FEMA will put 1000 displaced Puerto Ricans out on the street

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FEMA will put 1000 displaced Puerto Ricans out on the street

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Sep 13, 2018 10:22 am

FEMA will put 1,000 displaced Puerto Ricans out on the streets this Friday
“They are going to be left on the streets and organizations are scrambling, trying to figure out what to do."
DANIELLE MCLEAN
SEP 12, 2018, 2:08 PM

More than 1,000 Puerto Ricans, displaced by last year’s hurricanes, have been living temporarily in hotels and motels throughout the country while they await more permanent housing alternatives — major repair to their own homes, for example, or help finding a new place to live. But they are now bracing for the likelihood they will become homeless this week.

A federal judge in Massachusetts on August 30 allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to stop funding its Transitional Shelter Assistance (TSA) program, which allows hurricane-displaced people to live in hotels or motels throughout Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland.

The Trump administration has been heavily criticized on its failure to support recovery efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Maria and Irma ravaged the island, killing an estimated 3,000 people. With Hurricane Florence set to rock much of the mid-Atlantic coast over the weekend, it was reported the Trump administration moved nearly $10 million from FEMA to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Trump has repeatedly said the administration did a good job handling last year’s hurricanes, and is prepared to handle this year’s.

On top of the thousands left dead by the storms, the administration continues to bungle its response. FEMA had placed more than 19,000 storm-displaced people into short-term shelters between October 2017 and June 2018. But advocates say thousands more have been living on the streets, in cars, in storm-destroyed homes, or crammed into overcrowded homes on the U.S. mainland and in Puerto Rico.

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The latest court ruling to allow FEMA to kick families out of temporary shelter is in line with the administration’s careless approach to families left homeless for almost a year now.

FEMA told ThinkProgress 1,002 households are currently checked into hotels through the program, and they will be losing their federal support at check-out on Friday. The federal judge who authorized FEMA to end the program, urged the agency to work with the people enrolled in the program to find alternative housing so they are not left homeless. However, according to the civil rights advocacy group LatinoJustice PRLDEF, which represents the hurricane survivors enrolled in the program in court, the federal agency has not done that.

“The concrete consequence of FEMA ending the TSA program program without ensuring a safe transition into alternative housing is, in fact, eviction,” said Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, an associate counsel at LatinoJustice.

“It’s a struggle to make sure they are not left homeless,” Bannan added. “They are going to be left on the streets and organizations are scrambling, trying to figure out what to do… This is exactly what we were trying to avoid.”

FEMA has been trying to cut funding to the program since June. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Hillman temporarily blocked FEMA from doing so after LatinoJustice filed a restraining order against the federal agency. On August 30, Hillman denied the advocacy group’s request for a preliminary injunction, but he acknowledged people were going to be left homeless and ordered the program remain funded for a few more weeks so FEMA could help people find other arrangements.

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“I agree with the Plaintiffs that they will suffer disproportionate hardship given that to date, they have not been able to secure alternative housing and therefore, may well be rendered homeless,” Hillman wrote in his ruling.

“While this is the result that I am compelled to find, it is not necessarily the right result. However, the Court cannot order that Defendants (FEMA) to do that which in a humanitarian and caring world should be done — it can only order the Defendants to do that which the law requires,” Hillman added. “I strongly urge the parties to work together to find temporary housing, or other assistance to the Plaintiffs and other members of the class prior to that date.”

FEMA wrote in a statement on Monday in response to the judge’s comments that it is “working with its vendor and notifying participating hotels that the TSA program has been extended to comply with the court’s order. Beyond that, FEMA will not comment on pending litigation.”

A man surveys a house that was washed away by heavy surf during the passing of Hurricane Maria in Manati, Puerto Rico on October 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Ricardo ARDUENGO (Photo credit should read RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images)
FEMA could easily release more emergency housing aid for Puerto Ricans. Why won’t it act?
FEMA has declined to use other options that could provide temporary housing assistance to the people in this TSA program. The federal agency hasn’t enacted a separate U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program called the Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP), which provides displaced disaster survivors and evacuees with housing subsidies that cover rent, security deposit, and utilities. The program was created in the wake of the George W. Bush administration’s bumbled response to Hurricane Katrina and has been enacted following Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, and Sandy.

Members of Congress have urged FEMA to allow HUD to implement the program but the federal agency has called DHAP “inefficient and not cost effective” and said its own Direct Lease and Multi-Family Lease and Repair programs were better options.

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FEMA said 297 units have been leased by displaced Puerto Ricans following Hurricane Maria and Irma through its Direct Lease program and 15 vacant rental units and been repaired and leased to displaced people through its Multi-Family Lease and Repair program. The federal agency did not say how many, if any, of those people were enrolled in the TSA program.

According to FEMA, 450 of the households checked into hotels through the TSA program have received two months of financial rental assistance that they can use once the program ends on Friday.

But Bannan said the vouchers were valued at housing rental rates in Puerto Rico, while two-thirds of the people are checked into hotels on the U.S. mainland. She cited one family living in Brooklyn, N.Y. who received vouchers of around $450 per month, the value of the market rate in Cayey, Puerto Rico. The average rent of a studio apartment in Brooklyn is over $2,000 per month.

FEMA has told LatinoJustice that people can reapply for vouchers that reflect the market rates of where they are currently living, but the federal agency has not reached out to the people enrolled in the programs to communicate this, Bannan said. Also, many hurricane-displaced people have sold their vouchers so they could purchase food or other necessities they need to survive, she added.

FEMA also said another 212 households enrolled in the program were denied federal funds to repair their hurricane damaged homes because they had “insufficient damage and their utilities were on at the time of their housing inspection or reported no damage to their home.” However, Bannan noted those families were placed in hotels by FEMA because the federal agency had previously determined they were living in uninhabitable conditions. She added that many of those people were denied housing repairs because they had no proof of title for their home, a reflection of the island’s longstanding practice of constructing homes and commercial buildings informally, without the needed legal documentation and permits.

Bannan said despite the court order, FEMA has not been informing survivors enrolled in the TSA program about their options and the available programs.

“The burden has been on the people who have been traumatized or re-traumatized a week before the anniversary” of Hurricane Maria,” Bannan said. “There has been no proactive stance by FEMA to make sure people are not left homeless.”
https://thinkprogress.org/fema-will-kic ... cad1ef0b1/


Exclusive: Trump’s FEMA administrator under investigation over use of official cars

The lead disaster official for Hurricane Florence recently clashed with his boss, Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, over travel home to North Carolina.

By DANIEL LIPPMAN and ELIANA JOHNSON09/13/2018 05:11 AM EDT

Brock Long
The actions by Brock Long, the U.S. government’s lead disaster official as the country braces for Hurricane Florence, have been called into question by the inspector general over whether taxpayers have inappropriately footed the bill for his travel | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
FEMA administrator Brock Long is the target of an ongoing Department of Homeland Security inspector general investigation into whether he misused government vehicles during his commutes to North Carolina from Washington, according to three people familiar with the matter, including current and former administration officials.

The actions by Long, the U.S. government’s lead disaster official as the country braces for Hurricane Florence, have been called into question by the inspector general over whether taxpayers have inappropriately footed the bill for his travel, an issue that has tripped up a number of current and former top Trump administration officials.

Long’s travel habits triggered a clash between him and his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in recent weeks, clouding their relationship just as senior aides close to President Donald Trump prepared for hurricane season – a task that’s attracted extra scrutiny in the wake of the disaster that befell Puerto Rico in the aftermath of last year’s Hurricane Maria.

The IG is investigating whether Long misused government resources and personnel on trips back home to Hickory, N.C., on the weekends, said two of the officials. The IG’s interest was drawn after one of the vehicles – a black Suburban – was involved in an accident, according to one of the officials.

Long’s routine absences from the office due to frequent six-hour drives between North Carolina and Washington also drew Nielsen’s attention, this person said. Nielsen had raised the issue of Long’s in-office schedule with him in recent months, this person added.

At a meeting in late August, Nielsen confronted Long about his travel, though people familiar with the meeting gave conflicting accounts about whether she took the step of asking him to step down over the issue.

One of the officials said Nielsen asked Long to consider resigning, though he declined to do so and remains in his role. The program to support the FEMA administrator “was never intended for this purpose,” said the official.

Long did not respond to requests for comment. Jessica Nalepa, FEMA’s director of external affairs, said questions about specific IG investigations should be directed to DHS’ IG office and that FEMA fully cooperates with all investigations conducted by the IG.

The DHS IG’s office and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“All questions about any potential investigation by the Office of the Inspector General should be directed to the IG. At this time, we are fully focused on preparing for, responding to, and recovering from Hurricane Florence and the storms in the Pacific,” said DHS press secretary Tyler Houlton. “The secretary is confident in the leadership at FEMA and their proven disaster management ability.”

Long started using a staff driver to get him home to North Carolina at the beginning of his tenure at FEMA last year. On the weekends Long spent in North Carolina, aides were put up in a hotel at taxpayer expense, according to one of the current officials.

DHS employees must be authorized to access government vehicles for personal use, including travel to a residence outside Washington, according to one of the officials. But a former DHS official said Long, as administrator, is entitled to have a contingency aide accompany him so he can have secure communications in case of a national emergency.

The former official added that Long “never asked for it and believed access to secure communications to be part of a presidential directive.” FEMA recently scaled back the use of the contingency team for cost-saving purposes, and Long now drives himself or flies to North Carolina.

Former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, who served under President Barack Obama, said he could only remember using government cars for commuting purposes in seven instances during the eight years he held the job. In those emergency or extreme cases, Fugate said, it was deemed appropriate for a FEMA aide to brief him face-to-face as a driver took him from his home in Gainesville, Fla., to the Jacksonville airport for outbound flights to Washington, where his presence was required.

Long previously worked at an emergency management consulting firm and also has served as director of Alabama’s Emergency Management Agency.

The Trump administration has come under intense criticism for their response to the damage Hurricane Maria did to Puerto Rico. Almost 3,000 people died in the natural disaster, much more than the earlier official tally of 64 people. Trump said this week that his government’s response to Puerto Rico “was an incredible, unsung success.”

Marc Caputo contributed to this report.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/ ... ion-821231
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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