For Some Katrina Evacuees, Another Displacement Looms

Hurricane Katrina evacuees Dianne Jeanpierre and daughters Brittany Dalcour, 14, left, and Ashley Dalcour, 17, are worried that they could lose their apartment in Austin without continued federal rental assistance. (By Matthew C. Wright -- The Washington Post)

Aaron Walker, a FEMA spokesman in Washington, declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing agency policy regarding pending litigation. But, Walker said, reviews of evacuees' cases -- appeals and application updates -- are being conducted continually.

"There's a number of reasons, reasonable and logical reasons, people are found ineligible" for continued housing assistance, Walker said. "We genuinely aren't in an effort to have people without housing."

FEMA officials say that about 50,000 households are in the housing assistance program and that 12,000 have been informed they are ineligible for continued aid. The lawsuit contends that about 55,000 households are in the program nationwide and that "at least 17,000 households or at least 50,000 people of all ages have been deemed ineligible for further housing assistance and/or have not received a final determination of eligibility."

Of the households deemed ineligible, 7,600 are in Houston, where the majority of displaced Katrina evacuees live, and 2,100 are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the suit says.

Many rulings of ineligibility were wrong, according to the lawsuit and officials working with evacuees. Some evacuees were told that their homes in New Orleans were not damaged enough to qualify them for continued assistance or that their old houses or apartments are habitable. Some were told that their paperwork was incomplete or that they did not meet certain requirements. Others were given no reason.

Those determinations, said LaTosha Brown, executive director of the Saving Our Selves Coalition in Atlanta, has displaced Louisianans panicked and landlords -- who were told by FEMA that it will no longer honor the housing vouchers -- sending eviction notices for next month.

"Instead of the government helping, it exacerbates the problem," said Brown, co-founder of the coalition, which is working with Katrina evacuees throughout the Gulf Coast and in Georgia. "There's an insensitivity to where people are emotionally. This is not business as usual. People are still damaged from the debacle."

Jeanpierre found out she was ineligible for continued rental assistance after her landlord received a notice from FEMA that it would stop paying her rent and utilities on Wednesday (an extension to June 30 was granted last week). The insurance settlement she received for her destroyed home in the Gentilly neighborhood went to the bank to pay off the mortgage.

She has applied for federal disability benefits through the Social Security Administration because of her health, but the case is pending. An urgent request to FEMA by a lawyer representing her asked the agency not to terminate her housing assistance until her case is settled. The request has not been answered.

"I'm just going to stay here until they send the police to put us out," Jeanpierre said. "There's nowhere for me to go."