Evacuees encounter obstacles in job hunt

[peejay 327]

Evacuees encounter obstacles in job hunt

By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON - In the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, Katrina evacuee Samuel Smith sits on a donated futon and watches a borrowed television in a subsidized apartment the Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided for six months. The unemployed truck driver just started looking for work.

That would infuriate U.S. Rep. John Culberson, a Houston Republican who wants what he calls "deadbeat" evacuees from New Orleans out of his city.

"Time has long since passed for the able-bodied people from Louisiana to either find a job, return to somewhere in Louisiana or become Houstonians," said Culberson, whose district neighbors the city's southwest pocket where many of 150,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees settled in Houston.

"You have to make an effort not to have a job in Houston," he said.

Labor analysts tend to agree.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060707/ap_on_...rina_employment

What a difference a year can make. For most that live elsewhere in the USA this story ended after the dramatic news footage of the disaster faded from the spotlight. In our local Houston news media there are also numerous stories about the increase in our crime rate and the evacuees' contribution to it.

Where is the compassion now that reality has set in?

I work in the offshore oil industry and many of my co-workers live in various cities in Louisiana. Many of their towns fought tooth and nail to keep FEMA from setting up evacuee centers in their communities. I heard many comments of joy that Houston was taking a long time problem off of their hands.

It appears that their predictions are coming true. Maybe it is time for someone to step up to the plate instead of passing the buck!

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

So we should give all evacuees housing and shelter forever?

[CanGal 1]

hmmmm is all i can say right now

[Marc and Olga 0]

So we should give all evacuees housing and shelter forever?

Sounds like that is what they (the "victims") want?

6 months and only STARTING to look for work?! SHESH!

[peejay 327]

So we should give all evacuees housing and shelter forever?

No, that isn't the point I was trying to make. It seems that these politicians do all these warm and fuzzy feel good things, but when reality sets in and the chickens come to roost they crawfish as to who is the blame and whose problem it is.

BTW a lot of these "evacuees" were already on the government dole and/or into criminal activity in New Orleans before they evacuated. They just took the show on the road. Instead of being a New Orleans problem it is now a Houston problem.

I'm just saying that the clowns that make these decisions should own up to it and deal with the problem. They had no problem hamming it up to the news media a year ago crowing about what a welcoming city Houston was by taking in the most evacuees. Now they are trying to pass the buck.