{PC: NY Times}"NEW ORLEANS — Earnest Hammond, a retired truck driver, did not get any of the money that went to aid property owners after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
He failed to qualify for one federal program and was told he missed the deadline on another. But he did get a trailer to live in while he carries out his own recovery plan: collecting cans in a pushcart to pay for the renovations to his storm-damaged apartment, storing them by the roomful in the gutted building he owns.
It is a slow yet steady process. Before the price of aluminum fell to 30 cents a pound, from 85 cents, he had accumulated more than $10,000, he said, almost enough to pay the electrician. But despite such progress, last Friday a worker from the Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered a letter informing him that it would soon repossess the trailer that is, for now, his only home."
~NY Times
How is it that this is still happening? Progress on renovations of houses have been slow, and temporary housing is running out for Hurricane Katrina victims. FEMA keeps on saying that it has done everything it could to help those in temporary housing, but agency clients paint a different story.
I feel like I don't have to point out the fact that the people who are suffering the most are at an economic disadvantage. I remember thinking this when I traveled down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to do aid work a few months after Hurricane Katrina had hit. We need to do a lot more work to help repair the aftermath of Katrina. This article proves it. Read it here.
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1 comment:
Un-freaking-believable. Whenever I hear/read a thing like this, I always ask myself, "Who's profiting off of this?" Because you can be sure that a handful of people are picking caviar out of their teeth while hundreds of people like this man scrape out a life.
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