Return To New Orleans Is Urged

Nagin visited shelters in Monroe and Shreveport in the morning, came here in the afternoon and was headed to St. Gabriel on Wednesday evening. At each place, residents were urged to return.

But Allen's briefing showed just how tough conditions remain in New Orleans and how federal officials are working hard simply to move evacuees to long-term temporary housing, far from the city.

"We want to make sure those folks move to a better, more secure situation than evacuation shelters and hotels," Allen said. "Right now, being in a shelter or in a hotel is a bridge to nowhere. We need to make that bridge complete, even if it is transitional" to more permanent housing, he said, that will be needed for the "six, 12, 18 months" that it takes to rebuild housing.

Allen said the relief effort's "number-one priority" is to place Louisiana storm victims who need government help in long-term housing within the state, unless and until doing so proves unfeasible.

But FEMA must find storm victims, which Allen termed a "daunting challenge."

Victims who seek aid provide their New Orleans Zip codes to FEMA. Using that information, officials can estimate how damaged the homes are and how long storm victims will need housing assistance.

People will be presented with a choice of housing options, Allen said, but only after it is determined that they cannot return to Louisiana. Allen said FEMA was following the direction of Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D).

"The premium is going to be placed on putting [people] in Louisiana, because that's the governor's wish, and we support that," Allen said. "Our first priority is to keep people in Louisiana. If we cannot do that, then it will be matter of choice" offered to people to find housing elsewhere through alternatives.

For instance, Allen said that he has tasked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to refurbish "at best speed" 600 foreclosed properties identified in Louisiana, perhaps by month's end.

But in contrast, Allen said, 200,000 to 250,000 housing units have been destroyed or made uninhabitable.

The people with the fewest choices will be the poorest residents, analysts said. Areas flooded by Katrina were disproportionately inhabited by low-income renters, according to a study of the greater New Orleans area that the Brookings Institution released Wednesday. About 47 percent of people who lived in the flooded portions of the metropolitan area were renters, compared with 31 percent in dry areas.

"These are lower-income, more vulnerable people in general," said Mark Muro, policy director of the institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "So maybe there's less cash reserves; many of the people affected may be more susceptible to losing autonomy here."

It may be many of those people who decide not to go back to New Orleans.

Nagin said, "They're frustrated, they're stressed. After a certain amount of time, they'll yearn for it. . . . It's such a unique place."

Hsu reported from Washington.