November 23, 2005
By Mary Frances Schjonberg

Hurricane evacuees living in hotels and motels all over the country face looming and ever-changing deadlines to find new housing and the alternatives do not look promising.

Officials in the Diocese of Louisiana have criticized the federal government's approach to what is being called the largest national housing crisis since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

The Rev. Canon Chad Jones, canon for program for the Diocese of Louisiana, said recently that FEMA's approach is wrong. Any solution that will potentially leave people homeless is unacceptable, he said.

The diocese will "very loudly proclaim that we do not believe that these are ethical solutions," he said. "These are unacceptable solutions."

"Until we find a solution that puts everyone in housing that is not sub-standard, we have not done enough," Jones added.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced November 17 that it would cut off payments for temporary hotel and motel rooms on December 1. After a storm of criticism, on November 21, FEMA extended the deadline to December 15 for people living in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The next day FEMA announced that people living in the 10 states with the highest concentration of evacuees in hotel rooms will have until January 7 to find longer-term housing. Each state must provide FEMA with a plan to meet the January 7 deadline in order to have the deadline extended to January 7.

Evacuees living in hotels in other states will now have until December 15 to find new housing, for which they will receive as much as $2,358 for three months of rental assistance and the possibility of as much as a 15-month extension.

The ten states are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas. More than 92 percent of the approximately 50,000 families still living in hotel rooms are located in these 10 states, according to a November 22 FEMA news release.

Texas tops the list, according to FEMA, having billed an average of 18,157 hotel rooms between November 3 and 16.

"With 29 states lodging less than 100 families each, the task of locating housing before the holidays is an attainable goal," FEMA's November 22 statement said. "For example, the state of New York is hosting 273 households, which means they need to place roughly 12 families a day in order to have everyone in homes by December 15."

Jack Griswold, associate director of Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), predicted November 23 that FEMA's decisions will mean a "greater demand for the type of services we're offering."

Through its offices at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City and through affiliates on the Gulf Coast, EMM has been helping parishes and displaced families forge relationships and facilitated sponsorships of displaced families. A major part of EMM's work involves developing contacts with parishes wishing to be sponsors by doing intake interviews and matching parishes and families. EMM also trains parishes in the ministry of sponsorships.

The Rev. Denis McManis, director of the Diocese of Louisiana's Office of Disaster Response, said recently FEMA is ending the hotel-motel program for financial reasons. "FEMA is basically saying they can't afford it," he said.

FEMA says the motel program has cost $300 million out of the more than $4.4 billion it has given to 1.4 million families affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes, to date.

"Let me be clear: We are not kicking people out into the streets. We are not stopping the flow of money," acting FEMA Director David Paulison said in a telephone conference call with reporters November 22, according to the Washington Post. "We just don't want to be paying for hotels and motels anymore."

McManis, an archdeacon from the Diocese of Southwest Florida who is now working with the diocese of Louisiana, said his office is working to set up four or five resource centers to help people deal with housing and other issues. Current and potential sites include Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans, Holy Comforter church on the University of New Orleans campus and Christ Church in Slidell.

The centers will give out provision such as cleaning supplies, clothing, personal-hygiene items, diapers and bottles. Case managers will help people work their way through the post-hurricane bureaucracy and mental-health counselors and pastoral counselors will provide a place for people to come and deal with the emotional and spiritual issues they face.

Jones and McManis said that the diocese is also trying to create long-term solutions. Those include the possibility of building affordable housing near Christ Church Cathedral and elsewhere in New Orleans with the help of Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans and Episcopal Relief and Development.

Hope Credit Union, a program connected with Trinity, is working to find money to make low-interest loans available to those people who have trouble securing loans because they have been on welfare or have declared bankruptcy in the past.

Louisiana Bishop Charles Jenkins told the Times-Picayune on November 17 that he has asked every bishop in the country to buy a $100,000 certificate of deposit from the credit union which also assists very small businesses with start-up capital.

Top FEMA officials defended the move at a recent news conference, according to the Times-Picayune, saying that evacuees were never expected to stay in hotels for the long haul. Vice Adm. Thad Allen, the lead federal official for hurricane relief, said that most evacuees would probably prefer to live in the more comfortable surroundings of an apartment.

"Unfortunately, families impacted by Hurricane Katrina must realize that housing in New Orleans will not return to its pre-storm state for quite some time and it is time for displaced families to locate suitable housing solutions in other locations, including those out of state," FEMA federal coordinating officer Scott Wells said November 21 in a FEMA news release.

"Over the past three months, many of those displaced by Katrina have made tremendous steps in returning normalcy to their lives – renting apartments, enrolling children in schools, finding jobs, and reestablishing their self reliance," he said in a November 22 statement. "Now, almost three months after Hurricane Katrina and two months after Hurricane Rita, we must help those remaining in hotels get squarely on the road to recovery."

The Washington Post reported that FEMA has awarded $66 million to two organizations to use 3,000 case managers to help move families into apartments if they sign leases by December 1.

FEMA representatives began visiting Baton Rouge-area hotels over the weekend of November 19-20, launching a state-wide effort to meet face-to-face and share resources and tools with the estimated 9,000 individuals and families still living in short-term housing, according to a November 22 FEMA news release.

FEMA's move follows criticism of the cost and management of efforts to place people in cruise ships, mobile homes and trailers.

Jones said that FEMA's housing plans have been flawed in many ways and insensitive to cultural and religious concerns.

For instance, he said, FEMA loan policies do not take into account the fact that orthodox Jews and most Muslims cannot pay interest on borrowed money.

McManis said that FEMA has not dealt with the problems caused by their process of making cash payments to evacuees. Many people have "never had that much cash in their hands before and they're going out and spending it is if it dropped out of the sky" and they are not spending it on housing, he said.

FEMA's plans to house evacuees in trailers are fraught with problems, McManis said. First, not enough trailers are available. As of November 20, 10,548 travel trailers and mobile homes have been placed in Louisiana, according to FEMA. The agency admitted on November 22 that some people who wish to live in a trailer may have to stay with family and friends "while the long-term housing is established." FEMA said it will pay for people's relocation costs for both moves.

Jones said that the proposed locations for so-called FEMA villages, collections of trailers, are a logistical nightmare. The locations are far outside of New Orleans where workers are desperately needed. Few evacuees have vehicles and most locations have no public transit.

Many of the communities where the villages may be located are not equipped to provide even basic services to the evacuees. The communities "don't particularly want them there," McManis said.

"It's just a nightmare," said Jones.

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.