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| Diocese Joins Call for FEMA to Ensure Permanent Affordable Housing for Hurricane Victims | |||||||
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The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana has joined a coalition of groups and organizations calling on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to address what Bishop Charles E. Jenkins terms "the second, silent disaster" – the lack of permanent, safe and affordable housing for families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The coalition, in a letter to federal, state, and local leaders, said that 578 families in Louisiana will lose temporary housing in FEMA trailer group sites by May 31. "FEMA also plans to close all remaining commercial trailer sites throughout Louisiana quickly, impacting over 1,900 families," the letter said, noting that 17,000 families are still living in trailers in Louisiana. The letter also acknowledged that in February 2008 preliminary findings were released from a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study "indicating that high levels of formaldehyde were present in the FEMA-provided trailers and mobile homes, which could be dangerous to the health of occupants." The letter is available in a PDF file here. At a news conference held at Christ Church Cathedral, New Orleans, on May 29, those who are still displaced nearly three years after the hurricanes were invited to tell their stories. One man, a double amputee, was being turned out of his trailer to be sent outside the state, where he knows no one and has no support system. A woman who lived with her six children, three of whom are disabled, outside Baton Rouge in Renaissance Village, FEMA's largest trailer park, told of being given eight hours to vacate her trailer the morning after she spoke with a local TV news crew about the lack of support in finding permanent housing and the illnesses her children are suffering due to high levels of formaldehyde. Like many former trailer dwellers, the family was sent to a hotel room where they will be allowed to stay for thirty days. Staff members from the Office of Disaster Response (odr.edola.org) supplied food, diapers and consolation. According to Shakoor Aljuwani, community organizer for the Diocese of Louisiana, many of these families end up living in tents pitched under Interstate I-10 in New Orleans. In the past week, he says, about 15 new tents have appeared there. The news conference was held to highlight the coalition's concerns and emphasize the need for immediate "safe, affordable, permanent housing" for all displaced residents currently being forced out of FEMA trailers or who are otherwise homeless; a long-term resettlement plan; and international health registry, health studies and medical care for all residents who have lived in FEMA trailers since 2005, especially focusing on children. "The bottom line," says Courtney Cowart, co-director of the diocese's Office of Disaster Response and author of the forthcoming An American Awakening (Church Publishing), "is that FEMA is performing no better today than in the days following Katrina and Rita. Their lack of delivery of services and assistance is continuing to destroy lives on an enormous scale." The need is especially acute in New Orleans at this time, say Cowart and Aljuwani, because the American Red Cross is ending its Means to Recovery Program in the city. The program provided necessities such as furniture and money for transportation and deposits on apartments. What can one do to help? Aljuwani has three ideas: • Contribute to the Diocesan Office of Disaster Response Fund, which Aljuwani says provides "life and death service for people who, through no fault of their own, suffer from the storm and the botched response of FEMA; • Pressure FEMA through letters and emails; • Encourage congressional representatives to vote in favor of Supplemental Appropriations Bill HR2642, to offer support through housing vouchers, case management, transition assistance and community development throughout Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. |
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