New Orleans – About 12,000 families made homeless by last year’s hurricanes began checking out of their federally funded hotel rooms around the country Monday after a federal judge let FEMA stop paying directly for their stays.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency promised the evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that they will still receive federal rent assistance that they can put toward hotel stays or other housing. But the agency will no longer pay for their hotel rooms directly.
Earlier in the day, attorneys for the evacuees pleaded with U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval for a last-minute reprieve, saying the rent assistance will not be enough for decent living accommodations or continued hotel stays.
“These people are going to be homeless. We’ve heard from a lot of people who are going to be sleeping in their cars,” said Bill Quigley, a lawyer for the evacuees.
But Duval denied the request.
FEMA said the majority of those checking out had made arrangements for other housing. But some said they had nowhere to go except their own cars, a relative’s couch or back to a shelter.
Mary Smith looked for a bus to take her to one of the lower-income neighborhoods across the Mississippi River in suburban New Orleans, where she was told she might find a rental.
“I only got my rent check last week. It’s not enough time to find a place,” said Smith, 43, for whom the Crowne Plaza had become home.
“I got nowhere to go,” said 21-year-old Meoshia Davis, pulling her 1-year-old behind her and balancing three bags of clothes.
Although Davis had received her FEMA check, she said the only apartment the $1,800 could rent was one that was damaged in the storm. She had hoped it would be finished by her checkout time Monday, but it wasn’t.
Several said they were heading back to Houston and Atlanta, their original evacuation destinations, giving up jobs in New Orleans in search of a place to sleep.
