The shelter for New Orleans evacuees at the D.C. Armory was about to close, but Stella Oselem wasn't worried. After weeks of kindness from strangers, Oselem, 78, decided to accept an offer to live in a private D.C. home with someone who shared her Jehovah's Witness faith.
But soon after she moved in, her host went on a trip and put her with another family. Then, about a week later, the second host told her to leave to make room for out-of-town family members, Oselem said.
With dwindling options, she found herself this week at a walk-in center for Hurricane Katrina evacuees at D.C. General Hospital. She clutched a white slip of paper, a referral for a hotel in Rockville.
"Thank God I got it," Oselem said of the 14-day hotel voucher sponsored by the American Red Cross. Her social worker said she would try to get Oselem's name on a federal housing list for a senior citizen apartment.
For many of the dozens of hurricane victims who moved out of the armory shelter in the final days before it closed on Oct. 4, the adjustment to post-shelter life has been problematic.
They were living in a cocoon at the armory, a 24-hour facility where social workers and volunteers were always on hand to help them stitch together their tattered lives. There was a daily menu of social outings and free tickets to football and baseball games. Strangers become friends, volunteers like family.
With that phase now over, many of the evacuees say they are thinking about their prospects with a greater sense of urgency while feeling less certain of who will help them sort out their future. Those living in hotel rooms relish the comfortable beds, cable television and privacy. But without the camaraderie of the shelter, their isolation is palpable.
On the second floor of the Travelodge hotel on Bladensburg Road NE, Nathaniel Williams, 52, was in his pajamas about 11:30 on a recent morning, and the television was tuned to CNN, which flashed images of New Orleans. He said he was thinking about staying in the Washington area and finding a job. But he still had not received the $2,000 in disaster relief funds that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was supposed to provide to evacuees, he said, and he planned to go to the walk-in center to find out why.
When he arrived on the hospital campus, the FEMA representatives had left. He also had missed his caseworker.
"Another day, wasted," Williams said as he left.
Of the 659 hurricane survivors who have received public services at the armory or elsewhere in the District, 88 have been placed in hotels in the Washington region, 60 in the District, 22 in Maryland and six in Virginia, according to the D.C. Department of Human Services, which is tracking their cases.
Cameron Ballantyne, spokesman for the local Red Cross, said the nonprofit organization will be reimbursed by FEMA for the cost of 14-day hotel stays, which can be extended if there is no other housing option. The job of helping the evacuees find permanent places to live falls to city social workers.
