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Struggle to keep shelter

Thousands living in hotels since Katrina battered Gulf Coast must find housing as FEMA ends subsidies

BY MATT FRIEDMAN AND JOHN RILEY | STAFF WRITERS

February 14, 2006

An estimated 12,000 families left homeless by Hurricane Katrina were dropped yesterday from the government's emergency program housing them in hotels in New York and across the country and faced a new struggle to find shelter after a federal judge in New Orleans refused to intervene.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been pressing for weeks to end the hotel program, which has cost $542 million since August and at its peak paid for 85,000 rooms a night. It wants evacuees to move to more permanent housing or trailers supplied by the government, but critics said many of those still in hotels had no good alternatives.

"These folks are out on the streets today because the federal government, President Bush and everyone else made the decision that it's time for these families to go," said Loyola-New Orleans law school Professor Bill Quigley, who unsuccessfully tried to get a federal judge in New Orleans to stop the terminations. "These people are going to be homeless."

In New York, where about 100 families left homeless by Katrina are still housed in hotels, a coalition of political figures and housing advocates won a temporary reprieve from a half-dozen hotels allowing residents to stay on until apartments are located - arguing that hotels would have to go through extended formal eviction proceedings to force guests out, and appealing to their better nature.

"I think everyone is trying to step up to the plate because this is an issue of human needs," said Pastor Donald Hudson, the head of a Bushwick church and a leader in the Meet the Needs Network.

"Our beef, for lack of a better word, is with FEMA, not with the victims," said Tony Pinto, general manager at the Radisson Hotel at Kennedy Airport, which agreed not to force out evacuees.

Grateful for the reprieve, some worried hurricane victims said they had few choices. "The shelter looks like the only alternative for us if they put us out of the hotel and nothing comes through with the apartments," said Dana Montana, 41, a New Orleans landscaper staying at the Holiday Inn at Kennedy Airport who was visiting New York when Katrina hit and destroyed his home and business in Louisiana.

FEMA halted payments for 4,500 families last week, and expects to terminate the rest of the rooms, estimated at about 4,000, on March 1. The agency said that although it will no longer pay for emergency shelter in hotels, most of those terminated yesterday - 10,500 of the 12,000 - are eligible for rental assistance.

Evacuees, the agency says, can use that money to pay for apartments, or to pay for hotels out of their own pocket. FEMA says assistance is also available through the Department of Housing and Urban Development and state and local housing agencies to find more permanent housing.

"There do have to be end dates, and it is actually helpful to folks to move on in their recovery process," said Libby Turner, FEMA's head of transitional housing, at a news conference yesterday. " ... FEMA is not putting anyone out [of a hotel]. FEMA is simply ending the subsidy."

FEMA predicted that most evacuees would make smooth transitions. But critics said that, even in places like New York, landlords would be hesitant to rent to people who weren't employed and only had assurance of three months of assistance from FEMA.

Outside New Orleans' Crowne Plaza hotel on Canal Street yesterday, several departing residents said they weren't sure where they would be sleeping next.

Meoshia Davis, 21, pulling her 1-year-old behind her and balancing three bags of clothes, said her $1,800 FEMA rental assistance check was only enough to rent an apartment that had been damaged by Katrina. She had hoped it would be finished by her checkout time yesterday, but it wasn't. Said Davis, "I got nowhere to go."

This story was supplemented with wire reports.