Evacuees Go To Top Of The List…

Jocelyn Stewart, of the LA Times, wrote an article today titled: “Hurricane Victims Go to Top of Some Public Housing Agency Lists.”

After a year of struggle to maintain Section 8 housing vouchers for our nation’s poor and homeless, the priority of housing hurricane victims will now take precedence over all other people in poverty or who are homeless.

Here are some segments of the article:
__________

“In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, public agencies that help house the poor may face a dilemma: how to help their own needy residents while assisting the victims of the hurricane.

“But local housing authorities have not yet received additional funds to help with evacuees, and HUD has not issued temporary Section 8 housing vouchers, as it did after the Northridge earthquake.

“In some cases, aid for a victim of Katrina may create a longer wait for other families, officials said. Local agencies can decide whether to give evacuees preference on waiting lists.

“Los Angeles' Housing Authority will make 60 vacant units of public housing available and will accept up to 500 Section 8 vouchers from Katrina victims. The assistance is available to those who received Section 8 help or lived in public housing in their hometowns, said authority spokesman Hugo Garcia.

“But activist Ted Hayes staged a protest Thursday morning in Los Angeles, questioning the decision to help evacuees when, he said, local officials have said for years that they lack the resources to assist the homeless.

"What about all these people who have been on the streets of Los Angeles all these years?" he asked. "Handle that disaster before you handle another one."