Many Displaced by Katrina Turn to Relatives for Shelter

Sharon Boulet, along with her husband, Steve, and their 10-year-old daughter, Marissa, arrived at the Thomas house on Aug. 30.

Their home in Diamondhead, Miss., on the Gulf Coast was destroyed by a 20-foot storm surge, and the Boulets have nowhere else to live other than here with their Aunt Mary.

All the people living in the Thomas house are middle-class and say they will have no need for government aid because they have insurance or their houses were not severely damaged.

But many people in Louisiana who have taken in kin are likely to be financially squeezed, if, as seems probable, family members stay on for weeks or months.

Clarice Landry has nine evacuees from New Orleans staying with her six-member family in her three-bedroom mobile home on the outskirts of Lafayette. Worried about how all the bills are going to be paid over the coming months, Landry attended a meeting of local relief officials Wednesday to find out if the Red Cross or FEMA would be willing to help.

She was told that, as of now, the Red Cross and the federal government had no money to pay for family caring for family.

"I am doing fine now, but at some point there will come a point where I won't be able to handle it," said Landry.

Her problems are likely to be shared by thousands upon thousands of low-income families in Louisiana who are housing evacuees from the storm, according to the Rev. Herald Alexander, minister of the Church of Christ here.

"I got many members of my church with 25 to 30 people in their homes," he said.

"How they going to pay those bills? On Sunday at church we asked for people to help, but I don't see how we are going to get enough money."

While strains are likely to emerge in the coming weeks, community leaders say that the speed with which families have absorbed displaced people is remarkable, especially compared with the federal response.

"It has been more than seven days, and FEMA is just getting ready to put an office in Lafayette," said Gerald Breaux, director of the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission. "If the families and the community didn't step up, we would still be waiting."

Will there be a point, though, when relatives are going to grow weary and resentful of their kin?

Breaux said it will come, of course, but people will be unwilling to say anything out loud.

"When they go to bed at night, will they think about the strain and the cost? Probably," said Breaux. "But why say anything. It is not going to make it any better."

Vedantam reported from Washington.