How can we best help victims of Katrina now?

[Loren Booda]

Money, sweat, politics, science, religion - how can these be employed to address the continuing destruction from hurricane Katrina - affecting people, environment and their histories? Essentially, at this time what charity do you think is most effective to help reestablish life disrupted in that storm's path?

 

[Amp1]

Well the Red Cross is likely going to do some work there to aid displaced families.(I think) This is a good time for many philantropist to step up to the plate also. The rub is if greedy profiteering entities try to suck up the good will money and/or grants and loans that are supposed to be fooding into NO.

 

[Astronuc]

Six months later - we probably should revisit this question.
Slow Home Grants Stall Progress in New Orleans
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/us/11louisiana.html

NEW ORLEANS — The $7.5 billion program to rebuild Louisiana by helping residents repair or replace their flooded homes has gotten off to a slow start, frustrating government officials and outraging many homeowners who say they are still in limbo 14 months after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Though nearly 79,000 families have applied to the program, called the Road Home, only 1,721 have been told how much grant money they will receive. And just 22 have received access to the cash, which was provided by federal taxpayers and is being distributed by the state.

It would appear that the greater the destruction, the less likely one is to get help. So much for the federal and state government, although Louisiana seems like a pretty dysfunctional state.

 

[Loren Booda]

Just yesterday I had thought of donating again to the Salvation Army, one of the more efficient and comprehensive charities helping Katrina victims. Now to make that a reality before the end of the year.

 

[Astronuc]

One thing - we must not forget the people from New Orleans.

My mom told me of teenagers from New Orleans who have been more or less stranded in Houston - still - more than a year after the disaster. Their lives are still not settled, and apparently quite a few are now involved in crime because they feel they have been abandoned by everyone.

 

[edward]

One year later and hundreds of Fema mobile homes are still setting vacant in Hope Arkansas.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/and...2006/02/katrina-mobile-homes-immobile-in.html

FRIDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- One year after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, the health-care systems that serve New Orleans and the surrounding areas are still fighting to get back on their feet.

The effort is halting. The region's biggest city continues to suffer from a dire shortage of health-care professionals and hospital beds, and the few hospitals that have stayed open are hemorrhaging money.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_37852.html

It appears that it is now OK for politicians to ignore NO.

 

[Astronuc]

Stuck and Suicidal in a Post-Katrina Trailer Park
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12592168&ps=bb4

NPR.org, August 8, 2007 · The first morning of my visit to Scenic Trails, I was walking the path between some trailers when I bumped into a man named Tim Szepek. He was young, tall, and solidly good-looking. I asked if I could speak to him for a moment and he agreed. We found a spot of shade beneath a tree, and I started with what I considered a casual warm-up.

"What's it like to live around here?" I asked.

"Well," he replied, "I'll be honest."

"Ain't a day goes by when I don't think about killing myself."

And so began my time in Scenic Trails, a FEMA trailer park deep in the Mississippi woods where 100 families have lived in near isolation for close to two years.

. . . .

The residents there, in essence, are trapped. It is no longer possible for them to live outside the trailer parks. Prior to Katrina, most of the people who now live in the parks were renters.

Along the Mississippi coast, a family of four could rent a two- or three-bedroom apartment or small home for around $500 a month. But when the storm wiped the Mississippi coast clean, it took out all the housing infrastructure that supported these people. Most of them are minimum-wage workers who live paycheck to paycheck. Today, a two- or three-bedroom apartment in Hancock County, where Scenic Trails is located, costs $800, $900, even $1,000 a month. This is an impossible amount of money for the people who live in the parks, and there is no immediate end in sight. FEMA says it would like to close the parks, but state and federal government plans to rebuild low-income housing for Mississippi coast residents have yet to break ground. Housing experts says it will probably take years to produce enough low-cost housing to move people out of the parks.

 

[edward]

This doesn't sound quite fair.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) - With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama's football stadium.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6846947,00.html