Thousands of Katrina Survivors Are Homeless... Again

by Shannon Moriarty

Published June 01, 2009 @ 04:29AM PT

Today, thousands of people who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina will once again face eviction. In a move that boggles human rights advocates, FEMA will repossess the temporary housing trailers from those displaced by Hurricane Katrina nearly four years ago.

Many are the area's most vulnerable residents - the elderly, the ill, and the poor - who cannot afford the cost of post-disaster housing. Here's one example from the Human Rights Network:

Earnest Hammond is a 70 year-old retired truck driver who received no assistance after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home. He took matters into his own hands and by collecting aluminum cans, raised thousands of dollars to repair his badly damaged house. He is eager to move back but can't restore his home by the June 1st deadline, and is facing eviction. "I have nowhere to go if they take my trailer. It's hard to believe I have to go through this again."

FEMA's emergency housing solution for the Gulf Coast has been far from perfect. But regardless of the criticisms or poor management of these programs, these trailers have been the only home available to the many displaced by the storm.

Indeed, the scope of the emergency housing is staggering: FEMA provided more than 143,000 households with temporary housing following Katrina and Rita. Although the housing was never meant to be permanent, it didn't quite work out that way:

Though federal law prohibited FEMA from providing emergency housing for longer than 18 months, officials repeatedly extended the deadline in acknowledgment of the scope of the destruction. At the same time, some local governments -- worried about blight and eager to move on -- used zoning and permitting rules to pressure trailer residents to get out of the units and into more permanent housing.

Clark Stevens, a FEMA spokesman, noted that the solution was always meant to be temporary. And in interviews Tuesday, a number of Louisianans agreed with FEMA's decision to end the program. Contractor Billy Griffin, 47, suspected that some people had grown comfortable in their free digs.

The survivors of the Katrina disaster are being victimized by stigmas often associated with very low income populations. It is much more convenient to believe that these individuals are "comfortable in their free diggs" (i.e. living off the government) rather than face the reality of the situation on the Gulf Coast. Post-recovery housing has become more expensive, and incomes are not keeping pace. According to data compiled in March by Governor Haley Barbour's office, 53% of those still living in trailers make less than $20,000 per year. And government support to help these individuals repair their homes hasn't been sufficient, according to the LA Times:

Louisiana has doled out federal rebuilding money to more than 90% of the remaining trailer residents. But that hasn't always solved their problems: Last summer, the nonprofit advocacy group PolicyLink found that two out of three Louisianans who received rebuilding money did not receive enough to cover needed repairs.

Rather than enforce this deadline, stigmatize the poor and vulnerable on the Gulf Coast, and once again displace these struggling individuals, the Obama administration should have taken a much more humane and compassionate approach:

Instead of carrying out the former administration's callous plan for eviction, the Obama administration and Congress should apply the United Nations' Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, a human rights policy that, for several years, has guided our government in providing temporary and permanent homes for people in foreign countries who become displaced by earthquakes, typhoons, and flooding.

Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network, said: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that our government will be applying the human rights policy that governs internally displaced people to the homeless in Afghanistan. It is unconscionable to hold our own population to a lower standard and subject displaced Americans to evictions before permanent housing has been secured."

Perhaps it's not the residents of emergency housing that have become comfortable, but the leaders charged with creating more affordable and decent permanent housing. It is their failure to plan, failure to create permanent and affordable housing options, that is putting thousands of people out on the streets. Not the "individual shortcomings" of the people displaced by the storm.

Who could have predicted that the storm would still be wrecking devastation nearly four years later?