Some cases in which Rita evacuees haven’t received the same level of help as Katrina’s survivors include:
• Katrina evacuees received six months of free medical insurance after the hurricane. Rita evacuees did not.
• Unlike the thousands of Katrina evacuees who stayed at the Austin Convention Center and the Toney Burger Center, none of Austin’s Rita evacuees were initially deemed eligible for federal emergency sheltering, rent, and utility assistance made available through the city. FEMA certified Rita evacuees as eligible for the program only when it was trying to move them out of temporary shelters in hotels and motels, in November and early December. The city didn’t simply go ahead and include Rita evacuees in local rent and utility aid efforts before that because “we didn’t know what FEMA was going to reimburse,” said Paul Hilgers, director of the city’s Office of Neighborhood Housing and Community Development.
• Unlike Katrina evacuees, Rita evacuees with federal Section 8 vouchers from their home towns weren’t initially given access to Section 8 housing in their new cities. Rita evacuees finally got Section 8 access in February 2006. (There’s little Section 8 housing actually available, in any case.)
• Local social services organizations such as the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and Refugee Services of Texas have been able to provide Katrina evacuees with case management assistance thanks to federal Katrina Aid Today money. There’s no corresponding funding for Rita evacuees.
• The Texas Workforce Commission’s Greater Austin Area Workforce Board got $527,426 of federal money in August for food stamps, employment, and job training – for Katrina evacuees only.
This article appears in September 22 • 2006.