🚀 go-pugleaf

"Graphic Queen" <xxx.xxx@xxx.xxx.com> wrote in message
news:9p27k15lindrhdj8ukcts6or0qmkftlclb@4ax.com...
> Katrina evacuees create tension in some towns
> Desire to help runs into reality of limited resources
>
> FRESNO, Calif. - When Fresno's mayor decided to travel to Louisiana
> and invite 400 hurricane evacuees to relocate in California's rural
> Central Valley, other local officials begged him to reconsider.
>
> Mayor Alan Autry's grand gesture seemed impractical at best - with a
> quarter of the population in poverty, the unemployment rate set to
> rise as the fall harvest ends, and 2,000 Hmong refugees still to
> settle.
>
> County supervisors warned that the city - not the county - would have
> to pay for their support. But Autry pressed ahead, paying for the trip
> himself and vowing to get money for hurricane refugees from church
> groups.
>
> "We are all Americans," Autry said while in Louisiana. "If something
> happens like this, you put a map of the U.S. up there, and erase all
> the state lines."
>
> Not limited to one town
> Still, several other communities share Fresno's worries.
>
> A Sept. 22 poll conducted by Ipsos, an international polling company,
> showed that 44 percent of Americans with hurricane evacuees settling
> in their communities are concerned about the cost of providing
> education, housing and other services. About one in four respondents
> were worried about increased crime and job availability.
>
> "Services are hard to come by to begin with," said Sharon Cossey,
> deputy executive director for the public housing authority in Oakland,
> where many residents have taken in family members fleeing from New
> Orleans and East Texas. "We're definitely not going to go out and
> recruit."
>
> Cities and counties nationwide already lack the resources needed to
> offer affordable housing to their constituents, said Linda Couch,
> director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition in Washington,
> D.C.
>
> The largest cities have tens of thousands on waiting lists for public
> housing assistance, including 30,000 in Washington, D.C., 250,000 in
> New York and 85,000 In Los Angeles, according to a survey the
> coalition did last year.
>
> "Housing authorities have never been more broke," Couch said,
> explaining that federal funding for these services has been curtailed
> under the Bush administration. "Funds for public housing were not
> keeping pace with demand, even before Katrina."
>
> Officials in other communities agreed.
>
> "It would be very difficult to assist families coming from that area,"
> said Manuel Rosario, deputy director of the housing authority in
> Richmond, Calif., a relatively poor city of about 100,000 across the
> bay from San Francisco. Richmond already had 300 families waiting for
> housing assistance before Katrina, and can only help about a dozen
> more families, Rosario said.
>
> Red Cross and state officials said about 62,600 hurricane evacuees
> landed in shelters in 20 states and Washington, D.C. as of early this
> week, and many more were living on their own or with family, friends
> or church connections.
>
> Evacuees join Hmong in Fresno
> Autry - who gained fame as Bubba Skinner in the television series "In
> the Heat of the Night" - returned home this week. At least five
> families have answered his invitation, bringing the total of hurricane
> evacuees here to about 260.
>
> Public assistance agencies in Fresno and many other urban areas were
> already struggling before hurricanes Katrina and Rita threatened to
> add hundreds of people to waiting lists. Roughly 25 percent of Fresno
> County residents already live in poverty, and unemployment will soar
> into double digits after the fall harvest.
>
> Some elected officials in the Fresno area do not understand why the
> mayor insists on bringing more people to the troubled region.
>
> Fresno County is already footing the bill to settle 2,000 Hmong
> refugees who arrived over the past year from the Wat Tham Krabok camp
> in Thailand, where they'd been housed since the Vietnam war.
>
> "We understand the mayor's feeling for helping the victims of the
> hurricane," said Bart Bohn, Fresno County's administrative officer.
> "But there are lots of people who need services here already."
>
> Supervisor Henry Perea added: "There's no question our system is
> working, but there's also no question we have finite resources."
>
I don't understand why any community would not welcome these Katrina
victims. Think of the uplift effect to the local culture.

Hank