by the Way . . .

If you've every been stuck in a hotel room for more than a couple of days, you will appreciate the way FEMA is helping the Katrina evacuees get into a better situation. Last week the agency announced it would stop paying hotel bills December 1 and would also block cities from signing leases on what the folks move into. Of course FEMA will continue to pay the rent, it just wants people to have the pride of ownership that comes from finding an apartment on their own, and signing their own leases. Houston, for example, had been treating people like college students, moving around 400 people a day from hotels to government financed housing with one year leases. Pretty demeaning.

Update: there was a bit of a fuss over the 15 day notice, so now the evacuees get more time, depending on where they evacuated to. If you are one of the 35,000 in hotels in TX, GA, FL, AL, CA, TN, AR, or NV, you get until January 7. If, however, you are one of the 3,700 in a hotels in a state not listed, you have to improve your living facility by December 15. And WAIT, THERE'S MORE! The cities can sign leases after all, at least until the hotel program is ended. At this writing, it is not clear whether that is January 7 for everybody, or is still December 15 for those "other states". It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

"We are not kicking people out into the streets," said the FEMA director, announcing the extended timetable. "We want families in decent housing". You can really appreciate that if you remember the average hotel is charging $59 a night. He did not address why the deadline depended upon what state you were staying in, but an unnamed source said some were not offering American Plan.