FEMA Deems Condemned Homes “Habitable”, Denies Assistance
The incompentance is just never ending. Thank God, for Houston’s Mayor Bill White!
A New Orleans house flattened but for a concrete staircase on a crumbling facade was among many storm-ravaged structures that federal officials deemed fit for occupancy by Katrina victims now living in Houston, Mayor Bill White said Friday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has notified about 8,900 heads of households in Houston, representing more than 20,000 Katrina evacuees, that they will be ineligible for the cash assistance intended to replace a massive city voucher program that has paid their rent.
A common reason was that the evacuees’ former homes were now habitable.
A team from Houston’s Hurricane Housing Task Force, however, conducted a spot check of 43 New Orleans homes deemed “habitable” by FEMA and found 70 percent unfit for occupancy, White said Friday after a briefing by the team.
“Some of our worst fears were realized,” White said. “Many of these notices were simply in error. The vast majority of the structures we inspected were not habitable by any standard.”
The Houston team found 13 homes habitable and 30 uninhabitable, White said.
The city released photographs showing apartments and houses, including the one with little standing but the stairway, in severe disrepair. One apartment building, surrounded by a chain link fence, had been condemned, White said.
tags: FEMA, Hurricane Katrina, Houston, New Orleans, Bill White
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