More than two years after it made landfall, Hurricane Katrina continues to torment the people of New Orleans, assisted by the federal government. With housing projects being condemned, FEMA-run trailer parks shutting down and few affordable housing options, the city’s homeless population has gone from 6,300 before the storm to a growing 12,000. “To withdraw housing assistance to the neediest people is a shirking of federal responsibility for the design failure of the federal levees in New Orleans, which was the cause of most of the destruction of affordable housing here,†said Martha J. Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans, in a New York Times article.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
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25 Comments
Uh, TWO years! How much “temporary assistance” do they need? Sorry, but Katrina flushed America’s toilet. These people will ALWAYS need help, they are helpless.
“Katrina flushed America’s toilet.”
Ah, the voice of “compassionate conservatism” is heard again.
Trent Lott stayed in the Senate long enough to rebuild coastal casinos but three blocks inland the neighborhoods of the poor remain devistated.
New Orleans is the second most important port in America. It’s been shut out of meaningful disaster release for only one reason: political pique; they tended to vote Democratic.
If, in fact, “Katrina flushed America’s toilet,” Shrub is that piece of stained toilet paper that never quite goes down the drain.
Monkeyhawk, I presume you meant “devastated,” and “disaster relief.” That said, how long do you think we should spend taxpayer dollars to support these people? How about another five? Maybe the rest of their lives? I can’t think of any disaster, even a total loss, where one year of support wouldn’t be enough. Just exactly how long should America’s workers support these people?
Thanks for the spellcheck, “Harold.”
That proves you’re obviously a superior human being.
That said, “How long?” you ask. How ’bout ’til something’s accomplished? Thanks to Trent Lott all the casinos on the Mississippi coast are back up and running! So maybe America’s taxpayers should stop contributing to the $93 Billion of corporate welfare.
Meanwhile, what’s being done to help people get out of their formaldehyde-tainted travel trailers?
Nothin’.
You’re so proud of that, aren’t you, “Harold?”
It has been 2 years. I am all for helping people in need of help but at what point do you get off your ass and do something about your life? If New Orleans isn’t working for you, you need to look elsewhere for a life.
Nice to see that the Republican ethnic cleansing of Louisiana has been such a success. Just a little mopping up left to do, and Louisiana turns into a red state!
Of coures, this says nothing about the huge amounts of undamaged public housing in New Orleans that’s slated for destruction. Gotta reserve that prime property for the white folks and their condos!
This welfare state of a country developed and fostered everything you see going on in NOLA right now. If the hand outs wouldn’t have begun in the first place then these souls down there stuck in the FEMA camps would have incentive to get out of there. As it is now, they have become accustomed to the help and know no other way. What could they get out of the “insurance” on the homes before Katrina let alone afterwards? There is no money there for these people and most are so old that there won’t be any to come. You “good-hearted”, “compassionate-conservatives” can go to hell. If you felt so compassionate you would have quit funding these projects a long time ago when Republicans were in control. No, you chose pandering. both my Grandma and Aunt lost their homes in the ‘91 Andover tornado, they stayed in apts. for a year whilst their homes were rebuilt. The difference between this and Katrina is that these people living in NOLA were never taught to work and therefore never had any money saved. This seems elementary to tak about but obviously it needs to be spelled out for all of you “caring” people.
I don’t care how much money you pay for a dead horse you can’t make it run. It doesn’t matter how much FEMA spends of our tax dollars, unless the people there do something constructively with it nothing is ever going to happen that’s good.Duane above is absolutely correct. The money spent has simply enabled the ones sitting on their asses to continue to do so. And guess what…they will continue to do so as long as someone is giving them handouts. The quickest way to turn a human being into a worthless mass of consuming, excreting, parasitic protoplasm is to start supporting them with no mandatory expectation of them ever doing anything for themselves.All the ‘help’ is simply enslaving them in idle desperation.
New Orleans COULD be rebuilt as an A list world class city.
THINK of it. An entire American city rebuilt with an eye to the future.
Nah, let’s throw the money to the military and assorted contractors to continue wasting in Iraq.
I don’t care how much money you pay for a dead horse you can’t make it run. It doesn’t matter how much FEMA spends of our tax dollars, unless the people there do something constructively with it nothing is ever going to happen that’s good.Duane above is absolutely correct. The money spent has simply enabled the ones sitting on their asses to continue to do so. And guess what…they will continue to do so as long as someone is giving them handouts. The quickest way to turn a human being into a worthless mass of consuming, excreting, parasitic protoplasm is to start supporting them with no mandatory expectation of them ever doing anything for themselves.All the ‘help’ is simply enslaving them in idle desperation.
Sorry, I don’t know what happened. I did not repost my comments from 7:54 AM again then at 8:16 AM. I was not even at the computer. Strange!
Well it sure was not worth posting twice.
J.R., at least somebody thought it good enough to post a second time. I’ve noticed practically nobody gives you any notice on the blogs, ever. Ha!
Silly Duck,”The quickest way to turn a human being into a worthless mass of consuming, excreting, parasitic protoplasm is to start supporting them with no mandatory expectation of them ever doing anything for themselves.”
That’s what FEMA did to all those contractors with political ties to Bush who took the money and ran. It’s what happened to America’s insurance industry when they took premiums for decades and then were allowed to weasel out of paying off. It’s what FEMA did by buying trailers they knew were chock-full of insulation that leaks formaldehyde. Almost none of the money that was sucked down the drain in New Orleans ever made it to the victims of Hurricane Katrina/Republican.
kind of like our welfare system..
Dear Jed,I’m not defending FEMA, but what do you expect, for the FEMA folks themselves to go down and start rebuilding things. Silly Duck! They have to hire someone. They hired folks that are in that business. And…this is important so I’ll slow down…they were forced into spending and sending to the area by a bunch of liberal, socialistic Democrats who’s sole motivation was to throw political dung at the Administration. And, they mistakenly thought the State’s elected Democrats could at least function minimally, but were wrong. Did ya get that? Silly Duck
The number of homeless is going up in New Orleans?
What idiots are still moving to the city expecting a handout?
Good grief: Put up some tents and give them a few rolls of toilet paper.
It’s been two years – get over it.
It’s not the federal governments fault you are homeless. The American people do NOT owe these people a free trailer to live in. Besides, the trailers have nasty gases in them.
An open tent would be healthier for them all.
And instead of rebuilding a levy to keep mother nature out – knowing FULL WELL she will come back, was stupid.
New Orleans grew in a hole.
Better to use New Orleans as land fill. Once the old city becomes higher than sea level, rebuild.
There’s enough crap out there from liberals crying the blues on NO to fill the city hole rather quickly in my estimate.
“The American people do NOT owe these people a free trailer to live in. Besides, the trailers have nasty gases in them.”I agree with the first sentence completely.But as for the second sentence, nasty gases or not I wish someone would give me one. But there is NO chance of that, I’m working and paying taxes.
Silly Duck,”They have to hire someone. They hired folks that are in that business.”
And what business would that be, making campaign contributions and ripping off disaster victims? Selling the government worthless pumps and poisonous trailers for ten times what good equipment goes for? Selling worthless insurance? Paying contractors who never show up and then saying it’s too much trouble to track them down? New Orleans has been one humongous give-away to everybody but the victims!
FEMA in NO is a perfect example of why we don’t want the government to be our nanny. There is too much corruption in government and anybody that depends on it, is either getting screwed or filthy rich.
Limit the government any way you can and fend for yourself. Overall, you will be better off with that attitude.
“”"New Orleans COULD be rebuilt as an A list world class city.
THINK of it. An entire American city rebuilt with an eye to the future.
Nah, let’s throw the money to the military and assorted contractors to continue wasting in Iraq.”"”
Actually about half the city is below sea level and was eroding away even before Katrina. It would be a stupid waste of money to rebuild a city below water. Yes, rebuild the parts that are above water (actually they have been pretty much already because they were not destroyed by floods). The rest of city should be left as open park area and the old property owners and renters compensated to move elsewhere- either above sea level or to another city.
The rest of city should be left as open park area and the old property owners and renters compensated to move elsewhereKev
Darn it Kev! I agree with you. Stop that!
Rather than rebuild, knowing full well nature is going to do it again someday – fill the void as a huge dump. Use current standards for dumps of course, and plan to rebuild on top when it reaches a level above the sea.
It is interesting, of all the natural disasters, as well as Katrina in neighboring Florida, Miss, and ALA, they aren’t complaining hugely – they are rebuilding quietly living anew.
But Kev you caught my attention with the above comments. My idea is similiar for ALL hurricanes. Whenever one strikes the coast – do NOT allow rebuilding. Establish a national seaside park all along our hurricane coasts! Say no building within 300 meters. This would serve many good purposes. 1) keep the shoreline open for all Americans to use and enjoy 2) habitat protection for sea side living animals 3) allow dunes to naturally recover and provide their protestion 4) SAVE THE TAXPAYERS FROM REBUILDING RICH PEOPLES OCEAN FRONT HOMES OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Whatdaya think?
A good idea.
Provisionally anyway.
New Orleans is one of America’s oldest cities.
Would we abandon Philadelphia to nature?
The idea of surrendering land to nature IS a good one. Let’s us keep that in mind for our future.
He’s not one of my favorite people. But Andrew Jackson didn’t abandon New Orleans. We shouldn’t either.
I’m not advocating “abandoning” NO. I’m saying be practical and reasonable. It is going to happen again – and worse (with GW).
This is kin to what the Holland has done with the North Sea…….
Besides, all the landfill will result in new oil supplies in a few million years. Gotta think about the future generations right? (not).
Kev,Since New Orleans is partially below sea level, maybe we need to fix that. Arkansas is chock full of limestone mountains; they could spare one, cut it into manageable blocks, rail ship it to NO, and put the city on an acropolis. Think that’s not practical? Go look at the missing mountains of Appalachia that were leveled by coal companies! This is an American city, known worldwide for it’s cultural contributions, that was destroyed more by national neglect than a hurricane. It deserves better!