"Evacuees wearing out welcome in Houston" I didn't know you are from Houston, Brumar (I'm from Maine). Maybe you have already seen this article from the LA Times yesterday. I think this is interesting, in the category of how much our society has become fixated on "rights" and "entitlements" as opposed to the past emphasis on personal responsibilities and obligations.
Evacuees wearing out welcome in Houston
Katrina victims strain services, blamed for crime
By Miguel Bustillo, Los Angeles Times | August 22, 2006
HOUSTON -- Almost a year after Hurricane Katrina caused the largest mass migration in the United States since the Dust Bowl, as many as 150,000 evacuees still live in this city, and many are indicating that they no longer plan to go home.
To many Houstonians, that's overstaying the welcome.
Houston's homicide rate has surged 18 percent since the storm, and police statistics indicate that 1 in every 5 murders in the city involves a Katrina evacuee as suspect, victim, or both.
More than 30,000 evacuee families in Houston still live in government-subsidized housing, and a Zogby International survey sponsored by the city indicated that three-fourths of the adults receiving housing help were not working, raising questions about how they will survive when federal aid runs out.
Texas Governor Rick Perry and Houston Mayor Bill White opened their doors to neighbors needing shelter in the aftermath of the 2005 storm that devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. But privately, Texas leaders began to fret that the masses that accepted their invitation were overwhelming the state.
Last December, White declared that ``Houston is full" after more than 250,000 evacuees, including hundreds of families rescued from the fetid Louisiana Superdome, filled the city's housing.
White and other civic leaders remain committed to helping hurricane victims rebuild their lives, and become Texans if they choose. But in the crowded, apartment-lined neighborhoods here where most evacuees wound up, the famous Texas hospitality is wearing thin. Many residents are fed up with rising crime, and some are upset that evacuees could end up being a financial drain on the city.
``It's time for them to go home," said Victoria Palacios, the manager of an EZ Loan store in southwest Houston that has been held up four times in the past year, crimes she is convinced that evacuees committed because of the distinctive accents of the robbers.
The challenges facing Houston as Katrina's Aug. 29 anniversary draws near illustrate the lasting imprint that the storm left throughout the South.
Estimates vary, but as many as half a million people remain scattered far from their former homes in Mississippi and Louisiana.
A Gallup Organization survey sponsored by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, due to be released soon, indicated that 251,000 evacuees still live in the state. Of adults, 59 percent are unemployed, and 54 percent are still receiving housing subsidies. Eighty-one percent are black, and 61 percent of the households had earned less than $20,000 a year before Katrina.
Texas officials estimated that the state had housed as many as 400,000 evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which lashed the Gulf Coast on Sept. 24. The federal government is reimbursing much of the costs Texas is incurring, and on Friday the US Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it would provide an additional $429 million in emergency funding.
But Texas officials are concerned that the lingering presence of so many needy people will strain services such as mental health programs.
In Houston, two-thirds of evacuees receiving housing assistance planned to stay, the Zogby Poll indicated. City leaders are planning for a future that assumes many of them will.
``People were waiting and hoping the situation would change in New Orleans, but many are realizing they may be here for a while," said Cindy Gabriel of Houston's Joint Hurricane Housing Task Force. ``We're looking at them as Houstonians at this point."
Houston is considering adding two seats to the City Council to better represent the augmented population, which has surpassed 2.1 million people, according to some estimates.
Houston Police Chief Harold L. Hurtt is pushing to hire 400 additional officers to deal with the city's increased crime wave. In the meantime, police officers are routinely working overtime on the city's most dangerous streets.
``We've had some out-and-out criminals coming over here" from New Orleans, said Captain Dale Brown, who heads the Houston Police Department's homicide division. ``Most evacuees are clearly law-abiding. But there is no getting around the fact that some of these people were committing violent crimes in Louisiana, and they are committing them here."
Killings involving Katrina evacuees continue to be common.
Earlier in August, for example, Rolando Rivas, 64, was plunking quarters into a self-service car wash machine when four young men pulled a pistol on him and demanded his money. He resisted, and was fatally shot. Police later found the murder weapon on a 16-year-old near the car wash. The gun had been stolen from New Orleans. Three teenage evacuees from New Orleans have been arrested in the case.
This year through Aug. 14, there have been 252 murders in Houston, including 56 that involved Katrina evacuees. At the same point last year, there had been 194 murders. Police officials said they have not seen increases in all crimes, but robberies, assaults, and other violent offenses have gone up since evacuees boosted the city's population.
Many of the neighborhoods where evacuees live were already plagued by crime, police said, and the added presence of gangs from New Orleans housing projects, with longstanding feuds, has only worsened tensions.
``It took them a couple of months to figure out the town," Houston police spokesman John Cannon said of the Crescent City gangs. ``But once they figured out where their enemies were hanging out, that's when we saw the spikes."
© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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