose to stay, sky-high insurance premiums and rising crime rates await them.
February 23, 2007
The first new houses built in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward since Hurricane Katrina were turned over to their owners on Thursday, creating a small island of hope in a sea of ruin, reports The New York Times. Empty during the day and dark at night, this area is a long way from being a neighborhood again, even though it has been the focus of intensive volunteer efforts and organizing since the storm. The destruction of the Lower Ninth Ward, which was working-class and black before the hurricane, and its subsequent failure to begin recovering, have become symbols for what some see as inequities in this city's halting revival.
February 22, 2007
Almost 18 months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 250,000 homes, Habitat for Humanity says it has built just 416 houses for hurricane victims along the entire coast, from Alabama to Texas, including 36 in New Orleans. More are under construction, for a total of 702. That slower pace reflects, in part, the more complex houses that Habitat builds in the United States, as well as the mind-numbing issues — involving insurance costs and government regulations — that seem to have bogged down efforts to rebuild after the hurricanes. But Habitat International is starting to face criticism that its procedures are slow, rigid and perhaps unsuited to helping disaster victims, however rewarding its efforts are for its volunteers, reports The New York Times.
January 25, 2007
Nearly a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina, federally regulated lenders are still struggling to comply with a requirement that they force homeowners in high-risk flood zones to buy flood insurance, reports USA TODAY. By law, homeowners in flood-prone areas — such as along the coast — must buy such a policy if they get a mortgage from a federally regulated lender. Government-issued flood insurance covers homeowners for up to $250,000 in flood damage to property and $100,000 for contents. Unlike homeowners insurance, though, it doesn't insure against rain or wind damage.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is questioning whether a beleaguered ICF International should run an $869 million program to restore rental housing in the hurricane-affected areas, reports The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. The Blanco administration hired ICF to manage federal funds for two programs: restoring owner-occupied homes and repairing rental property. The governor did not suggest canceling the homeowner portion of the private company's contract, though she has criticized ICF officials' handling of it. ICF is under fire for its management of the $7.5 billion Road Home program. ICF officials responded by saying they are eight weeks ahead of schedule on the rental program.
January 24, 2007
A week after angry and displaced New Orleans residents stormed a fenced-off public housing complex in a bid to return home, the federal housing agency has asked a judge to give it the power to stop future incursions, reports The Associated Press. The Department of Housing and Urban Development urged U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle to hold an immediate hearing on its request to bar unauthorized people from the development, but the judge deferred. He took it under consideration and did not schedule a court date. Last week residents and activists entered gaps cut into a barbed wire fence surrounding the grounds of the St. Bernard housing development to stage a cleanup.
January 23, 2007
A six-month extension of emergency housing assistance will stave off an immediate catastrophe but will not solve the underlying problems preventing hurricane victims from rebuilding their lives, Katrina evacuees and their advocates said Monday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed that assistance would continue through Aug. 31 for about 128,000 households living in trailers, mobile homes or apartments, including about 14,000 in the Houston area. Leaders of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are calling on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide permanent rental assistance vouchers to elderly and disabled evacuees, reports the Houston Chronicle.
January 12, 2007
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has begun telling some Katrina evacuees in Texas that their rental subsidies will end late next month, producing new worries for families that haven't been able to re-establish themselves economically, several New Orleans evacuees said Thursday. The Times-Picayune reports that letters announcing the end of housing assistance in San Antonio have begun to go out to evacuees occupying once-vacant homes seized in foreclosures by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
January 10, 2007
In 2001, Ken Murphy put together a coffee table book, My South Coast Home, featuring hundreds of photographs of Mississippi's Gulf Coast — from his home in Bay St. Louis to Pascagoula, and all points between. The Clarion Ledger reports that after Hurricane Katrina roared through in August 2005, the book became a unique record of what the Coast used to be.
January 8, 2007
Urban planners at three universities are challenging the notion that the city's 9th Ward must be rebuilt from scratch, reporting in a new survey that the predominantly black neighborhoods can be brought back largely as they existed before Hurricane Katrina flooded them, reports The Associated Press. Urban planners and students at Cornell University, Columbia University and the University of Illinois carried out the survey, which was sponsored by ACORN, a national group that works to improve poor and moderate-income neighborhoods. Researchers and structural engineers based their assessment on the inspection of about 3,000 buildings.
In New Orleans, homes in move-in condition — those left unscathed by Hurricane Katrina as well as those that are fully repaired — sold for premium prices in 2006, fetching sums that were on average 19 percent higher than before the storm. Prices of properties damaged in the August 2005 hurricane and still awaiting repairs plunged by 42 percent from pre-Katrina levels, reports The Times-Picayune. The figures, compiled by Wade Ragas of Real Property Associates and released by the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors, are the first to quantify Katrina's effect on home prices.
January 4, 2007
As the Road Home rebuilding aid program for homeowners continues to grind through bureaucratic delays, a similar program targeting the small-time landlords who have long dominated the New Orleans rental market hasn't paid anyone and won't for months to come, reports The Times-Picayune. Landlords owning properties with one to four rental units ultimately will be able to tap into $869 million in rebuilding grants, less than an eighth of the $7.5 billion devoted to help owners of damaged homes through the Road Home program, which to date has paid only about 100 of more than 90,000 applicants. And the Louisiana rental property aid program will be managed by the same cast of officials: the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the state Office of Community Development and privately contracted manager ICF International.
December 13, 2006
The leader of a nonpartisan Mississippi watchdog group is urging state ethics commissioners to decide whether three legislators are breaking the law by profiting from a contract that allows them to finalize grants for Hurricane Katrina victims. The Mississippi Press reports that Dick Johnson, president of the Mississippi affiliate of Common Cause, also says ethics commissioners should tell the public about the results of their investigation.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is asking FEMA to add another year to the time thousands of Mississippians will be allowed to live in trailers the government issued after Hurricane Katrina. The Associated Press reports that Barbour says a shortage of permanent housing makes it impossible for most people living in FEMA trailers to move out before the current deadline of Feb. 28. Mississippi Emergency Management Agency records show that as of Monday, 84,494 people were living in FEMA trailers in 13 Mississippi counties — 31,294 trailers multiplied by the average family size of 2.7 people.
December 12, 2006
In New Orleans, musicians have been helping other musicians in the aftermath of the disaster that tossed the city's soul — its music scene — into limbo, reports Reuters. More than a year and 110 gutted homes later, the Arabi Wrecking Krewe has attracted dozens of volunteers to get jazz, R&B and brass band players on track to rebuild their houses by ripping out nearly everything but the studs free of charge. Luminaries such as soul singer Irma Thomas, trumpeter Leroy Jones and bandleader and clarinetist Dr. Michael White have all had work done by the "krewe" — the spelling used by groups that put on Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans.
December 6, 2006
FEMA said Tuesday that it will appeal a judge's order that the agency resume housing assistance and make retroactive payments to thousands of hurricane evacuees, according to the Houston Chronicle. The appeal notice came just hours after lawyers for evacuees asked a federal judge in Washington to order FEMA to provide a plan for compliance with the Nov. 29 order. FEMA's notice did not specify grounds for the appeal.
More than a year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, life is still precarious and unpredictable for many evacuees, especially those who have depended on the government for a modicum of stability, reports The New York Times. About 102,000 families are still living in government trailers scattered around the region, and an additional 33,000 are living in apartments paid for by FEMA. What trauma victims need most, stability, is just what has proved most elusive.
December 4, 2006
Stronger levees, better schools and increased access to health care must be the top priorities as New Orleans rebuilds, a group of more than 2,500 Crescent City natives has told city and national leaders. Connected by satellite and the Internet, Hurricane Katrina survivors in 21 U.S. cities mulled over their priorities during an eight-hour Unified New Orleans Plan workshop Saturday, according to the Houston Chronicle. Their thoughts on how to improve utilities, housing, education, flood protection and emergency services in New Orleans will be included in the final recovery plan, which is expected to be submitted to the city's leaders in January.
December 1, 2006
The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says he was disappointed that a judge, in a sharply critical ruling, ordered the agency to resume housing aid to thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. "It's almost a thing of no good deed goes unpunished," Director R. David Paulison told reporters at the National Press Club. "We felt like we did a good job." The Houston Chronicle reports that a federal judge on Wednesday ordered the federal government to resume paying rent and make three months of retroactive payments for about 2,600 hurricane evacuee households in Houston and thousands more across the country.
November 27, 2006
Nearly 15 months after the hurricane, the number of Katrina victims spending Thanksgiving in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency this year is paradoxically greater — roughly three times greater — than it was last year, reports the Associated Press. The reason: Many people who were living with family members or staying in hotels at government expense last year have since moved out or been evicted. But they have been unable to return to their homes because they are still waiting for their houses to be repaired, their insurance to come through, or water and electricity to be turned back on — or they have yet to decide whether to rebuild at all.
November 14, 2006
Dillard University in New Orleans is receiving $2 million from the federal government to rebuild off-campus housing damaged by Hurricane Katrina, according to The Associated Press. The grant announced Monday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development comes under a program meant to help historically black colleges and universities, such as Dillard, further address the needs of their communities. Katrina left the private school's campus under up to 8 feet of water, some of which stayed in buildings for several weeks, said Karen Celestan, Dillard's senior director for university communications. Since the storm, just one of Dillard's dorms has re-opened, and it has limited space for co-eds, she said.
November 8, 2006
Struggling to combat an increase in crime at apartment complexes with an understaffed force, the Houston Police Department is hoping to make property owners take more responsibility for keeping their residents safe. After heavy lobbying from the Houston Apartment Association, the City Council will consider an ordinance that would require owners of properties with high violent crime rates to hire an officer as a security consultant — for a one-time fee of $400 — and follow recommendations to make the property less vulnerable, reports the Houston Chronicle. About half of Houstonians live in apartment complexes, including buildings that have been filled to capacity since New Orleans residents flocked to Houston because of Hurricane Katrina last year. Without an increase in police to accompany the rise in population, tensions escalated at various properties.
November 2, 2006
A federal judge in Mississippi says he won't order a new trial for a Pascagoula couple whose lawsuit against their insurance company was the first case to be tried in the state after Hurricane Katrina spawned hundreds of similar lawsuits. The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Court Judge L.T. Senter Jr. refused to change his ruling in August that Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.'s policies do not cover damage from a hurricane's wind-driven water, known as storm surge. Senter, who heard the landmark case without a jury, also said he sees no reason to order a new trial for Paul and Julie Leonard, who sued Nationwide after the company only paid them $1,661 for more than $130,000 worth of damage to their home.
October 30, 2006
Parts of New Orleans that suffered minor damage during Hurricane Katrina and thus have the heaviest concentration of residents and open businesses should be given priority as limited money is directed to repair utilities and other infrastructure, most participants in a citywide planning meeting said Saturday. The Times-Picayune reports that nearly half of respondents also said it matters little or not at all whether the city remains "the same physical size," perhaps addressing the question of whether its footprint should shrink to exclude some of the worst-flooded areas, which tend to have more black and poor residents. About 75 percent of the roughly 350 participants were white and 40 percent had an annual household income of more than $75,000. Before Katrina, the city was 67 percent black and 54 percent of households earned less than $29,000 — only 2 percent earned $75,000 or more.
October 27, 2006
In Gulfport, Miss., an experimental mediation program is easing the crushing load of lawsuits spawned by Katrina, which damaged or destroyed more than 250,000 homes in Louisiana and Mississippi. The Associated Press reports that with hundreds of hurricane-related lawsuits clogging his docket, U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. has ordered several dozen plaintiffs and their insurers to sit down with a mediator and try to resolve their differences — or face "appropriate sanctions." Settlements were reached in seven of the first 17 cases to go to mediation; encouraged by those results, Senter last week ordered mediation for 57 more cases.
October 23, 2006
The Associated Press reports that the nation's five Gulf Coast states are competing for a pool of $400 million to test and build alternative housing for hurricane victims, a pilot program FEMA hopes can become a model for how to provide fast, temporary or semi-permanent housing after the next tornado in Nebraska, earthquake in Hawaii or hurricane in Louisiana.
October 20, 2006
Throughout southeast Louisiana, owners of 460 camps and homes on water in places such as Bayou Segnette, the Wagon Wheel and parts of Chalmette have received contracts from Entergy Louisiana asking them to pay a portion of the $24 million it will cost to restore power to their sites in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to The Times-Picayune. While the $2,600-a-month example is extreme, others are being asked to pay several hundred dollars extra each month.
October 17, 2006
Like other Gulf Coast localities, the city of Biloxi, Miss., ignored code violations in the first frantic months after Hurricane Katrina hit. Code enforcement in Biloxi ceased from Aug. 29 until Jan. 1, reports The (Biloxi) Sun Herald. In January, code enforcement resumed, but the city's current policy mandates a response only when a resident calls in a complaint.
October 16, 2006
In the year since Hurricane Katrina drove out many of the people of New Orleans, wild animals, such as alligators, foxes and coyotes have been moving in. The Associated Press reports that some were blown in by the winds or redistributed by the floodwaters. Others were drawn by the piles of rotting garbage and by the shelter afforded by all the abandoned homes and tall weeds.
October 12, 2006
A Florida contractor has been returned to Mississippi to face an embezzlement charge stemming from a hurricane restoration project. The Associated Press reports that Don Gene Clemons, 55, of Pensacola, Fla., was jailed Thursday at the Jackson County Adult Detention Center. Clemons allegedly entered into a contract with Jackson County homeowners and was advanced $45,000 to rebuild a home after it was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, according to the sheriff's department. On March 29, the homeowners filed a report with the sheriff's department alleging embezzlement.
October 6, 2006
Wholesale destruction of most New Orleans neighborhoods raises the specter of historically significant homes and buildings facing the wrecking ball. But identifying such structures has proven a tall order for preservation specialists hired by the federal government, reports The Times-Picayune. The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week alerted the public through a newspaper advertisement to a list of 505 homes in New Orleans that owners have asked to be torn down using federal grant money. The appeal, meant to get the public to help identify historic buildings, will be used to determine whether any of the homes would be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historical Places, a test required when federal money is used for demolitions.
October 4, 2006
Almost three-fourths of New Orleans homeowners applying for federal grants say they will use the money to rebuild their flood-ruined properties rather than take a buyout or relocate, a figure that far surpasses the state average of about 56 percent and may signal the potent recovery the city. The Times-Picayune reports that the data, released Tuesday in the most detailed report so far of the intentions of homeowners who have applied to the state's $7.5 billion Road Home program, suggest the potential for the widespread rebirth of New Orleans, even as blight continues to pervade neighborhoods 13 months after the flood, the top official of the Louisiana Recovery Authority said. While the news of homeowners' return to New Orleans seems positive, nowhere do the numbers seem bleaker than in suburban St. Bernard Parish. So far, only 37 percent of parish residents who have applied for grants said they planned to rebuild their houses where they stood before the storm. (See Government Data for link to statistics.)
October 3, 2006
The jury pool in south Mississippi has been tainted by "media propaganda" about the insurance industry's handling of claims after Hurricane Katrina, a major insurer argues in a bid to move the trials for several lawsuits spawned by the storm. The Associated Press reports that State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. commissioned a survey of 3,600 registered voters in Mississippi that found a "substantial amount of bias against insurance companies" among Gulf Coast residents after Katrina. The Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer claims the survey demonstrates that it can't get a fair trial in south Mississippi for the lawsuits filed by policyholders whose homes were damaged or destroyed by last year's storm.
October 2, 2006
A model home in Mississippi that gives Katrina's displaced an alternative to trailer living is starting to take the country by storm, reports The Christian Science Monitor. The Katrina cottage — with living quarters about the size of a McMansion bathroom — is now appealing to people well beyond the flood plain. Californians want to build one in their backyards to use for rental income to help with the mortgage payment. Modestly paid kayakers in Colorado see it as a way to finally afford a house. Elsewhere, people envision building one so a parent can live nearby.
See Christian Science Monitor article
September 28, 2006
As New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin's administration has ramped up for what surely will become one of the biggest code-enforcement chores in American history, interviews with activists and leaders in more than a dozen hard-hit parts of town — not including the devastated Lower 9th Ward, which has a blanket hardship exemption — suggest growing support for a big-stick approach. The Times-Picayune reports that residents also increasingly have started taking on both gutting and enforcement themselves, helping or pressuring their neighbors to gut, repair or tear down their properties.
September 15, 2006
A federal judge in Mississippi has refused to dismiss two lawsuits that accuse a Texas engineering firm and two engineers of falsifying Hurricane Katrina damage reports to benefit insurance companies. U.S. District Court Judge L.T. Senter Jr. said in an order that the lawsuits against engineering firm Rimkus Consulting Group of Houston and engineers Thomas E. Heifner and Gary L. Bell will go to trial, according to The Associated Press. In the two separate cases, homeowners maintain that engineer Ken Overstreet examined their properties and submitted reports saying Katrina's winds caused 50 percent or more of the damage. Rimkus, Heifner and Bell altered the reports to blame the damage on storm surge so the insurance companies would not have to pay the claims, the lawsuits allege. The defendants deny any wrongdoing.
September 8, 2006
State and federal criminal justice officials united in delivering a message Thursday that they will show "zero tolerance" for illegal abuses of Louisiana's Road Home home-rebuilding grant program and that thumbprint identifications will be taken for all applicants to help stem fraud. The Times-Picayune reports that the approach is a collaborative effort among federal and state officials that encourages citizens to report fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement of money from the federally financed $10 billion pool. State Attorney General Charles Foti said the dishonest practices targeted by the measure include contractors defrauding homeowners or dishonest homeowners filing false claims for assistance.
Notices have been posted on 3,025 New Orleans buildings that have not been gutted since Hurricane Katrina or otherwise violate the city's blighted property laws, officials said Thursday in explaining how they have begun to enforce the Aug. 29 deadline set by the City Council for owners to clean up flood-damaged houses and commercial buildings. The Times-Picayune reports that the postings in two of five districts are the first in the city's effort to deal with the tens of thousands of blighted properties. Formal notification letters have been mailed to only about 100 owners; before sending them officials must determine the last known legal address for an owner and check to see whether the owner has applied for a demolition or construction permit for the site. Donna Addkison, the director of planning and development, said the city expects to send out 50 to 100 letters a day indefinitely.
Houston may be hot, unfriendly and frustratingly difficult to navigate, but more than two-thirds of the poorest New Orleans evacuees who fled to the city after Hurricane Katrina plan to stay, a Rice University survey released today shows. Almost 69 percent of the 1,081 people queried in the National Science Foundation-funded study conducted in July by political science professors Rick Wilson and Robert Stein said they likely will remain in Houston, according to the Houston Chronicle. Wilson and Stein say their findings reflect the view of 35,000 to 40,000 evacuees, about one-fourth of the displaced New Orleanians thought to be living in the city.
September 7, 2006
After learning in mid-July that Allstate was trying to drop wind and hail coverage for 30,000 customers in 18 of the state's coastal parishes, thousands of customers have been wondering whether they are on the list. The Time-Picayune reports that that being a loyal customer is a major determining factor in the insurer's eyes. "If you're a person who has auto insurance [written before November 2005] and homeowners insurance, you would not be impacted by this," company spokeswoman Kate Hollcraft said. "We're trying to take care of the customers who've been with us the longest and who have been the most loyal. We're trying to manage our risk as best as possible." Consumer advocates say the reasons for the move are that automobile coverage is a more lucrative and less risky line of insurance than home coverage, and trends show that long-term customers with multiple lines of coverage are less likely to make claims.
September 5, 2006
Fifty years ago the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, dubbed the world's longest bridge, opened as a 24-mile connection between a sparsely populated area just west of New Orleans and the pine belt of St. Tammany Parish on the lake's north shore. Bridge planners anticipated the baby boom-driven growth that spilled into the suburbs from New Orleans, but didn't foresee Hurricane Katrina when they cut a ceremonial ribbon on Aug. 30, 1956, reports The Associated Press. St. Tammany, which suffered less damage than parishes on the south shore, became a haven for evacuees, especially the more affluent, whose homes were destroyed by floodwaters. Before Katrina, St. Tammany had been fast-growing. Now it's exploiting perhaps its most important quality, one that New Orleans can't match: land. St. Tammany is 850 square miles, compared to New Orleans' 250 square miles — and, more importantly, is largely elevated out of the flood plain.
August 31, 2006
Katrina fatigue erupted into anger and frustration Wednesday night, as more than 1,700 residents urged Mayor Bill White to send evacuees home to New Orleans. The Houston Chronicle reports that one year after the city of Houston welcomed at least 250,000 evacuees, more than 100,000 New Orleans natives still remain. West Houston residents who gathered Wednesday at Grace Presbyterian Church to address increases in violent crime over the past year in their community said evacuees are to blame.
August 28, 2006
Across New Orleans, the buzz of saws and the whine of sanders can be heard almost everywhere, from upper middle class Lakeview to the ravaged Lower 9th Ward. By June 29, more than 56,000 property owners had taken out some sort of permit from City Hall, more than one permit for every three structures in the city, reports The Times-Picayune. Having a permit, of course, is not the same as acting on it. Untold thousands of homeowners snared permits before they were ready to start work for any number of reasons — because they didn't know how long City Hall would give them out for free, because they wanted to be grandfathered in before new elevation standards were adopted to reduce the threat of flood damage, because they were afraid inaction would be used as an excuse for officials to seize their homes.
August 25, 2006
A year after Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi's Gulf Coast residents mourn a way of life she blew away. They talk about what they miss but are always grateful to acknowledge what remains. Everyone misses the bridges that linked communities and entertainment and recreational venues on the waterfront. Those will be replaced, but a sense of security and history will be harder to rebuild, reports The (Biloxi) Sun Herald. Historic mansions fell from state line to state line, along with a countless number of Live oaks, businesses, churches and homes.
August 21, 2006
Nearly one year after Hurricane Katrina punched into the Gulf Coast, much damage remains, both in the shattered homes that litter parts of New Orleans and in the battered reputation of government institutions. The Washington Post reports that in the heart of a new hurricane season, many Americans are not persuaded by federal officials' assurances that the government is ready for the next big storm. A national poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that fewer than half of those surveyed said they thought the government is "very prepared" to deal with this year's hurricane season. Only half agreed that the federal government had "learned a lesson from Hurricane Katrina."
August 10, 2006
New Orleanians seeking help with cleaning and gutting their flood-damaged homes by the Aug. 29 deadline set by the city can contact more than a dozen nonprofit organizations that offer free gutting, according to a list posted on the city's Web site. Officials said last week that the city will not take any action against homeowners who have shown an intention to fix up their homes. The City Council voted in April to set Aug. 29 as the deadline for property owners to clean, gut and board up damaged homes, The Times-Picayune reports. If the owners miss the deadline, the council's ordinance says, the city can declare their properties to be "public nuisances" subject to "repair, rehabilitation, demolition or removal."
July 31, 2006
Across New Orleans this summer, hundreds of former residents have returned to jumpstart the city's recovery. Yet the renaissance is uneven from neighborhood to neighborhood, even from block to block, according to The New York Times. Just short distances from the well-populated New Orleans East subdivision are stretches of city that look abandoned. Since the hurricane, the city has granted more than 28,000 building permits for residential and commercial construction projects. More than 60 percent of those permits have been issued since March, in anticipation of a summer spent working on repairs. Yet it is hard to know how many people have returned to act upon those permits. It is clear that many have not, despite the city's estimation that its population is 225,000 — about half its pre-hurricane size.
July 20, 2006
A report from the nonprofit group Living Cities provides a blueprint for redeveloping Katrina-devastated East Biloxi, Miss. The question is, will city leaders and residents support the recommendations? The plan, which takes into account Federal Emergency Management Agency advisory flood elevations, suggests a central park with public space linked up from the Gulf to Back Bay in a flood-prone area where single family homes were destroyed. Multifamily housing designed to minimize flood damage would surround the park and building heights would increase gradually to blend with taller buildings at the city's east end, The (Biloxi) Sun Herald reports.
July 7, 2006
The New Orleans City Council on Thursday asked the Louisiana Recovery Authority and FEMA for hard and fast deadlines on when it must adopt federal advisory flood maps, as well as for clarification of how its vote would affect homeowners' ability to buy flood insurance and receive federal rebuilding grants. The request was another nudge in the ongoing scrap between city, state and federal officials over how the flow of federal aid through the LRA's Road Home program could be hampered if local governments refuse to fold the "advisory base flood elevation" maps into their building codes, reports The Times-Picayune.
July 6, 2006
With the verified sexual-assault count among Hurricane Katrina evacuees nearing 70, police and women's advocates in the Gulf Coast area say the risk of violence against evacuee children and women is intensified by crowded, temporary housing 10 months after the storm. Lt. David Benelli, commander of the New Orleans Police Department Sex Crimes Unit, said sex-assault charges against people who are not strangers to their accusers are mounting. In January, the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a list of Katrina evacuees so it could urge those witnessing or suffering sexual violence to contact them for help, but director Judy Benitez said FEMA sent a form letter denying the request, Women's eNews reports.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco will announce today a $200 million restoration of Jackson Barracks, a project expected spur redevelopment in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward and Arabi areas, as well as enabling the Louisiana National Guard to return its state headquarters to the complex. The huge repair project, which will be in accordance with FEMA guidelines, will demonstrate to property owners how to repair shattered homes and build new ones according to new hurricane codes, Blanco said. The 100-acre historic base took on between 4 feet and 8 feet of water after Hurricane Katrina, The Times-Picayune reports. The flooding forced the Louisiana National Guard to temporarily move its state headquarters to Camp Beauregard, near Pineville.
June 16, 2006
With the U.S. Senate and President Bush giving final approval to billions of dollars in federal spending for hurricane recovery in Louisiana, officials said they will launch new outreach efforts to sign up homeowners who haven't yet registered for the state's Road Home housing program and hope to begin issuing checks by midsummer. The Times-Picayune reports that money in the emergency supplemental spending bill will help finance the program, which is designed to reimburse homeowners as much as $150,000 for their uninsured, uncompensated damages to repair, rebuild or relocate.
June 13, 2006
In what may be the start of the New Orleans' development boom, the AFL-CIO plans to invest $1 billion to develop 10,000 affordable homes and a new downtown hotel, reports USA TODAY. The investment is the labor coalition's most ambitious funding project ever. It also is one of the largest yet for New Orleans and seeks to bring new housing to a city where Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than 100,000 homes.
June 12, 2006
Calling it a lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina, the House Financial Services Housing Subcommittee has approved a bill designating the Department of Housing and Urban Development as the lead agency for handling long-term housing needs resulting from major disasters, according to CongressDaily. The bill makes several other changes to federal disaster-declaration law aimed at easing the Gulf Coast's recovery from Katrina, such as allowing only three trailers per site after a disaster to avoid crowded trailer parks like those set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and allowing disaster victims to decline a trailer without losing eligibility for other assistance.
June 9, 2006
Thousands of people will struggle to find affordable housing if officials fail to recognize the need as the Gulf Coast rebuilds, according to a report released Thursday by the Rand Gulf States Policy Institute. Researchers from the nonprofit organization went to the area in October to study affordable housing needs, according to The Clarion-Ledger. The report states that about 81,000 housing units were damaged or destroyed. Around a third of those were occupied by households living below the U.S. median income, which was $43,318, according to 2003 U.S. Census Bureau figures.
May 31, 2006
A Houston federal judge refused Tuesday to order federal officials to continue an emergency housing program for Hurricane Katrina evacuees nationwide until June 30. The decision by U.S. District Judge David Hittner means that more than 2,000 evacuees will lose their housing assistance Thursday, according to the Houston Chronicle. The Houston law firm Caddell & Chapman is representing the plaintiffs and had sought a temporary restraining order — effective for a maximum of 20 days — to give evacuees more time in FEMA's emergency program while the court considers the plaintiffs' request for long-term relief.
Thursday is the start of the new hurricane season. It also is the day the Federal Emergency Management Agency will begin dismantling camps that have housed and fed 40,000 volunteers who came to Louisiana to help salvage blighted areas in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, Newhouse News Service reports. FEMA previously had said it would tear down its last four Louisiana camps in April, but it extended the deadline when local officials and charities pleaded for more time so the volunteers would have a place to stay. FEMA will continue to fund housing assistance programs and public rebuilding projects, but local officials and charities say closing the camps now threatens the region's recovery by taking away the only conveniences the depressed areas can offer volunteers: a place to stay and decent meals.
See Newhouse News Service article
May 30, 2006
Firefighters still searching for those missing after Hurricane Katrina have found another body in New Orleans, reports The Associated Press. It was found Saturday in the rear laundry room of a house in Mid-City, where most houses are raised several feet but floods still reached the attached mailboxes, nearly chest-high. The house was fifth to be checked of 47 addresses given to the search team Friday, said Capt. Kenneth Kirsch of the New Orleans Fire Department. The addresses came from the Louisiana Family Assistance Center, a state agency that has a list of 226 people missing since the 2005 hurricanes.
It begins as a conversation, perhaps over dinner, at the end of the day: Where are you going this year? As a symptom of the general uneasiness in New Orleans, this year's hurricane evacuation talk ranks among the most acute. Within it are the immediate and long-term threats: the unnamed storm everyone may soon have to flee, and the grim likelihood that the next big one could be the knockout punch for this struggling city. Never has a coming hurricane season generated as much anxiety, many here say. The official start to the season is Thursday but the unofficial worrying has long since begun, according to The New York Times. On top of the ever-present reminders of last year's catastrophe — ruined neighborhoods, piles of debris, empty streets — the new threat is proving to be too much for some. Everyone here, it seems, knows someone who is picking up and leaving New Orleans for good. Many who swear they will not abandon the city have at least set up an alternative home-place somewhere else.
About 55,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina face the end of a federally funded rental assistance program, in which local governments issued 12-month housing and utility vouchers. Last month, the Federal Emergency Management Agency began issuing letters to thousands of evacuees telling them their aid would be terminated. The vouchers are to end Wednesday in most of the country, reports The Washington Post. That decision, says a class-action lawsuit filed by the Houston law firm of Caddell & Chapman and a consortium of public interest law groups, will create "widespread homelessness" and violates FEMA's statutory obligations to provide temporary housing assistance to hurricane victims. Sixty-two members of the House filed a brief last week supporting the suit. It says that FEMA "continues to engage in a process that is marked by inefficiency, a lack of discernable standards and seeming disregard for the plight of the vulnerable survivors who are depending on the aid that FEMA is statutorily obligated to provide."
May 25, 2006
For tens of thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners, rebuilding can't start without a few crucial pieces of paper. Nearly every form of post-Katrina aid requires copies of records such as deeds, insurance policies, mortgages, federal tax liens and military discharges, according to The Associated Press. Before storm victims could seek help, officials in some of the hardest-hit parts of Louisiana and Mississippi had to salvage millions of records that Katrina soaked when it flooded courthouses and offices.
In St. Bernard Parish, La., Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding damaged or destroyed nearly all of the 26,000 single-family homes. Almost nine months later, the fate of its working-class and middle-class neighborhoods is clouded by unanswered questions, according to the Los Angeles Times. How many homeowners will choose to come back? Where will they work? What areas will be turned into floodplains? And how safe will it be when the next hurricane hits? Since the storm, residents eager to return have helped fuel a booming housing market in the unflooded sections of New Orleans. But, rather predictably, sales in St. Bernard Parish have been slow. According to the Gulf South Real Estate Information Network, real estate agents sold only eight single-family homes in the parish in the first seven months after Katrina. The average selling price for a house in the Multiple Listings Service has dropped to $59,500 from $111,500 before the storm.
May 22, 2006
Three thousand families in Mississippi have been deemed ineligible for a trailer as Federal Emergency Management Agency weeds out those Katrina victims who do not meet the qualifications for its emergency housing program, according to the Los Angeles Times. About 450 households have received eviction letters from FEMA; the rest are scheduled to receive notices in the next few weeks. Mississippi has 38,000 FEMA trailers. The reasons for the evictions are varied, and many are legitimate. There are trailer dwellers who could not prove they are legal U.S. residents; people who had owned a second, undamaged home all along; and people whose homes were damaged, but not by Katrina. But a number of residents said they were being kicked out erroneously, or for technicalities that arise from gray areas in FEMA regulations.
May 19, 2006
Six Hurricane Katrina evacuees will ask a judge to order the Federal Emergency Management Agency to continue housing assistance for thousands of evacuees threatened with loss of benefits and potential homelessness, according to the Houston Chronicle. A class action lawsuit, expected to be filed today in federal court in Houston, says FEMA's response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita has been "wholly inept." It echoes complaints by housing advocates, city officials and others that the agency has unlawfully disqualified thousands of evacuees from its housing programs and has provided confusing and contradictory information. At the heart of the case is FEMA's decision to shift evacuees from a locally administered voucher program, which pays rent and utilities, to an individual assistance program that pays only rent and has stricter eligibility requirements.
May 18, 2006
An environmental group says thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims in Mississippi and Louisiana may be living in unsafe conditions after tests it conducted showed dangerous levels of formaldehyde in some Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers, reports The Associated Press. The Sierra Club on Wednesday asked for a congressional hearing after it claimed that 30 out of 32 trailers it tested had levels of formaldehyde that were unsafe.
May 17, 2006
Block by block, New Orleans is springing back to life. Block by block, it is also receding into the past tense. With Hurricane Katrina nearly nine months past and about 60 percent of New Orleans's pre-storm population still somewhere else, the rebirth and the wasting away are closely tracking neighborhood patterns of race and poverty. Disparities in wealth and in the distance of evacuees from their ruined houses are dictating, in many cases, which neighborhoods will be part of the city's future and which will be consigned to its history, according to The Washington Post. For a city that was two-thirds black and nearly one-third poor before the storm, the uneven pilgrimage back to New Orleans has already changed voter turnout and seems certain to transform the culture and character of the city, making it substantially whiter, richer and less populous than before.
The U.S. General Accounting Office is investigating the wind vs. water issue as it relates to payment of insurance claims from Hurricane Katrina, reports The (Biloxi) Sun Herald. The emphasis is on how adjusters do their jobs and the basis for their compensation, along with the various coverages a policyholder needs to protect property and the gaps in that coverage. The GAO also is looking at actions taken to minimize catastrophic damage, such as requiring that structures be elevated in flood zones. They hope to learn what works, what doesn't and how such policies are enforced, not only for hurricanes but also for earthquakes and other catastrophes.
Louisiana consumers have until Aug. 29, the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, to resolve their storm-related homeowners and business insurance claims unless state lawmakers pass legislation putting off the deadline for another year, reports The Times-Picayune. Most insurance policies carry a one-year statute of limitations, which means policyholders have up to a year after the loss to file any lawsuits disputing their settlement. Once that date passes, it's hard for consumers to negotiate for more money because insurance companies know their policyholders have no legal recourse. The one-year deadline isn't usually a source of contention. But the scope of Katrina's devastation, as well as 24-hour curfews that prevented families and adjusters from accessing some properties for weeks after the storm, slowed down the insurance process. In addition, many policyholders waited for FEMA to come out with its latest flood map advisory — released last month — before beginning to rebuild. And many others continue to wait for grants the Louisiana Recovery Authority has said it will make available to homeowners.
May 15, 2006
If ever there was a moment for the obscure federal flood insurance program to ride to the rescue, it would seem to have been in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, reports The New York Times. But nearly half the victims did not even have flood insurance —claims from homeowners who were insured, $25 billion worth, bankrupted the program. And the government has had to commit $15 billion in additional taxpayer money for rebuilding in Louisiana and Mississippi. Though experts foresee a generation of fiercer and more frequent storms, Congress seems unlikely to make more than modest changes when it takes up the program in the coming weeks. The drive to restructure the perennially underfinanced program has been blocked by real estate interests, who worry that requiring millions more people to buy flood insurance would stifle development, and also by lawmakers from areas that rarely flood who see their constituents as supporting those who are frequently flooded, particularly in the South.
For the first quarter of the year, sales of single-family homes in the greater New Orleans area zoomed to $826 million, a jump of 60 percent over the first quarter of 2005, when sales totaled $517 million, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors. A total of 3,829 residential units were sold, 960 more than the same period in 2005. Experts say there's nothing to be surprised about: One of the ironies of natural disasters is they're often good for real estate. It's a pattern real estate professionals witnessed in Florida after Hurricane Andrew and in Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake, according to The Associated Press.
Biloxi City Council members could decide as soon as Tuesday whether to adopt advisory elevation levels developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — or come up with an alternative, reports The Clarion-Ledger. If approved, FEMA's advisory levels would require new and reconstructed buildings in the city's flood zones to be raised as high as 25 feet above sea level. Some council members, however, are pushing for a plan that would raise the city's current 13-foot building requirement to 16 feet above sea level in flood zones. Biloxi is among the Gulf Coast's 11 cities having to raise flood elevation levels because of Hurricane Katrina, which hit Aug. 29. All Gulf Coast municipalities will have to accept FEMA's requirements to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, which some homeowners will need to qualify for mortgages.
May 11, 2006
Louisiana lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to Gov. Kathleen Blanco's $7.5 billion aid program for people whose homes were heavily damaged by Katrina and Rita, but checks can't go out until Washington officials weigh in. The Associated Press reports that Blanco needs approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the program, and the plans depend on $4.2 billion in federal aid pending in Congress. The housing program would spend federal recovery dollars on repairs, rebuilding and buyouts for homeowners. Homeowners aren't expected to see any grants until at least late summer. Homeowners must have uninsured hurricane damage of more than $5,200 — an estimated 123,000 people are expected to be eligible.
A coalition of advocates for displaced New Orleans residents called on the city's mayoral candidates Wednesday to speak up for thousands of families in Houston and elsewhere who are about to lose Federal Emergency Management Agency rental assistance, and perhaps their apartments, according to The Times-Picayune. A FEMA spokesman in Austin confirmed that about 7,000 of the 36,000 New Orleans area families now living in Houston might lose rental vouchers because they do not qualify for a longer-term federal assistance program with tougher eligibility requirements. Local families displaced to other states after Hurricane Katrina are in a similar bind, although national numbers were not available. The news distressed local housing advocates for the poor, who said they worry that New Orleans tenants evicted in Houston may try to make their way back home, where there is little to no affordable housing for them.
Workers on Wednesday began tearing down thousands of condemned homes in St. Bernard Parish, a blue-collar territory adjacent to New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina spared only a few structures, reports The Associated Press. The federally funded demolitions are being carried out by the parish government. Owners of condemned homes who want to take advantage of the demolition have until May 31. Charlie Reppel, a special assistant to the parish president, said he believes about 8,000 homes will be demolished, although that number could rise. There are about 26,000 homes in the parish. Only about 20,000 of the pre-Katrina population of about 67,000 have returned.
May 9, 2006
Through a partnership with a smaller, minority-owned company, a multinational firm with ties to the Federal Emergency Management Agency has landed four rebid deals that could be worth $400 million, federal records show. The Times-Picayune reports that the contracts were awarded to PRI/DJI, a joint venture between Del-Jen Industries and the Asian-American-owned PRI Inc., therefore qualifying under the terms of a federal program for disadvantaged businesses. However, Del-Jen is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fluor Corp., which held a mammoth FEMA disaster relief work contract that was up for rebidding when Katrina hit. FEMA then broke that contract up and awarded four $500 million deals for temporary housing work, but later agreed under pressure to rebid them. PRI/DJI’s success has angered competitors who say it’s outrageous that one partnership — especially one linked to the disaster relief giant — would win four of the 36 contracts awarded when no other company appears to have landed two. FEMA insists the process has been aboveboard.
May 8, 2006
Tens of thousands of New Orleans’ hurricane-ravaged houses rot in the sun, still waiting to be gutted or bulldozed, reports The New York Times. Now officials have decided where several million tons of the debris will be dumped: in man-made pits at the swampy eastern edge of town. But more than a thousand Vietnamese-American families live less than two miles from the edge of the new landfill. And they are far from pleased at having the moldering remains of a national disaster plunked down nearby, alongside the canal that flooded their neighborhood when Hurricane Katrina surged through last year. Environmental groups are also angry, accusing local and federal officials of ignoring or circumventing their own regulations, long after the immediate emergency has ended. The same thing happened after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, they warn, and that dump ended up becoming a Superfund site.
Hurricane Katrina evacuees deemed ineligible for further housing assistance will be allowed to remain in the city of Houston's voucher program an extra month, city officials said Friday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency extended the deadline from June 1 to June 30, the Houston Chronicle reports. Meanwhile, FEMA staff continues to review the cases of about 8,900 heads of household the agency deemed ineligible for the individual assistance program that is replacing the city-sponsored voucher program.
May 4, 2006
Reversing the decades-long tradition of "vertical evacuation," local hotels will no longer let guests and employees ride out hurricanes in their towers, the Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association says. Thousands of guests were stranded in miserable, dangerous conditions amid smashed windows and flooded streets after Hurricane Katrina, and hotels had difficulty getting buses to evacuate them. The notion of sparing local residents and their pets the stress of sitting in traffic on the highways no longer seemed like a smart move to the group’s members, The Times-Picayune reports. "I don't know of any hotel that intends to do vertical evacuation this year," said Bill Langkopp, executive vice president of the hotel association, which surveyed its members on their storm plans. "Our thrust will be to get the visitors out."
New Orleans city council members grilled a FEMA official Wednesday, insisting they have done everything in their power to push the city's recovery forward while battling the agency’s bureaucracy and closeted planning of Mayor C. Ray Nagin. For more than an hour, Mark Misczak, who identified himself as a "human services branch director" for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, fielded questions, The Times Picayune reports. The queries initially focused on housing issues, but eventually morphed into a litany of complaints on issues ranging from the exclusion of local companies from FEMA contracts and the slow pace of Entergy repairs to the precarious position that people still living in trailers will be in this hurricane season. Citing reports that FEMA was closing its long-range planning office in New Orleans because neither the city nor the state could create a timely recovery plan, council members railed against the agency for deserting desperate citizens. However, Misczak said that was not the case and that perhaps confusion arose over location, not intent; FEMA is not shuttering its New Orleans operation, he said, but is simply moving a small piece of it under another roof.
May 1, 2006
Across vast stretches of New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, there is only silence among the ruins. Eight months after Hurricane Katrina, nothing in the city looks quite like the Lower 9th. The collapsed houses, mud-wracked cars and ubiquitous debris are only the most evident symptoms of a community's brush with death. Other symptoms are invisible: The water is not safe to drink or even bathe in. Electricity is spotty at best. A few houses have been red-tagged and demolished. Scores of volunteers are arriving daily to rebuild the Lower 9th, one house at a time, according to The Times-Picayune. The Common Ground Lower 9th Ward Project, as the effort is called, is one of several efforts by Common Ground, a nonprofit agency created in Katrina's aftermath that has drawn the young and the idealistic — and substantial philanthropic dollars — from all across the nation.
Federal authorities estimate more than 182,000 occupied housing units in the New Orleans area suffered major damage or were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, reports The Associated Press. That's nearly 40 percent of the housing stock in the metro area. Landlords and homeowners are repairing units as fast as they can, but many homes remain flooded and uninhabitable. Competition and high prices keep some renters from finding homes. In addition, many dwellings have sometimes been deemed unsuitable, spoiling plans to bring in trailers. Fewer than half of New Orleans' 455,000 pre-Katrina residents have returned. Those who have, drawn back for jobs or other reasons, bunk with whomever they can.
April 28, 2006
State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. is attempting to delay a lawsuit that seeks to represent all Gulf Coast policyholders denied coverage for Hurricane Katrina's damage even though they had "all risk" homeowners' policies, an attorney suing the company contends. State Farm is requesting delays in U.S. District Court that would put the lawsuit on hold for an additional four months, says attorney Richard Phillips. Phillips wants U.S. District Court Judge L.T. Senter Jr. to decide whether the company's policy language covers all of Hurricane Katrina's damage, as he contends, or none of it when water contributed to the damage, as State Farm maintains, reports The (Biloxi) Sun Herald.
April 27, 2006
Thousands of hurricane evacuees who counted on a year of free housing and utilities are being told by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that they are no longer eligible for such help and must either pay the rent themselves or leave, reports The New York Times. Of about 55,000 families who were given long-term housing vouchers, nearly a third are receiving notices that they no longer qualify, FEMA officials said. For the rest, benefits are also being cut: they will have to sign new leases, pay their own gas and electric bills and requalify for rental assistance every three months. The process has been marked by sharp disagreements between the agency and local officials, and conflicting information given to evacuees about their futures. Although agency officials say they never promised a full year of free housing, many local officials around the country say yearlong vouchers were exactly what FEMA agreed to provide.
The Louisiana Recovery Authority on Wednesday unanimously approved the final draft of its $7.5 billion plan to help homeowners rebuild hurricane-ruined houses, as Gov. Kathleen Blanco and lawmakers announced that they have worked out their differences over the proposal, The Times-Picayune reports. The coalition of legislators supporting the proposal, which included Republicans and members of the Legislative Black Caucus who had been critical of the plan, suggested that the "Road Home" housing program will not encounter significant opposition when considered by the Legislature next week. If approved, the proposal will head to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for final consideration.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on Wednesday he had settled a fight with U.S. disaster officials over trailer parks in the city, giving hope to people still seeking temporary housing months after Hurricane Katrina, according to Reuters. Earlier this month, Nagin ordered a halt to all new trailer sites around town after a contractor working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency clashed with residents opposed to one development. He also urged Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to fire the FEMA team in charge of the program. But Nagin said he rescinded the order following a meeting with Chertoff in New Orleans last week, where the two sides agreed on alternative sites and standards of conduct, allowing more people displaced by Katrina to find housing.
April 25, 2006
Floodwaters were still sloshing around inside the houses of Eastover, a gated subdivision that was home to some of this city's wealthiest black residents, when the neighborhood association decided to hire a boat for a rescue operation last September. The rescuers were not searching for someone stranded, but rather trying to retrieve a roster of residents from the association's offices so it could start learning who planned to move back, reports The New York Times. The group was so well-organized and well-financed that it recently retained a professional planner to help respond to the city's requirement that devastated neighborhoods devise their own revival blueprints.
U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson shed little light Monday on the future of public housing in hurricane-battered New Orleans, but said that "only the best residents" of the former St. Thomas housing complex should be allowed into the new mixed-income development that replaced it. In a wide-ranging interview with reporters, Jackson was asked about the relatively small number of apartments in the 60-acre River Gardens development in Uptown that have been set aside for former residents of St. Thomas. Jackson estimated it was 18 percent to 20 percent, although housing advocates said it is less, reports The Times-Picayune.
Can the Lower Ninth Ward be saved? The answer may be depend on whether it is really "lower" at all, according to The New York Times. Though its name is based on its position at the southern end of the ward rather than its elevation, the neighborhood is often on planners' lists for future parkland instead of houses. That open land would draw off floodwater from elsewhere in future storms. Last month, Mayor C. Ray Nagin warned residents of the devastated area that the Army Corps of Engineers had told him that the neighborhood was likely to flood again if a Katrina-style hurricane hit New Orleans this year or next year.
April 24, 2006
Hurricane Katrina didn't discriminate when it roared ashore Aug. 29, leaving a path of destruction in both the rich and poor areas of South Mississippi, The (Biloxi) Sun Herald reports. Most of the beachfront homeowners have received at least partial settlement to rebuild. But scores of residents in the city's low-income communities, such as Ward 3's Forest Heights, Turkey Creek and North Gulfport, had no flood insurance, were not in a flood plain or did not have enough insurance to cover their expenses. Those residents credit their survival to faith-based organizations and other volunteers who left their comfortable lives back home to help them rebuild. Volunteers from across the country started streaming into Gulfport just days after the storm. Eight months later, they're still here.
The Pelican Haven shelter is located in an old, crummy hotel, the Pelican Inn, that was vacant before Hurricane Katrina, reports The New York Times. This is the last shelter for evacuees run by Louisiana, Mississippi or the Red Cross, and on Monday, it is closing its doors, after seven months. Everyone, even the evacuees, seems to think this is a good idea. In the months since the storm, the shelter, a blue-roofed complex near the Shreveport airport, has gone from a bustling respite for families who appreciated the private rooms with real beds instead of cots, to a drug-ridden place where, on occasion, the National Guard has kept the peace.
April 21, 2006
The government's main program for helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina rebuild their homes and businesses, operated by the Small Business Administration, has been plagued by inadequate leadership and poor planning, federal investigators have told Congress. The New York Times reports that the Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, has found that the agency was hampered in its hurricane response by its failure to participate in disaster drills and to prepare for a disaster of the hurricane's magnitude, according to written testimony and briefings it has given congressional committees.
Concerned that thousands of residents are doing nothing to fix up their flooded homes, the New Orleans City Council voted Thursday to set Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina's first anniversary, as the deadline for people to clean, gut and board up their homes — or risk having the city seize and demolish them. The ordinance was introduced by Councilman Jay Batt, who said ravaged, mold-infested houses, especially if not boarded up, can become "environmental biohazards" that will slow the recovery of whole neighborhoods by discouraging nearby owners from moving back or making repairs, reports The Times-Picayune.
No one is sure what the future will hold for most of New Orleans’ 10 major housing projects, reports the Los Angeles Times. Six of them remain shuttered, whereas others are being fixed up in stages. When the levees broke, the city’s Iberville housing project filled with 3 feet of water and nearly all of its residents scattered to outlying parishes and states. The Housing Authority of New Orleans, which manages the city's public housing developments, is allowing Iberville residents to return only in a slow trickle as buildings are repaired and cleaned of mold. So far, 187 of its approximately 600 families have returned.
April 19, 2006
When the Watersmark apartment complex of Gulfport, Miss., advertised its "grand reopening" five months after Hurricane Katrina, the announcement stunned tenants living there in storm-damaged apartments. The Associated Press reports that weeks earlier, they say, they were told by the management that they had to get out because the building was uninhabitable. With the grand reopening, it suddenly became clear "they wanted me out of here so they can remodel the apartment and raise the rent," said Cassandra Plummer, who staved off eviction after her lawyer protested.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is reviewing the individual cases of thousands of Katrina evacuees in the Houston area deemed ineligible for housing assistance, federal and city officials said Tuesday. According to the Houston Chronicle, Mayor Bill White said FEMA officials assured the city in a meeting Tuesday that the agency would study the list of 8,500 heads of household who've been told they no longer are eligible for assistance. White said that many evacuees were mistakenly ruled ineligible to get aid intended to replace the city's housing voucher program for a variety of reasons — including computer errors.
April 18, 2006
Families displaced by Hurricane Katrina are suffering from mental disorders, chronic conditions like asthma, and lack of prescription medication and health insurance at rates that are much higher than average, a new study has found. The New York Times reports that the study conducted by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and the Children's Health Fund is the first to examine the health issues of those living in housing provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Based on face-to-face interviews with more than 650 families living in trailers or hotels, it provides a grim portrait of the hurricane's effects on some of the poorest victims, showing gaps in the tattered safety net pieced together from government and private efforts.
Roughly 100,000 Gulf Coast families who had proper homes last year are living in flimsy travel trailers and mobile homes as this year's hurricane season approaches, according to Reuters. Just months removed from a nightmarish hurricane season that caused more than $100 billion in damage, crushed the city of New Orleans and killed some 1,400 people, the East and Gulf coasts may be in a precarious state facing a new season that could be nearly as destructive as the last.
April 17, 2006
Despite tentative plans announced by a few developers, and new flood maps put out last week that give homeowners some guidance about how high above ground to rebuild, the housing purgatory that has gripped New Orleans for more than seven months remains. And it won't ease soon. USA TODAY reports, the new home construction plans announced so far target wealthy buyers, even out-of-towners who might want a "weekend place" in downtown New Orleans. They're being built in the "high and dry" land near the unflooded French Quarter or in a suburb miles away. None of the developments are aimed at replacing the tens of thousands of damaged and uninhabitable homes in lower- or middle-class areas such as the Lower Ninth Ward, Lakeview or St. Bernard Parish.
A New Orleans house flattened but for a concrete staircase on a crumbling facade was among many storm-ravaged structures that federal officials deemed fit for occupancy by Katrina victims now living in Houston, Mayor Bill White said Friday. The Houston Chronicle reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has notified about 8,900 heads of households in Houston — representing more than 20,000 Katrina evacuees — that they will be ineligible for the cash assistance intended to replace a massive city voucher program that has paid their rent. A common reason was that the evacuees' former homes were now habitable.
April 14, 2006
Nearly eight months after Hurricane Katrina triggered the nation's largest housing crisis since World War II, a hastily improvised $10 billion effort by the federal government has produced vast sums of waste and misspent funds, an array of government audits and outside analysts have concluded, according to The Washington Post. As the Federal Emergency Management Agency wraps up the initial phase of its temporary housing program — ending reliance on cruise ships and hotels for people sent fleeing by the Aug. 29 storm — the toll of false starts and missed opportunities appears likely to top $1 billion and perhaps much more, according to a series of after-action studies and Department of Homeland Security reports, including one due for release today.
Residents who already have received building permits to repair their hurricane-damaged homes will not have to worry about raising their properties to meet new elevation recommendations from FEMA, agency officials said Thursday. Moreover, residents who obtain a permit before local governments adopt the new elevation standards — a process that could take some time — need only meet the base flood elevation presently on the books, reports The Times-Picayune. The "3 feet above grade" provision announced on Wednesday is only an advisory and, while it is recommended to prevent future flooding, it is not required. The base flood elevations are required because they have been official since 1984.
Federal authorities have notified about 25,000 of Houston's Hurricane Katrina evacuees that they won't be eligible for the cash housing assistance that will replace the city's voucher program, city officials said Thursday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said evacuees deemed ineligible for its individual assistance program, known as Section 408, must vacate their voucher-funded homes or begin paying rent by May 31, reports the Houston Chronicle. City officials said this date is still being negotiated.
April 13, 2006
The Bush administration proposed spending an additional $2.5 billion for New Orleans levee construction yesterday as it issued long-awaited construction guidelines for the flood-prone region. The Washington Post reports that the new guides would require rebuilding many heavily damaged houses at least three feet above ground. With tens of thousands of houses awaiting reconstruction, the moves could help resolve an impasse over how to rebuild the low-lying metropolis. Uncertainty over the levees has left homeowners unsure about how high houses should stand to avoid flooding or whether to rebuild at all.
While some Gulf Coast residents hunker down on moldy mattresses in scavenged tents in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart, 10,477 government trailers slated for Katrina survivors sit empty in Hope, Ark., according to The Christian Science Monitor. These ragged dome tents are part of a network of official and unofficial tent cities in the woods and along railroad tracks up and down the Gulf Coast. But getting tent residents into sturdier abodes has been a tough task. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says it seeks to stop fraud by requiring people to provide proof of their previous residence in the area. The agency also ensures that trailers are placed out of floodzones, as legally required. But that people are making their homes in tents reflects poor planning and inflexible management, critics say. And it shows how the social safety net is fraying, others add.
See Christian Science Monitor article
April 12, 2006
Making good on last week's confrontational promise, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has formally suspended group trailer sites citywide and asked the federal government to find alternative solutions to the city's desperate housing crunch and to replace its local housing team, reports The Times-Picayune. Meanwhile, FEMA officials are investigating the legality and weight of Nagin's directive, calling it confusing and counterproductive. On April 5, Nagin issued an executive order suspending for one year approval of group trailer sites except those at which construction is under way or where residents are in the midst of leasing their units.
April 11, 2006
Louisiana Rep. Richard Baker, the Republican congressman who drafted a hurricane recovery plan torpedoed by the Bush administration this year, has asked Gov. Kathleen Blanco to extend the public review period for her rebuilding proposal. Baker said that he has several critical questions about the state proposal that were heightened by the release Monday of a study of the rebuilding costs associated with his original plan, reports The Times-Picayune. He said there are not enough details in the housing proposal drafted by Blanco's Louisiana Recovery Authority, particularly on how the state plans to deal with property that is bought from homeowners who want to relocate.
April 10, 2006
Recurring flood loss has long bedeviled homeowners in Louisiana, which leads the nation in repeat claims filed with the National Flood Insurance Program, according to The Times-Picayune. While limited money has been available since 1994 to flood-proof these houses, Hurricane Katrina has loosed a huge stream of federal assistance that should allow most owners to elevate vulnerable homes without the customary hassle. Many owners grappling with severe repeat flood loss live in post-World War II homes built on slabs before the development of federal flood maps; their homes have taken on water during tropical storms and ordinary downpours for years.
April 6, 2006
should not expect to get any money until at least late summer, the head of Gov. Kathleen Blanco's recovery group said Wednesday as the latest version of the state's housing recovery program was unveiled. State officials have always said they will not start dispensing money to homeowners as part of their proposed $7.5 billion program until they are confident that the state will have enough federal money in the bank to pay for grants of up to $150,000 per household, according to The Times-Picayune.
April 5, 2006
Spurred by its chairman, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday adopted provisions that would add about $8 billion to the Bush administration's $19 billion hurricane relief request, reports The New York Times. If the extra money is added to the measure approved by the House last month, it would head off a battle over the $4.2 billion to be allocated to Louisiana for home rebuilding. Texas and Mississippi had been expected to vie for a share of those funds, but the additional relief would also help other programs and states.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has given final approval to the state's plan for grants to Hurricane Katrina flood victims, reports The (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger. In a meeting with reporters, Barbour also praised lawmakers for passing a balanced budget before ending its 2006 session last week and said he has no plans to call a special session. Qualified homeowners can receive up to $150,000 to offset losses caused by hurricane damage.
April 4, 2006
The future of New Orleans's flood-ravaged neighborhoods might depend upon buyers who are willing to purchase Katrina-damaged homes, according to The Washington Post. With many residents unwilling or unable to rebuild, scores of neighborhoods will need bargain seekers to invest and renovate. About half of the houses in New Orleans are still empty, waiting to be rebuilt or torn down. And though there are far more sellers than buyers these days, the fact that there are people willing to purchase and occupy a house in the vast abandoned swaths of this city comes as a welcome sign among those who worry that some areas might never come back.
Relations between New Orleans and the U.S. agency in charge of funding Hurricane Katrina rebuilding hit a new low on Monday when the city demanded Washington replace a federal team for “disrespecting” citizens, reports Reuters. The demand was sparked by a weekend fracas during which security guards threatened homeowners opposed to a temporary housing site. It is the latest of several battles between the city and FEMA dating back to the devastating Aug. 29 storm. Mayor Ray Nagin said he will urge U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to replace the FEMA team in charge of setting up the travel-trailer villages that have sprung up to house residents whose homes were damaged in the hurricane.
April 3, 2006
Thousands of homeowners affected by Hurricane Katrina are afraid to rebuild because federal officials haven't yet issued new flood advisories for New Orleans and adjacent parishes. The Associated Press reports that even with enough insurance and savings to start over, many are reluctant to start expensive reconstruction until FEMA issues advisories that will tell them what they need to do to mitigate the risk of flooding again. The issue isn't flood insurance or building permits. As long as homeowners follow the existing maps — last revised in — they'll be grandfathered into the federal flood insurance program. But surrounded by rotting drywall and the painful memories of Katrina, residents say they're afraid to invest financially or emotionally before FEMA gives them some advice.
Hurricane Katrina victims living in cramped trailers soon could be able to move into sunny little cottages with big porches that are built to withstand wind and water. USA TODAY reports that the Senate is considering an unprecedented step: allowing FEMA to provide inexpensive, permanent housing to Americans who have lost their homes to a natural disaster. The Senate Appropriations Committee, headed by Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, will consider adding money to President Bush's $19 billion request aimed at helping the Gulf Coast recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Mississippi officials hope the panel approves funding to build 20,000 Katrina Cottages — tiny homes born of a new architectural movement that look like traditional Gulf Coast cottages.
March 30, 2006
Thousands of Houston hurricane evacuees will be unable to find apartments they can afford as their city vouchers expire in coming months, raising concerns that a number could end up homeless, reports the Houston Chronicle. A new study of the Houston area's rental housing market, commissioned by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, found a shortage of almost 14,000 apartments affordable to families of five earning up to $26,360 a year — the income category thought to apply to most Katrina and Rita evacuees living in Houston. The Treasury Department recently authorized an additional $3.5 million in tax credits to help Texas hurricane evacuees, and the state has asked for an additional $45 million in credits. But the new study shows that reliance on this program to house evacuees is not likely to be effective.
March 29, 2006
As people in the New Orleans area try to get on with their lives by acquiring new homes, they're discovering that most homeowners insurance companies operating in Louisiana aren't interested in insuring their homes, reports The Times-Picayune. The situation is delaying — and sometimes scuttling — real estate closings, and public officials worry that high prices and limited availability of homeowners insurance could deter banks from lending money and derail efforts to rebuild New Orleans.
March 28, 2006
Seven months after Hurricane Katrina, federal housing officials say they still haven't decided what to do with thousands of government-subsidized apartments in New Orleans that have remained shuttered since the storm, leaving former residents in a quandary about whether to return. The Times-Picayune reports that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees the more than 7,000 public apartments in New Orleans, said it is holding off on decisions until its gets plans from Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco — both of whom say they are looking to HUD for some signal.
A proposal to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to start a state loan program for people in Mississippi wiped out by Katrina is likely to die in the state Senate, lawmakers reported as the 2006 legislative session enters its final days. The (Biloxi) Sun Herald reports that House leaders had proposed borrowing $250 million to create a zero-interest loan program that would offer loans of up to $25,000 each. In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Tommy Robertson, R-Moss Point, doubled the amount to $500 million, but also included a "repealer" that would rescind the bill before it could take effect, ensuring the House couldn't just agree to the $500 million without further debate.
March 27, 2006
An organization of civil engineers has questioned the soundness of large portions of New Orleans' levee system, warning that the city's federally designed flood walls were not built to standards stringent enough to protect a large city, reports The Washington Post. The group faulted the agency responsible for the levees, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for adopting safety standards that were "too close to the margin" to protect human life. It also called for an urgent re-examination of the entire levee system, saying there were no assurances that the miles of concrete "I-walls" in New Orleans would hold up against even a moderate hurricane.
March 22, 2006
Nearly seven months after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and forced out hundreds of thousands of residents, most evacuees say they have not found a permanent place to live, have depleted their savings and consider their lives worse than before the hurricane, according to interviews with more than 300 evacuees conducted by The New York Times. The interviews suggested that while blacks and whites suffered similar rates of emotional trauma, blacks bore a heavier economic and social burden. And even as both groups flounder, most said they believed that the rest of the nation and politicians in Washington have moved on.
Many New Orleans residents threw up their hands this week after hearing the mayor's urban-development plans, saying they will now look to the soon-to-be-released federal flood-plain maps in determining whether to rebuild. The Christian Science Monitor reports that while many of the mayor's recommendations are considered groundbreaking — including changes in the way city schools and government are run — it offered little clarity on the most crucial question facing residents: Where can they safely rebuild?
See Christian Science Monitor article
March 21, 2006
As hurricane season approaches, the city of New Orleans doesn’t have an emergency shelter, and local officials are asking for federal help to get people out of harm’s way if another disaster strikes, according to USA TODAY. Residents who can't leave town on their own before a storm this hurricane season (June through November) will be asked to board buses at the city's downtown convention center and will be shuttled to shelters in outlying areas.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin presented his plan for resuscitating the hurricane-battered city, saying residents should be allowed to rebuild anywhere — as long as they do so at their own risk, reports The Associated Press. Nagin said the city will continue issuing building permits to all comers, but warned that low-lying neighborhoods like New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward could flood again if another hurricane hits.
March 17, 2006
Life is anything but utopian for those inside Renaissance Village, the first and largest trailer park founded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, ABC News reports. The absence of land-line phones, hospital facilities and a police presence serve as constant reminders that their status at the site, near Baton Rouge’s airport, is temporary.
March 16, 2006
In its rush to provide shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA has created a pressing new Gulf Coast hazard: nearly 90,000 lightweight trailers in an area prone to flooding, tornadoes and hurricanes, reports The New York Times. Government officials along the Gulf Coast and in Washington agree that the temporary housing, while better than a tent or emergency shelter, is far from ideal.
Many Hispanics are still homeless and living in dire conditions along the Gulf Coast because of a language barrier and ethnic profiling, researchers at the University of South Carolina said Wednesday. The Associated Press reports that the school was awarded nearly $400,000 in grants to fund 18 research projects on the societal and environmental impact of Hurricane Katrina. On of those projects was a $25,000 study on how Hispanics managed during and after the storm.
March 15, 2006
A full three years after Hurricane Katrina scattered New Orleanians across the country, residents will have returned to areas that had little or no flooding, but less than half will have made it back to neighborhoods that took on 2 feet of water or more, a think tank hired by Mayor Ray Nagin's rebuilding commission estimates. According to The Times-Picayune, the think tank's report, released today by the RAND Corp., repeats projections released in January by the Bring New Orleans Back Commission that the city will have about 272,000 residents by Aug. 29, 2008, or just more than half its pre-Katrina population.
More home-loan borrowers are behind on their payments in the area hit last year by Hurricane Katrina than in any part of the country in more than three decades, according to a lending trade group. The Washington Post reports that about 12 percent of mortgage holders in Louisiana and 8 percent in Mississippi were more than 90 days late on their payments, according to the most recent quarterly survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Delinquency rates are higher for those with high-interest loans or loans insured by the federal government. But the foreclosure rate is lower than the national average because many lenders have voluntarily agreed not to begin proceedings to claim the properties while borrowers get back on their feet.
Underscoring the serious housing shortage for workers here, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has announced a $1.75 billion plan to encourage landlords to repair or build apartments and houses for rent. The New York Times reports that officials hope the plan will lead to the restoration or construction of as many as 45,000 dwellings in a city with huge swaths of low-income housing left uninhabitable by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters. But they emphasized that the plan was contingent on approval by Congress, which has been increasingly reluctant to give Louisiana a special hand.
March 14, 2006
More than six months after Katrina, it sometimes seems like nobody's home in coastal Mississippi. Almost 100,000 Mississippians are living in FEMA trailers, reports USA TODAY. Hundreds of other residents are ineligible for such aid and have had to make other living arrangements while they try to repair their ruined homes.
About 100,000 homeowners are expected to register for up to $150,000 apiece in aid from a reconstruction plan unveiled by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. The program has the blessing of President Bush, who is pressing Congress to provide about $4.2 billion toward its expected $7.5 billion cost. But the plan's prospects are far from certain, the Associated Press reports.
March 13, 2006
Rules requiring pre-demolition inspections for asbestos are being relaxed for some hurricane-damaged homes, though the debris will have to be handled as if it contains the harmful material, reports The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. Normally, only buildings that are “structurally unsound and in danger of imminent collapse” are freed from the asbestos-inspection requirement. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently expanded that definition to include homes that have been washed off their foundations or are so flood-damaged that they must be torn down.
March 10, 2006
The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week announced the end of its “blue roof” program, hailing it a success that helped patch 82,000 roofs in Louisiana damaged by Katrina and Rita last year. The Times-Picayune reports that despite the agency's positive spin, the program's $330 million price tag raised a number of questions about its cost effectiveness. Work prices varied dramatically, with one small company, Ystueta Inc. of Alabama, charging less than $1,000 on average per roof while other larger firms like The Shaw Group billed $3,000 or more for similar jobs. Those figures, critics and contractors have said, are nearly equal to what many roofers charge for labor and materials to install a basic, three-tab asphalt-shingle permanent roof.
March 9, 2006
One of three canine search-and-rescue teams trained to look for bodies left by Katrina plans to leave New Orleans after just a few days on the job because there won't be a hotel room to stay in, the men said Wednesday. CNN reports that game wardens Wayde Carter and Roger Guay said Louisiana apparently didn't make the proper arrangements with FEMA to guarantee them housing after Thursday night, and their supervisor, Maj. Greg Sanborn, has called them back to Maine. On Sunday, their dogs led firefighters to a man's body in the attic of a house in the Lakeview neighborhood — the first such discovery in five days of a new hunt for victims.
President Bush demanded Wednesday that Congress provide Louisiana with the full $4.2 billion he has requested in housing aid for this storm-battered state, even as the House and Senate began considering whether some of that money should go to other states in the region, reports The New York Times. Visiting New Orleans after taking more criticism last week for his handling of Hurricane Katrina, Bush said he fully understood the "pain and agony" of people frustrated with the pace of reconstruction. He urged local officials to speed the removal of debris and said the federal government would rebuild the levees to provide greater flood protection.
The Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington, D.C., estimates that between 80,000 and 100,000 homeowners in the New Orleans area had no flood insurance when Katrina’s Aug. 29 arrival led to levee failures. Most are still waiting for federal and state assistance and a decision on whether they’ll be required to elevate their homes or move from neighborhoods deemed too risky to rebuild, New Orleans City Business reports.
See New Orleans City Business article
March 8, 2006
The Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to set cost controls on hotel room rentals for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, an omission that led to "excessive" bills on some rooms, according to a new oversight report. USA TODAY reports that FEMA was still paying up to $364 a night for some rooms on Dec. 7, more than three months after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, according to the report this week by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General. The findings expand on the inspector general's disclosure last month that FEMA paid up to $438 a night to house Katrina evacuees in luxury hotels in New York, Chicago and Panama City, Fla.
March 7, 2006
The first demolitions of flooded homes in New Orleans in the six months since Hurricane Katrina began on Monday. Three homes were razed after a process that was long delayed by legal challenges, physical obstacles and the difficulty in getting money to search for bodies that almost certainly still are in some of the houses, reports The New York Times. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials estimate some 12.5 million cubic yards of debris from demolished houses will have been removed in Orleans Parish alone when the process ends about a year from now, representing perhaps as many as 25,000 houses. About 120 houses, nearly all in the Lower Ninth Ward, are set for immediate demolition.
Most Katrina evacuees stayed within a day's drive of their hometowns in the Gulf Coast. A few ventured to the West and East coasts. But the Red Cross counted about 90 evacuee families that made the 5,000-mile journey to Alaska, the Los Angeles Times reports. The evacuees scattered throughout the state, with the highest concentration in Anchorage. Six months after Katrina, though, many have returned to the Lower 48, leaving only the die-hards — no one knows exactly how many.
March 6, 2006
A Galveston hotel operator was charged with fraudulently billing the government $232,000 to house supposed hurricane evacuees who were actually regular guests, relatives or friends — or who never stayed at the Texas spot at all. The Associated Press reports that federal prosecutors said the indictment against Daniel Yeh, 52, was the first to accuse a hotel operator of defrauding the Federal Emergency Management Agency's public assistance program.
March 2, 2006
Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., on Wednesday introduced legislation aimed at moving more than 10,000 manufactured homes sitting idle in Hope, Ark., to hurricane victims in neighboring states. The Arkansas News Bureau reports that the new homes, ordered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees, have been mired in red tape since arriving at the Hope Municipal Airport in October, Pryor said. The bill would waive the FEMA rule that bars manufactured homes from being placed in flood plains for the purpose of housing Katrina and Rita evacuees. The one-time waiver would protect FEMA from responsibility if the homes were to be flooded.
See Arkansas News Bureau article
While communities shun FEMA “trailer cities” and thousands of hurricane evacuees remain in hotels, 38 FEMA trailers have sat empty in a Lafayette, La., park for four months. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reports that FEMA moved 38 travel trailers into Lafayette City-Parish Government’s Acadiana Park Campground in early November and has been paying $15,600 a month to lease the RV pads. As of Wednesday, those trailers remained vacant, a problem FEMA blames on confusion over health codes that regulate the type of sewer system required for the trailers.
March 1, 2006
A top House Democrat released e-mails Tuesday detailing Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's role in pushing a $236 million federal contract for Carnival Cruise Lines to house Hurricane Katrina victims, the Associated Press reports. In a letter, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called on Bush to explain his role in the award of the ''lucrative contract,'' which was given to the Florida-based company without a full competitive bid process. The e-mails Waxman released were provided to Congress by Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Six months after Hurricane Katrina drove them from their homes and destroyed their possessions, some still live in shelters, others in hotels and FEMA trailers. A few have begun to rebuild. The worst natural disaster in U.S. history displaced some 770,000 residents — the most since the great Dust Bowl migrations of the 1930s. The storm destroyed or made uninhabitable some 300,000 homes, reports The Christian Science Monitor. Those who have returned live on lonely streets, along barren, windswept shores, and in tiny trailers beside gutted homes.
See Christian Science Monitor article
February 28, 2006
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco expressed concern Monday that language attached to the $4.2 billion that President Bush recently proposed for additional housing recovery financing in southeastern Louisiana could radically alter the landscape in New Orleans, The Times-Picayune reports. In Washington for the National Governor's Association meeting, Blanco said she is worried that restricting the housing money to "mitigation" uses could turn the worst flood-damaged sections of the city into green space, off limits to residential or commercial development.
February 27, 2006
A group of St. Bernard Parish, La., residents living on board a cruise ship under federal contract filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to stall their scheduled Wednesday eviction from the Scotia Prince, which has provided shelter for as many as 800 residents since it docked in the city of Violet shortly after Hurricane Katrina. The Times-Picayune reports that attorney Michael Ginart is seeking a temporary restraining order on behalf of 23 named plaintiffs who rely on the Scotia Prince for food and shelter and have not received other housing alternatives. Although the suit names only the Scotia Prince, it could potentially affect a similar March 1 eviction for people living on two other cruise ships in New Orleans, if successful.
Six months after Hurricane Katrina struck — long after Mayor C. Ray Nagin estimated that residents would be able to return within 16 weeks and President Bush said he would do "whatever it takes" — New Orleans has become paralyzed with uncertainty. The Los Angeles Times reports that most everyone who once lived in Katrina's flood path has had their own confounding odyssey of tribulations and missteps that have kept them from coming home. In the meantime, vast stretches of the city — 100 square miles or more — are still abandoned and rotting.
Hurricane Katrina revealed fatal flaws in the way New Orleans is built. But as thousands of New Orleanians seek construction permits, many are planning to rebuild their homes in the same place, at the same elevation, without any guarantee that the levees will hold in the next big storm, The Washington Post reports.
February 24, 2006
Emergency officials may order more evacuations this hurricane season — even for tropical storms — because so many people are living in vulnerable mobile homes and travel trailers. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reports that Col. Jeff Smith, deputy secretary of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said that the state faces two big hurdles going into hurricane season: Whether the levee systems will be upgraded in time and the fact that so many people are living in mobile homes and travel trailers in coastal areas.
February 22, 2006
State officials likely will require owners who receive renovation grants to elevate their houses if a FEMA cost-benefit analysis shows it makes fiscal sense, Louisiana Recovery Authority director Andy Kopplin said Tuesday, according to The Times-Picayune. Raising a house that meets that standard likely will be an attractive option because federal hazard-mitigation grants should cover the cost and the homeowner will wind up with a property that is less prone to flooding, Kopplin said.
February 21, 2006
Though U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials say they did not overpay for the tens of thousands of emergency “blue roofs” across the Gulf Coast, a review of their documents shows that a company required to compete for its contract did the work for half of what others charged. The Times-Picayune reports that in October, eight weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the corps hired Ystueta Inc., a small Alabama company, to do the same temporary roof work as larger, better-connected companies. Ystueta's price, which came after the corps sought competitive bids from minority-owned companies, was substantially less — about 58 percent lower than that of The Shaw Group, the highest-paid prime contractor assigned to the job in Louisiana, records show.
Six months after Hurricane Katrina, entire blocks of Pass Christian, Miss., have been bulldozed, leaving eerie empty spaces — like missing teeth — where quaint neighborhoods once stood. The Los Angeles Times reports that "The Pass," as everyone calls it, is a patchwork of FEMA trailers, RVs and pop-up tents. The town center is a field of drab-green Army tents used as dwellings and offices. City Hall is a double-wide trailer, as are the police station and library. But the spirit of a settlement founded in 1699 is stronger than ever.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco outlined a $7.5 billion rebuilding, relocation and buyout plan Monday for thousands of residents whose homes remain damaged or destroyed after last year's hurricanes, reports the Associated Press. It is Louisiana's first comprehensive housing proposal since Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast. Assistance would be capped at a maximum $150,000 per homeowner under the proposal. But direct relief is still months away, and homeowners receiving the aid could be taking on more debt to rebuild.
Thousands of Louisiana storm victims were offered grace periods, or forbearances, on their mortgages. But nearly six months after the storm hit, the breaks are coming to an end. And lenders are beginning to demand payment, The Times-Picayune reports. Lenders in Louisiana say 20 percent to 30 percent of their mortgages have not been paid on since Katrina, and several thousand borrowers remain unreachable.
About 20,000 former residents of public housing complexes in New Orleans are scattered around the country in temporary apartments and hotel rooms, many of them eager to return and waiting for government housing to become available. The Baltimore Sun reports that every day another handful of evacuees comes back for a visit, often happy to find their apartments largely clean and undamaged, many of them incredulous that the federal officials who run the city's public housing still won't let them move back. Officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans are urging patience, saying much of the damage to public housing is not apparent from the outside.
See Baltimore Sun article
February 17, 2006
The tiny Sugar Hill neighborhood of New Orleans is one of a handful of neighborhoods that survived Hurricane Katrina because of a geographical quirk — a narrow ridge created when the Mississippi River bored a different path through southern Louisiana. The Los Angeles Times reports that the few residents who have returned are far removed, physically and otherwise, from the larger, intact portions of the city. They are pioneers, not by choice, who shoulder an enormous responsibility: Because they own the only inhabitable homes in their pocket of the city, their blocks will become the anchors of reconstruction.
February 16, 2006
Two cruise ships that are housing hundreds of New Orleans police officers, firefighters and emergency medics are set to leave New Orleans in less than two weeks, but a FEMA spokesman said that he is "confident" the first responders' housing needs will be met, either with travel trailers provided by the agency or personal housing arrangements they may choose instead. The Times-Picayune reports that the news was greeted with little confidence or enthusiasm by officials with the New Orleans Police Foundation, who called the short-term and long-term police housing situation "a crisis."
In an unexpected breakthrough in negotiations with Louisiana officials, the Bush administration announced Wednesday that the president would ask Congress for an additional $4.2 billion to help the state repair and rebuild homes battered by Katrina and Rita. The Los Angeles Times reports that federal support for housing reconstruction, which has been the subject of protracted negotiations between Washington and local officials, is considered a prerequisite for wider recovery because it opens the way for thousands of displaced people to return to New Orleans and surrounding areas.
February 15, 2006
More than 90 percent of owner-occupied homes damaged by flooding from Katrina and Rita are located in southeast Louisiana, estimates compiled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency show. The figures could bolster local officials' efforts to lay claim to most of the federal aid sent to the state for a proposed buyout and renovation program. The Times-Picayune reports that the numbers also suggest that the $6.2 billion federal pot committed to the state could be enough to finance a limited buyout proposal unveiled Monday by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
February 14, 2006
A coalition of Florida farmworkers has sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency, alleging the government refused to help undocumented workers displaced by hurricanes with housing because of their immigration status. The Associated Press reports that many of them who were denied federal help after their homes were destroyed were forced to live in cars and other dangerous situations, while trailers intended for emergency housing went unused, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
February 13, 2006
New Orleans lawyers on Sunday asked a federal judge to halt the eviction of 12,000 families left homeless by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita from hotels across the country. The Times-Picayune reports that the evictions, which are to go into effect today, could affect as many as 40,000 people who were receiving rental assistance from FEMA but did not contact the agency in time to make other living arrangements, or could not or would not make other arrangements, said Bill Quigley, assistant dean of the Loyola University Law School and director of the Loyola Law Clinic.
February 10, 2006
Startling as it may seem to outsiders, the housing market in New Orleans could reasonably be called "hot," or at least warm, according to National Public Radio. The city's biggest residential brokerage firm -- Latter and Blum -- reports that just this past week buyers signed contracts on 673 properties. That compares to 544 properties the same week last year.
See National Public Radio report
After Hurricane Katrina left thousands homeless on the Gulf Coast, officials in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama began calling for trailers to provide temporary shelter. More than 100,000 were requested, and somebody decided to create holding areas for the trailers outside the hurricane zone. Today, the Los Angeles Times reports, legions of wide-bodied mobile homes sit empty at the Hope, Arkansas municipal airport, a sprawling former military base. After all these months, storm victims can't seem to get the trailers, which are proving a mixed blessing to Hope and Arkansas.
February 9, 2006
Nearly six months after two hurricanes ripped apart communities across the Gulf Coast, tens of thousands of residents remain without trailers promised by the federal government for use as temporary shelter while they rebuild, The New York Times reports. Of the 135,000 requests for trailers that FEMA has received from families, slightly more than half have been filled. The delays have left families holed up with relatives or stranded out of state, stalled local economies and infuriated state and local officials, who criticize how the program has been managed. Further, officials and residents complain about problems with quality, like poor plumbing and electrical shorts, with the trailers they have received.
A state housing trust would be in charge of doling out money for buyouts or reconstruction of flood-damaged homes under a plan by Gov. Kathleen Blanco, setting up a possible conflict with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's recovery commission. The Times-Picayune reports that while state officials say local planning processes will determine where people can rebuild, the governor's legislation makes it clear that she wants the state to retain the authority to dispense whatever grants or loans will be available to homeowners.
February 8, 2006
More than 4,500 evacuees were expected to check out of their government-paid hotel rooms yesterday as FEMA began cutting off money to pay for their stays. Some of the evacuees leaving the Crowne Plaza in New Orleans said they had found other housing, but several said they were now homeless, the Associated Press reports. More than 20,000 storm victims were given extensions by FEMA until at least next week and possibly until March 1, said agency spokesman Butch Kinerney.
February 7, 2006
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has adopted higher flood elevation standards for all FEMA-funded projects in low-lying areas of the state, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reports. The new standard will exceed those used by the National Flood Insurance Program and will play a major role in rebuilding efforts from Hurricane Katrina.
February 6, 2006
A West Virginia company with little or no experience in disaster relief collected more than $5 million from FEMA for work it never completed on a temporary tent city in St. Bernard Parish, in a deal that this week became the subject of a criminal investigation, according to federal officials and records. The Times-Picayune reports that both the spending and the selection of the company, Lighthouse Disaster Relief, are under scrutiny by investigators with the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, FEMA and department officials said.
Months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, the upheaval to hundreds of thousands of Americans remains enormous. Almost a half-million households in the four states affected most by the hurricanes — Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama — have filed change-of-address notices with the U.S. Postal Service since Katrina struck Aug. 29 and Rita on Sept. 24. A USA TODAY analysis of address changes filed through Dec. 31 shows that thousands of hurricane evacuees have moved more than once. The Postal Service reports 183,000 address changes since mid-October. After months of "couch surfing" — evacuation slang for hopscotching wherever hospitality allowed — about half have returned to staging areas within about 100 miles of home.
February 1, 2006
Five months after Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans and launched thousands of residents on a furious, ongoing scramble for temporary housing, the fortunate people who landed FEMA trailers or rental assistance checks soon will have to prove they still need the help. The Times-Picayune reports that FEMA officials are, as required every 90 days, launching a recertification program of those aid programs. The process requires FEMA to weed out some noneligible beneficiaries, such as foreign citizens in the United States illegally or people who were homeless when the storm hit.
January 31, 2006
The federal government, criticized for taking too long to provide trailers to those made homeless by Hurricane Katrina, will give some New Orleanians rent-free apartments instead, USA TODAY reports. FEMA plans this week to start housing displaced people in 325 apartments left empty when Katrina triggered a massive evacuation of the city. If the pilot program works, the agency may house as many as 20,000 individuals and families in apartments.
January 30, 2006
At the current pace, every storm-tossed New Orleans resident seeking temporary housing in a trailer should have one in time for the ceremonies marking Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary in August 2008, federal statistics show. The Times-Picayune reports that as of Jan. 24, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had 2,796 occupied trailers in Orleans Parish, or 14 percent of the 19,709 requested since Katrina tore through town. Almost 80 percent of those, 2,231, are installed on a homeowner's property, FEMA said. The pace, however, is expected to pick up soon.
January 27, 2006
An expense report released this week shows that Red Cross executives greatly exaggerated the need faced by the local chapter in Pasadena, Calif., due to Hurricane Katrina when they were seeking a large donation from the City Council. The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports that the council gave the local chapter $100,000 last fall, expecting that most or all of the money would be spent housing hurricane victims who had sought refuge in the Pasadena area. What the council did not know - because Red Cross officials did not say so - is that all housing costs would be reimbursed by national Red Cross headquarters. But not a dime of the city's money was spent on housing Katrina refugees, said chapter CFO Rene Pilarte.
See San Gabriel Valley Tribune article
Shifting housing deadlines, newly required authorization codes for hotel rooms and ever-changing assistance programs have made for a constant source of frustration for evacuees and those trying to assist them since Hurricane Katrina. Now, adding to the confusion, the Dallas Housing Authority is trying to determine what happened to 3,000 short-term rental vouchers issued but never used, The Dallas Morning News reports.
See Dallas Morning News article
January 26, 2006
An analyst for a Washington think tank says he's concerned about how Mississippi will distribute the $5.1 billion the federal government has given the state to help homeowners rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, the Associated Press reports. Will Fischer, senior policy analyst for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told members of the Mississippi House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday that Republican Gov. Haley Barbour's plan for rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast favors homeowners and might leave out renters, low-income families and those living on fixed incomes. Fischer said the governor's plan, which is still being drafted, will make it more difficult for low-income families to find affordable housing on the coast.
Just 40 percent of the 6,000 hurricane evacuees remaining in Texas hotels have sought permission from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stay beyond Feb. 7, according to the Houston Chronicle. That's when the agency will stop paying hotel and motel costs for Texas and Louisiana residents who fled Hurricanes Katrina and Rita during the summer. Although FEMA acknowledged some concerns about large numbers of people becoming homeless, officials said some evacuees staying in Texas hotels may not have been eligible for the benefits in the first place.
Read Houston Chronicle article
January 25, 2006
The wait for federal standards for home building is hampering Louisiana's hurricane reconstruction efforts, Gov. Kathleen Blanco told the Associated Press on Tuesday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is developing a new set of recommended standards for rebuilding in hurricane- and flood-prone areas. But the first new preliminary set of standards won't be out until March or April in New Orleans and several other areas, with the final guidelines not expected until August, Blanco's administration says. The wait is stymieing people who want to rebuild in accord with the new standards so they can be eligible for assistance and get insurance, Blanco said.
Preservationists say the city of New Orleans would tear down structurally sound, historic buildings under a much-criticized plan to cull the city of homes in danger of falling over in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Associated Press reports that the city wants to tear down about 2,000 homes that inspectors deemed in such bad shape that they needed to be demolished soon. But preservationists say that at least 71 of those homes _ all of them in historic districts _ should not be demolished.
January 24, 2006
Some Hurricane Katrina evacuees who received short-term rental vouchers from the Dallas Housing Authority are now facing eviction because the agency still has not paid their December rent, according to The Dallas Morning News. A Housing Authority official said the agency is behind on processing the rent payments to landlords because of an unexpectedly high volume of applications – more than 6,000 – and incorrect or missing paperwork from many apartment managers.
See Dallas Morning News article
Thousands of workers displaced by Hurricane Katrina are living in trailer parks set up by their employers to get production going again, The Washington Post reports. Union Carbide, Murphy Oil and Exxon Mobil have set up encampments for their workforces. The Folgers roasting facility in New Orleans set up 150 trailers but only for employees. Domino Sugar has about 200 trailers on-site for employees and their families.
January 20, 2006
Louisiana’s State Bond Commission Thursday approved $100 million for loans to evacuated homeowners wanting to return to New Orleans and rebuild their houses. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reports that the loans would be written on houses located anywhere in the city, said Mtumishi St. Julien, executive director of the Finance Authority of New Orleans. That means the loans are good for rebuilding in Lakeview, the lower 9th Ward and other neighborhoods whose futures remain uncertain because of vast damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed, he said.
January 19, 2006
Some Hurricane Katrina evacuees who found apartments in metro Atlanta are now getting eviction notices from their landlords --- and turning to social service agencies for help. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that with their initial emergency financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or other agencies running out, some evacuees in apartments don't know where their next rent check is coming from.
See Atlanta Journal-Constitution article
January 18, 2006
A federal judge approved a settlement on Tuesday in a lawsuit over the first demolitions of New Orleans homes ruined by Hurricane Katrina, after city officials agreed to give homeowners advance notice, according to The New York Times. The settlement means that the city can begin demolishing homes, an emotional and symbolic act here, within a few weeks.
January 17, 2006
Days after Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched the biggest housing initiative in its 26-year history. As part of this effort, the agency ordered 125,000 trailers, more than six times the number purchased during the entire 2004 hurricane season. Federal Times reports that nearly five months later, only 58,000 families are living in those travel trailers and mobile homes, and more than 20,000 trailers are sitting vacant in fields, on old airport runways and in parking lots across the Gulf Coast. The majority of these are simply waiting for a place to go.
Despite dire early predictions that the parish would never heal, and despite living conditions that seem unfit for all but the hardiest, officials estimate that 8,000 people have begun to repopulate Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish, which used to have close to 70,000 residents. The New York Times reports that the repopulation is mostly an independent movement, with residents saying they have received little guidance or help from the local government as they clean, gut and rebuild on their own. Departments in the parish government have had to lay off up to 40 percent of their workers, and the parish is desperate for an infusion of federal aid to stave off bankruptcy until the tax base can be rebuilt.
January 13, 2006
The Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday increased its count of people displaced from the Gulf Coast by hurricanes Katrina and Rita by nearly a third, to about 2 million people. A FEMA spokeswoman attributed the sharp rise to a reporting error, The Washington Post reports. According to a news release, FEMA is paying rental assistance to 685,635 families whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the Aug. 29 and Sept. 24 storms, an increase of 167,000, or 32 percent, over a month ago. FEMA officials generally estimate three people per household as a rule of thumb.
January 12, 2006
Angry homeowners screamed and City Council members seethed Wednesday as this city's recovery commission recommended imposing a four-month building moratorium on most of New Orleans and creating a powerful new authority that could use eminent domain to seize homes in neighborhoods that will not be rebuilt. The Washington Post reports that hundreds of residents packed into a hotel ballroom interrupted the presentation of the long-awaited proposal with shouts and taunts, booed its main architect and unrolled a litany of complaints.
Rebuilding Mississippi's hurricane-battered Gulf Coast to better serve its residents and take advantage of its economic potential will require bold moves in areas ranging from building codes to transportation, according to a report released Wednesday. According to the Associated Press, the report was drafted by the privately funded Gov.'s Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal Commission led by former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale. The commission was established by Gov. Haley Barbour in the dark days that followed the Aug. 29 killer hurricane.
Now-familiar scenes—of families marooned on rooftops and in attics by the flood waters in New Orleans; of a bus bearing elderly evacuees engulfed in flames on a Texas highway; of impatient Miami residents queued around the Orange Bowl for water and ice—shattered Americans’ confidence in the capacity of government at any level to protect them from catastrophe. So states are moving to shore up their defenses, planning for disasters they now recognize can be far worse than previously imagined, Stateline.org reports.
January 11, 2006
Residents of New Orleans areas hardest-hit by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters would have four months to prove they can bring their neighborhoods back to life or face the prospect of having to sell out to a new and powerful redevelopment authority under a plan to be released today by a key panel of Mayor Ray Nagin's rebuilding commission. In perhaps its boldest recommendation, the panel says Nagin should impose a moratorium on building permits in shattered areas covering most of the city, while residents there meet to craft plans to revive their neighborhoods. The proposals are spelled out in the final report of the land-use committee of Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back commission, which was obtained by The Times-Picayune.
The commission devising a blueprint to reconstruct the city will propose on Wednesday a complete reorganization of the troubled school system, the elimination of a 76-mile shipping channel that was a prime cause of flooding after Hurricane Katrina and the creation of a new jazz district downtown, The New York Times reports. The commission report, several members said, will also advocate building a 53-mile light-rail system crisscrossing the city, connecting neighborhoods with the airport, downtown and other commercial centers. That system would be in addition to a separate heavy-rail system that would link New Orleans with Baton Rouge and the rest of the Gulf Coast.
January 10, 2006
Under pressure from a federal lawsuit, the Federal Emergency Management Agency acknowledged yesterday that it does not know which Hurricane Katrina victims are living in more than 25,000 subsidized hotel rooms nationwide, or whether they have sought or been denied other FEMA aid. The Washington Post reports that the disclosure came as acting FEMA chief R. David Paulison again pushed back a deadline to end the hotel subsidies, which have cost the federal government more than $400 million since the storm hit Aug. 29. Families in hotel rooms must call FEMA to register and receive a special authorization code, Paulison announced, and may stay until Feb. 13 if they do.
New Orleans hotels are moving to evict evacuees who have occupied rooms since Hurricane Katrina hit the city, but a civil rights group has found ways to slow that process, according to The (Shreveport) Times. Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman James McIntyre said the hotels can evict evacuees if they have returned to their normal room reservation process.
January 9, 2006
The city's official blueprint for redevelopment after Hurricane Katrina, to be released on Wednesday, will recommend that residents be allowed to return and rebuild anywhere they like, no matter how damaged or vulnerable the neighborhood, according to several members of the mayor's rebuilding commission. The New York Times reports that the proposal appears to put the city's rebuilding panel on a collision course with its state counterpart, which will control at least some of the flow of federal rebuilding money to the city.
January 6, 2006
A group called the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, which is representing homeowners in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, will ask a federal judge today to stop up to 2,500 demolitions of homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters. The Times-Picayune reports that more than four months after the levees collapsed, New Orleans has yet to develop clear rules of engagement for what housing advocates call "bulldozing"—the city's removal of badly damaged homes in hard-hit neighborhoods including the Lower 9th Ward.
January 5, 2006
Into the void of the post-Katrina policy landscape, littered with half-ruined proposals, crumbling prescriptions and washed-out initiatives, an obscure and very conservative congressman has stepped in with the ultimate big government solution. The New York Times reports that Rep. Richard H. Baker, a Republican from suburban Baton Rouge who derides Democrats for not being sufficiently free-market, is the unlikely champion of a housing recovery plan that would make the federal government the biggest landowner in New Orleans—for a while, at least. Baker's proposed Louisiana Recovery Corporation would spend as much as $80 billion to pay off lenders, restore public works, buy huge ruined chunks of the city, clean them up and then sell them back to developers.
Into the void of the post-Katrina policy landscape, littered with half-ruined proposals, crumbling prescriptions and washed-out initiatives, an obscure and very conservative congressman has stepped in with the ultimate big government solution. The New York Times reports that Rep. Richard H. Baker, a Republican from suburban Baton Rouge who derides Democrats for not being sufficiently free-market, is the unlikely champion of a housing recovery plan that would make the federal government the biggest landowner in New Orleans—for a while, at least. Baker's proposed Louisiana Recovery Corporation would spend as much as $80 billion to pay off lenders, restore public works, buy huge ruined chunks of the city, clean them up and then sell them back to developers.
January 4, 2006
Craftsman-style bungalows built in the 1920s in one of New Orleans' many historical neighborhoods will be some of the easiest to save post-Katrina, preservation experts say, according to The Christian Science Monitor. These homes, built with a mix of impervious materials, such as plaster, cypress, and slate, are the city's cornerstones, and their rebirth is New Orleans' rebirth. Louisiana's lieutenant governor says surveys show that 28 percent of tourists who visit Louisiana come for the historic homes and neighborhoods.
See Christian Science Monitor article
January 3, 2006
A surprisingly healthy real estate market in the New Orleans metropolitan area is proving to be one bright spot in an otherwise stagnant local economy, The New York Times reports. The market is not sizzling hot, at least by comparison to New York and San Francisco in recent years. Still, it is stronger than anyone might reasonably expect four months after Hurricane Katrina, with prices for houses in many areas at or above prestorm levels.
Hurricane Katrina evacuees around the nation who faced a Jan. 7 deadline for checking out of their government-funded hotel rooms have received a reprieve: Federal officials will keep paying for the rooms beyond that date as they iron out issues arising from a class-action lawsuit. The Associated Press reports that one issue is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which inherited the program from the American Red Cross, still does not have up-to-date records on the identities of evacuees in the hotel program or where they are staying, according to court papers filed last week by government lawyers.
December 23, 2005
Along the storm-hammered Mississippi Gulf Coast, 25,371 travel trailers provided by FEMA are occupied by hurricane survivors who will spend the holidays in confines for which the word cozy is laughably euphemistic. The Columbus Dispatch reports that FEMA trailers are about half the size of a standard mobile home. The oven space in the kitchen range is slightly smaller than a legal pad. The bathtub is the size of an old-fashioned washtub — about 2 feet by 3 feet. And because the hot water tank holds only 5 gallons, showering requires certain precautions.
The acting director of FEMA promised Thursday that he would not "abandon" Houston, but stopped short of committing to fully support the Texas city’s housing-voucher program for hurricane evacuees. According to the Houston Chronicle, the comments marked the first time David Paulison has publicly addressed the simmering voucher issue that prompted Mayor Bill White to accuse the agency of breaking its promises.
December 22, 2005
The hurricane evacuees still living in a string of flophouse motels in Columbia, S.C., after three months are among the most down and out. They were the hidden underclass in New Orleans, with no steady jobs or addresses, and they will be the hardest for government officials to move into apartments, The New York Times reports. Officials say the people who could fend for themselves have found other accommodations; rooms are now occupied mainly by the elderly, the disabled or the mentally ill. Many others are felons whose applications for apartments are routinely rejected or people with a string of evictions who seem to be waiting to be removed again.
A think tank has announced plans to create an institute to help the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast by finding long-term solutions to issues such as flood control, housing, education and emergency response. The Associated Press reports that seven universities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are teaming with the California-based nonprofit RAND Corp. to conduct studies through the Gulf States Policy Institute. While many groups have attacked short-term problems from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, not enough attention has been given to long-term challenges, RAND President and CEO James A. Thomson said.
The Gulf Coast in general — and New Orleans in particular — has at times felt abandoned by the American government. But USA TODAY reports that they haven't been abandoned by Americans, who have volunteered by the thousands to clear out houses, collect trash, fight mold, cover roofs, feed the hungry, tend to the sick and help in any way they can. Now, as disaster relief gives way to rebuilding, volunteers are renovating and constructing homes, restocking libraries, surveying historic structures, tracking down voters and helping communities plan for the future.
December 15, 2005
New Orleans homeowners may have trouble rebuilding their houses for the amount of insurance money offered to them, reports The Times-Picayune. The president of the Homebuilders Association of Greater New Orleans estimates that building costs have climbed roughly 30 percent since the storm, while labor rates have jumped as much as 50 percent, and could go higher. Insurance companies work to incorporate building price fluctuations into their settlements, but it's often hard for them to keep pace with the very latest increases.
December 14, 2005
The issue of where to place trailer parks in New Orleans seems to have stirred tensions and rubbed people like little else, reports The New York Times. The Federal Emergency Management Agency wants to set up more than 22,000 trailers in the city in an effort to house returning residents while they rebuild their homes. Many will go in private yards, but plans also call for 22 trailer parks, said Rachel C. Rodi, a FEMA spokeswoman. The juxtaposition has raised simmering issues of class, race and neighborhood loyalty in a city whose residents were far more rooted than those in almost any other in the nation.
Declaring "Houston is full," Mayor Bill White said that after today, the city will cease giving hurricane evacuees vouchers for 12 months of paid rent and utilities, reports the Houston Chronicle. The announcement comes as city officials have grown increasingly concerned about a tide of evacuees coming to Houston from around the state and country. In three months, more than 100,000 have been housed in Houston-area apartments.
More than three months after thousands of people lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina, local and federal officials are trading blame over the slow delivery of trailer housing. "We got a serious situation in St. Bernard Parish (La.)," its president, Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, told CNN on Tuesday. "We got people living in tents and automobiles. We got people living in barns. We got people living in their houses -- in tents," he said on American Morning. Adding to Rodriguez's frustration is the fact that 1,400 trailers are sitting unused in St. Bernard Parish. The parish ordered them from a private contractor days after the hurricane hit on August 29, but FEMA has not agreed to pay for them.
While far from ground zero, California businesses headquartered in the likes of Placerville, Tuolumne County and Fresno have all been selling goods and services to overwhelmed federal officials. According to The Sacramento Bee, some $63 million in Hurricane Katrina-related contracts already have flowed to California companies and fire agencies, and more are coming.
December 13, 2005
Hurricane Katrina may have emptied whole sections of New Orleans, but it hasn't set in motion the great national diaspora that was widely foreseen, according to the Los Angeles Times. Instead, the vast majority of displaced households are staying close to their former homes, postal records show. A Times analysis of address changes after the hurricane also highlights the metropolitan area's sharp distinctions of class and race.
A federal judge in New Orleans yesterday ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to continue paying the hotel bills of thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees until as late as Feb. 7, criticizing the government for inaction 15 weeks after the storm, The Washington Post reports. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ordered the disaster response agency to pay for storm victims' rooms for at least two weeks once a decision is made on granting them rental housing assistance or until Feb. 7, whichever comes first.
A Mississippi congressman says he is furious that several hundred defunct trailers are being scavenged for spare parts in a temporary-housing graveyard, just off Interstate 10 in Harrison County. "I have had it up to here with Bechtel," Rep. Gene Taylor, a Democrat from Bay St. Louis, said of the California firm contracted through FEMA to install travel trailers. The local Sun Herald reports that Taylor's office sent a letter to Sid Melton, head of FEMA's housing effort in Mississippi, wanting to know why "more than a million dollars worth of trailers are not being used," and whether they will be repaired and delivered to needy residents.
December 12, 2005
The homeless population in the Baton Rouge area has grown since Katrina hit, but social service agencies say that growth is just the beginning, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reports. An official with the Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless says it probably won’t see the real effect until the Federal Emergency Management Agency stops paying hotel bills in January.
A broad clash has developed along the Gulf Coast over whether to cede large swaths of land to nature, to rebuild much as it was, or to rebuild homes at a higher price with more robust foundations and on structures that raise them above the ground. The New York Times reports that the post-Katrina debate is playing out in Mississippi with a cast of characters that includes storm victims, coastal engineers, mortgage lenders, the insurance industry, and local, state and federal government officials.
December 9, 2005
Hispanics who have worked in construction in other parts of the United States have been drawn to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast by the prospect of good money from cleanup and rebuilding jobs, according to MSNBC.com. In Waveland, Miss., the pre-Katrina demographics had been 80 percent white, 15 percent African American and less than 2 percent Hispanic. Since the storm, however, Hispanics are very visible at the few restaurants now open and especially working at the largest debris removal sites.
The federal government's second-ranking disaster official in Louisiana yesterday criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency's program to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees in trailers, calling the effort wasteful and counter to the long-term interest of more than 100,000 displaced families, according to The Washington Post. Instead of spending as much as $140,000 for each trailer and site for a family to use for 18 months, the government should hand out in a lump sum the $26,200 that Congress has approved for storm victims, FEMA’s Scott Wells, the federal coordinating officer for Louisiana, told senators.
On Saturday, hundreds of displaced residents living in Houston will return to New Orleans to protest government policies they say make returning to their old homes difficult. The Houston Chronicle reports that more than 200 are expected to join a bus caravan organized by longtime New Orleans activist Malcolm Suber, who alleges that blacks have been excluded from planning their city's rebirth.
December 8, 2005
Mississippi’s Gov. Haley Barbour delivered an impassioned plea to a House select committee Wednesday, urging Congress to quickly pass Hurricane Katrina relief legislation, which has been stalled for months. The Republican says that delayed federal assistance is causing businesses to reconsider relocating away from Mississippi, which would hurt state employment, consumer spending and tax revenues, according to a Knight Ridder Newspapers report. Barbour told lawmakers that federal aid is urgently needed for 10,000 temporary housing units, to rebuild demolished roads and bridges, and to fund school districts overwhelmed by reconstruction costs.
See Knight Ridder Newspapers article
December 7, 2005
Of all the groups in the micro-melting pot of southern Louisiana hit by Hurricane Katrina, it's hard to find a more close-knit community than the Islenos. National Public Radio says the descendants of Spanish-speaking Canary Islanders who settled St. Bernard Parish more than 200 years ago are now struggling to restore a community that was dispersed by Katrina's winds and floods.
See National Public Radio article
December 6, 2005
A little-understood aspect of the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans may be its salvation: Its 20,000 residents are poor but uncommonly entrenched, USA Today reports. The neighborhood is 97% black and has a per capita income of $10,300 — less than half the U.S. average of $21,587, according to the 2000 Census. But 54 percent of its homes are owner-occupied. That's higher than New Orleans' overall rate of 47 percent and exceeds the rates in thriving cities such as Denver, San Francisco and Washington.
December 5, 2005
Three months after Hurricane Katrina, political figures in New Orleans talk often of the progress that has been made — trash cleared, homes lighted, money spent. Louisiana, they say, is proving its self-reliance. But hidden behind these sometimes rosy declarations are tens of thousands of their constituents, living at the edge of their dwindling resources, The New York Times reports. Adding to their anxiety is what these citizens describe as a frustrating paper chase through the bureaucracy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The American Red Cross has launched an aggressive effort to reach out to racial and ethnic minorities and add more of them to the charity's vast network of volunteers, in response to criticism that it treated them callously during the hurricane relief effort, according to The Washington Post. More than two months after Katrina and Rita caused tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents to flee their homes for Red Cross shelters, the organization is dealing with complaints that it failed to provide enough translators and overlooked cultural sensitivities. The concerns have been raised by members of Congress and groups representing blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans.
Fears that insurers would turn their backs on victims of the worst U.S hurricane season ever have proved to be mostly unfounded. With property casualty insurance companies facing record payouts of more than $70 billion after Katrina, Rita and Wilma ravaged the Gulf Coast, concerns arose that insurers would come up short in their obligation to policyholders, or even go bankrupt, leaving damage claims unpaid. But Reuters reports that a survey of state regulators, realtors and hurricane victims shows that, in most cases, that insurers get "decent marks." There were some exceptions.
Lost amid continued talk of billions in federal aid to Katrina victims is the fact that most homeowners and businesses are being left to make the toughest calls on their own, the Los Angeles Times reports. Safety nets such as unemployment compensation, employer-provided health care insurance, pensions and, recently, effective disaster relief, have been reeled in or removed. Increasingly, families from the working poor to the affluent are left largely to buy and sell their own way to safety even when their individual efforts seem utterly outgunned, as they do in the case of Katrina.
The Federal Housing Administration is launching a program to pay the mortgages of up to 20,000 victims of Katrina, Rita and Wilma for as much as a year. The Associated Press reports that the unprecedented mortgage relief will be offered to people who own homes with FHA-insured mortgages in designated hurricane-ravaged parts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
December 2, 2005
A buzz of interest is growing around federal legislation to bail out thousands of Louisiana homeowners who have mortgages on houses that have been destroyed, according to The Times-Picayune. A bill by Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, would create the Louisiana Recovery Corp., which would use proceeds from the sale of federal government bonds over 10 years to buy up storm-damaged property and pay off the mortgages. Under the plan, no one would make a profit or receive the pre-Katrina value of their homes, but homeowners could at least avoid the poorhouse.
Despite written statements to the contrary, in three months the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cease honoring 24,000 year-long leases backed by the city of Houston and signed between hurricane evacuees and local apartment landlords. The Houston Chronicle reports that as a result the city could fail to deliver on a promise made to nearly 100,000 storm-ravaged evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — a safe roof over their heads for a year. Landlords, who are accepting tenants without a security deposit or credit checks, would be left with scores of families unable to pay their rent.
November 30, 2005
Hurricane evacuees could crowd Texas streets unless the federal government steps in soon with a long-term housing solution, according to a report due out Thursday. The San Antonio Express-News says that the report by an Austin-based low-income housing advocacy group calls for congressional hearings on future housing needs and contains sharp criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Among the report's assertions: FEMA has collected too little data on evacuees for local officials to assess needs; temporary housing programs are poorly designed and confusing; and there is no plan for long-term housing and scarce housing resources are being diverted from longtime residents to evacuees.
See San Antonio Express-News article
November 29, 2005
Some 70,000 people in Louisiana and Mississippi are living in trailer parks three months after Hurricane Katrina forced them to abandon their homes, BBC News reports. The cheap, makeshift abodes that are synonymous with poverty in the United States are the only option for many storm evacuees — at least for the next 18 months, while the slow process of rebuilding winds on. But for some they are a step up from the shared motel rooms they inhabited for weeks after the storm.
November 28, 2005
As the insurance industry grapples with a record number of individual hurricane-related claims — 1.6 million from Katrina plus another 1 million from Rita and Wilma — policyholders are learning that the opportunity to get their lives back in order often depends on which company is processing the claim, The Washington Post reports. In many cases, homeowners living in areas that were equally flooded have had drastically different experiences — some have had claims already paid while others have had theirs denied — even though all flood claims are paid by the federal National Flood Insurance Program, which the insurance companies simply administer.
November 23, 2005
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has given a holiday reprieve to about 150,000 hurricane evacuees, saying that most of them will not lose government subsidies for the hotel rooms where they have been living until Jan. 7, The Washington Post reports. FEMA had warned hurricane victims living in every state except Louisiana and Mississippi a week ago that it would stop paying for their hotel rooms by Dec. 1, which officials said was an attempt to encourage them to find permanent housing. But that announcement sparked widespread protests from state and local officials and housing advocates, who said the huge number of evacuees in hotels could not find permanent housing in 15 days.
A bill establishing a statewide building code for homes and businesses that must be rebuilt in southern Louisiana has been sent to Gov. Kathleen Blanco, according to a report in The Times-Picayune. The bill would apply for structures rebuilt in the wake of Katrina and Rita and all buildings built or rebuilt statewide starting in 2007. Backers said its passage will help spur redevelopment, limit future hurricane destruction and hold down insurance costs. Opponents said the code will increase the cost of building homes.
Beefed-up La. building code passes
November 22, 2005
West Virginia is buying land for what a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency says is the nation's first plan to establish permanent housing sites for people displaced by natural disasters, the Associated Press reports. Although the land could be used in case of a national emergency such as Hurricane Katrina, Gov. Joe Manchin said it is intended mainly for use by West Virginians, especially those in the state's flood-prone southern counties. He pointed out that in the Gulf Coast, where so much existing housing was lost because of hurricanes, "there's no place to put people."
W.Va. Buying Property for Disaster Housing
November 21, 2005
The Texas congressional delegation and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have turned up the heat on FEMA to extend the deadline the agency has set for ending its housing payments to thousands of hurricane evacuees staying in hotels past Dec. 1, according to a report by the Associated Press. At the same time, the Texas Apartment Association cited "broken promises, unreasonable deadlines and a mind-numbing bureaucracy" as reasons why many of its members likely would refuse to make apartments available to storm victims. More than 50,000 victims of Katrina and Rita are staying in hotels in Texas. Almost 20,000 of them are in Houston.
State Officials Pressure FEMA To Extend Katrina Victims Deadline
November 18, 2005
Federal and state officials tried yesterday to ease fears that thousands of Louisiana hurricane victims in Texas would be left homeless again after Dec. 1, when FEMA has said it will stop paying their hotel and motel bills, The Associated Press reports. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said it is working with families to help find them longer-term housing.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.fema18nov18,1,5286810.story
November 16, 2005
FEMA has warned an estimated 150,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees living in government-subsidized hotels that they have until Dec. 1 to find other housing before it stops paying for their rooms, according to a report in The Washington Post. The announcement effectively starts the clock ticking toward a new exodus of Gulf Coast storm victims who have been living rent-free in 5,700 hotels in 51 states and U.S. territories under the $273 million program.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501704.html
November 9, 2005
Louisiana's House Committee on Transportation, Highways and Public Works has passed a bill aimed at speeding reconstruction work that would allow the state highway department to use "design-build" contracting, the Associated Press reports in its state legislative roundup. House Bill 12, sent to the full House after Tuesday's vote, would let one firm both design and build a project rather than the usual hiring of separate firms through separate contract bidding processes. Some fear the move could backfire and inflate costs. Meanwhile, the House Commerce Committee is considering a building code bill that would require use of more expensive materials and more elaborate building techniques to enable homes to withstand hurricane-force winds, the Advocate reports. Critics of House Bill 76 say imposing new building codes in just a few weeks will halt construction when some 200,000 homes need rebuilding.
Notes from the Louisiana Legislature
Building code changes advancing
November 7, 2005
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has decided to expedite relief efforts by giving residents of neighborhoods presumed to have been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina $26,200, the maximum award for damages, the Washington Post reports. The determination is being made using satellite imagery rather than individual home inspections. "It is presumed these homes are uninhabitable, and these persons will be eligible for the maximum amount they can receive," said FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews. FEMA has begun notifying 60,000 renters and property owners in Louisiana and Mississippi about the money they will be eligible to receive.
November 3, 2005
During hearings Wednesday before the House panel investigating the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, officials from companies such as Carnival Cruise Lines defended their much-assailed government contracts, the Associated Press and Reuters report. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that some lawmakers are sharply criticizing the Bush administration for failing to submit related documents that include e-mails and other correspondence between various agencies and the White House. Also, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown drew fire over now-released agency internal e-mail messages that some on the committee said showed him to have appeared overwhelmed in his leadership position and overly preoccupied with his image on television when the storm struck.
Winners of Katrina contracts defend deals
Carnival defends $236 million Katrina contract
Panel Still Waiting for Hurricane Katrina Papers
November 1, 2005
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco issued wide-ranging 77-item call for a special legislative session in Baton Rouge to be held Nov. 6-22 to deal with hurricane-related problems, The Shreveport Times reports. "This is a substantial package of initiatives that will help our families, our businesses and our state recover from Katrina and Rita," Blanco said. "We will cut spending and restructure government to address a $1 billion drop in state revenues." The package includes legislation to rebuild the New Orleans school system, give tax breaks to citizens and businesses affected by the storms, create a new building code, build stronger levees, improve coastal protection and strengthen ethics laws so that elected officials and their families can't profit from recovery efforts.
Gov. issues broad call for session
Governor's Proclamation No. 62 KBB 2005
October 31, 2005
The Senate unanimously passed a measure Friday that calls on the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general to investigate the much-criticized $236 million FEMA contract with Carnival Cruise Lines to provide ships for emergency evacuee housing, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Carnival Ship Deal Faces Probe
October 26, 2005
Under pressure from gun-rights groups, FEMA is lifting its ban on firearms at temporary housing parks built to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees, the Associated Press reports. The National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation have complained that the ban violated constitutional gun ownership rights.
Gun Possession Now OK at FEMA Housing
October 21, 2005
Rep. Henry Waxman has called on federal officials to explain their $236 million deal with Carnival Cruise Lines to provide three cruise ships for post-Hurricane Katrina housing, newspapers report. Waxman on Thursday asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to provide documents showing how the contract cost was calculated. Lawmakers from both parties criticized the deal as wasteful, but Waxman's critique is the first to offer specific data about the finances underlying the deal.
Lawmaker makes waves over cruise-ship housing
Congressman faults Carnival's lucrative contract for hurricane housing
October 7, 2005
At a Senate committee hearing Thursday, FEMA's acting director testified on the agency's housing assistance efforts and long-term rebuilding. Acknowledging that many "are rightfully concerned about the costs," David Paulison sought to clarify the agency's contracting procedures.
David Paulison's testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee
October 5, 2005
The Los Angeles Times reports that a controversial six-month, $192 million government contract with Carnival Cruise Lines for post-Katrina emergency housing includes more company-friendly benefits than originally disclosed. Lawmakers from both parties have called for an investigation of the deal. Carnival has agreed to refund the government for any profits beyond those agreed to in the contract.
Under the Waterline of Cruise Ship Deal
September 30, 2005
The New York Times reports that questions are being raised about FEMA's sluggish progress in housing displaced families despite its huge temporary housing contract awards.
Housing for Storm's Evacuees Lagging Far Behind U.S. Goals
Greece's offer of the free use of ships for evacuee housing was turned down and instead FEMA signed a $236 million contract with Carnival Cruise Lines. Sens. Barack Obama and Tom Coburn are asking Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff why the Greek offer wasn't accepted.
See Chicago Tribune article: Senators ask why U.S. paying when free ships offered
See USA Today article: Carnival CEO defends cruise ship deal for hurricane evacuees
September 26, 2005
Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times reported on the criticism of Carnival Cruise Lines' $236 million deal to house evacuees on ships. The article included Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman's letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff calling for more information on the contract.
Ships' Housing Deal Is Under Scrutiny
September 23, 2005
FEMA efforts to house roughly 200,000 evacuees are mired in logistical, bureaucratic and political tangles, according to the Washington Post:
Housing the Displaced Is Rife With Delays
September 22, 2005
Champion Enterprises said it received a $60 million order from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build 2,000 manufactured homes, according to the Detroit Free Press.