A Message from the FEMA "Throw them out on the streets".

The FEMA has decided it is going to end paying for the Housing via hotel stays for the men, women and children who were evacuated from their homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Although this is classic government behavior the question still must be asked from where did they pull this date to stop helping the folks from New Orleans that are scattered all over the country, and why did they choose this date. From all that I have read and seen Dec.1st (the day chosen to end funding) holds no significance in respect to how FEMA expected things to progress for people removed from their homes, nor is it the day these men and women would be able to return to their homes. It appear that this date was chosen by bureaucrats for no apparent reason other than to have a deadline without taking into account the situation those who are using these funds are in.

As this announcement was being made, it was discovered that the FEMA is “awash” in money. Of the 62.3 Billion dollars allotted by congress towards helping the men and women affected by Katrina only 37.5 Billion of it has been used. This leaves close to 25 billion dollars available to the FEMA that can be used to continue helping those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Jessie Jackson in a statement regarding the actions of the FEMA stated that “It would be disgraceful to cut funding off (for) housing without a plan for people to go someplace”.

The FEMA in its defense stated the announcement to end paying for housing for the folk displaced after the Hurricane “only confirm a previously announced deadline,” and the deadline “will not apply to hurricane victims’ still living in the worst-hit states of Louisiana and Mississippi, because alternative housing is simply not available”. Some where between the actual Hurricane and the day of its announcement, the FEMA seems to have become confused about housing availability and the inability to pay for that housing. If the idea was to move people to places where adequate housing is available than the FEMA should move all those still living in the worst hit states to those places, however if the idea is to pay for the housing of those displaced from their own homes until they are able to move back or has found the means to pay for their own housing, than there is no way FEMA can make sense of paying for the housing of those who remain in the worst hit states while ending funding for those who left these states or where forcibly removed from these states.

Congress has now received a third supplemental bill requesting taking back 2.3 billion dollars. Time Magazine reports that Mayor Ray Nagin went before congress asking them to continue their support of the Rebuilding process in New Orleans by not taking back money allotted to the helping the people of New Orleans and rebuilding the city, only to be rebuffed with typical G.O.P rhetoric “We want to see them helping themselves before they ask us for help”. Only if this was their position in regards to Iraq. As the U.S. moves into its Holiday Season let us celebrate the throwing out on the streets the men and women displaced by Hurricane Katrina.