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Ousted from Big Easy, in limbo in Texas

Some who fled west after Katrina plan to go home to New Orleans; others feel they have to let go and move on

BY RIDGELY OCHS | Newsday Staff Correspondent

April 3, 2006

HOUSTON - Kemberly Samuels desperately wants to go back. Annie Johnson is determined to stay.

Both are evacuees who fled Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans in August for the relative calm and safety of the Houston area, 350 miles to the west. Six months later, they are among the 150,000 to 170,000 former New Orleans residents who remain - the largest number to settle in or around any city and roughly equal to the estimated 155,000 now living in New Orleans.

Their effect on Harris County, which includes the city of Houston, has been considerable. Apartments are filled; school rolls have swelled with 25,000 additional students; health and mental health services have been taxed almost to breaking; police have recorded an increase in crime; and volunteers have been working almost nonstop to help the newcomers, said Gloria Roemer, spokeswoman for Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, who oversees the country's third most populous county with 3.6 million residents.

But clearly the greatest impact has been on the evacuees, who still struggle to come to terms with what they lost and to figure out how - and where - to build a future. Many have not found jobs, lack transportation in a city dependent on cars and worry about how they are going to keep their apartments once rent vouchers - given out by Harris County and the city of Houston using money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency - stop.

Uncertainty persists

Houston has guaranteed it will pay vouchers for another six months, although FEMA so far has not said it will reimburse the city for the full amount, Roemer said. But Harris County has not made the same promise, she said. Moreover, a recent Texas study found a shortage of apartments that most evacuees could afford once vouchers stop. This uncertainty only fuels the sense of the surreal for some.

"I feel like somebody dropped me down on Mars. I can't connect," said Samuels, who has been living in a two-bedroom apartment in north Houston since Dec. 1. The 52-year-old French teacher and administrator in an elementary school, who has a master's degree in special education, had worked for the same New Orleans school district for 33 years and was two years away from collecting her pension when Katrina struck. Abandoning their house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, which she and her husband, MacArthur, had paid off, the couple and their daughter, Maya, 21, found themselves on a bus headed to Houston with little but the clothes on their back.

For several weeks, they lived in a church, then moved into a hotel, which they paid for, thinking it was temporary. "We foolishly thought we could go back to New Orleans," she said. Finally, in December, she and her husband, who had been put on furlough from New Orleans' Housing Authority, moved to their current apartment.

'I have to go back'

Although their monthly $733 rent is paid for by a voucher, money is a constant concern. Last month, Samuels got a letter from the school district saying she was terminated. The district, now under state control, has reopened but with far fewer students, she said. She has been getting $258 a week in unemployment and her husband has been getting $98 a week. The couple also received $20,000 in flood insurance, money they are not touching so they can rebuild their home in New Orleans, which she described as "pulverized." "We couldn't find the front door," Samuels said.

Samuels has looked for jobs in Houston but has had little luck because it's been impossible to get records and references from New Orleans, she said. There was the possibility of one job but it was an hour and 45 minutes' commute by car from her apartment. Besides, she said, she wants to return to New Orleans to finish the last two years in her school district to collect her pension but is uncertain when or if that can happen.

"I have to go back," she said.

These days Samuels spends much of her time working with the 500-member Katrina Survivors Association, headed by Dorothy Stukes, 54, a native of New Orleans' Third Ward who had worked as a security guard in - and also lost her job from - the same school district as Samuels.

New city, new obstacles

Stukes now lives in northeast Houston in a modern four-bedroom apartment with her daughter, Tamara Small, son-in-law Andrew Williams and their three children. Shortly after they moved in, anti-New Orleans graffiti appeared on their door and she said her grandchildren have faced taunts from Houston kids in their new school.

There are other problems. Their apartment is about a half-mile off a main road, and it is impossible to get around without a car, which Stukes lost to the hurricane. She hasn't been able to get a job, and her son-in-law, a chef, is the only one working.

Stukes has received $6,329 from FEMA and $750 from the Red Cross for utilities, food and medicine, she said. Because of the rent voucher, the family has to pay only utilities.

She is stretching the money as far as she can, she said, but it hurts her that she can't take her grandchildren out to McDonald's occasionally. She also worries about how she will pay for the nine medications she takes for diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis. She got three months' worth when, for two months, Katrina evacuees were given Medicaid. She has since reapplied for Medicaid but said she was told by officials only those under 18 or pregnant could get assistance.

Feeling cast aside

But what upsets her the most is the sense of betrayal she feels from federal and New Orleans officials, who she believes are trying to keep former residents - especially those who are poor and black - from returning to their homes.

"We were welcomed [to Houston]. People gave us hope and told us they loved us. But my own elected officials let us down," she said.

Using money from donations and fundraisers, she, Samuels and others traveled last month to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus to ensure that evacuees are not cut out of New Orleans' rebuilding process.

"I don't know how long I will have a roof over my head. I don't know how long I will have my medications. But I have a fight to the finish," she said.

Annie Johnson, 60, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with her old city. She lived 38 years in New Orleans but plans to spend her remaining years in Houston. Deeply religious, she believes the hurricane was part of a divine plan.

"One minute you have it and the next you don't," she said. "I lost everything in 22 minutes."

Her family of seven children has been scattered as far east as Norfolk, Va., and as far west as Dallas. There are four grandchildren, the offspring of one of her sons, she still hasn't heard from. "I hope they are with their mother," she said.

In November, she moved to a house next to an apartment complex in Spring, a suburb near the George Bush Intercontinental Airport; soon after her house was robbed.

Shaken, she and her grandson Kendelle, a fifth-grader living with her, moved into the city of Houston where they now have a two-bedroom apartment. The $680 monthly rent is paid for with vouchers.

Money is tight - she has received $2,300 from FEMA and $360 from the Red Cross - but Johnson is optimistic. A friend has given her a car and, although she hasn't driven in 20 years, Johnson is studying to get her driver's license. She also plans to get her GED and hopes someday to buy a home in northwest Houston where her pastor and about 18 fellow parishioners from New Orleans have resettled.

Asked whether she misses her old home, she shook her head. "I don't miss New Orleans. I try to put it out of my mind," she said. "God chose a different place. All these people helped me. The good shines and overrides the bad."