Gulf Coast Hurricane Victims Have 10 Days to Apply for Aid

WASHINGTON, DC, March 1, 2006 (ENS) - Six months after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma devastated the Gulf Coast and Florida, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has approved $5.4 billion in low interest loans to the victims, but now time is running out. Only 10 days remain to apply for federal government assistance.

The SBA has approved more than 76,200 disaster loans to homeowners, renters and businesses in the disaster area. The total includes more than 60,000 disaster loans for homeowners and renters for $4 billion, and more than 15,400 loans to businesses for $1.36 billion. In the SBA's guaranteed working capital and real estate/fixed asset loan programs, the agency has delivered $400 million in loans to small businesses in the declared disaster areas.

Together, these programs mean the SBA has approved a total of $1.76 billion in loans to businesses in the declared disaster areas.

"The SBA has acted and mobilized like never before to respond to the tremendous needs of the residents of the Gulf Coast disaster areas," said SBA Administrator Hector Barreto.

Common Ground volunteers help a New Orleans victim clean up from Hurricane Katrina. January 2006. (Photo by Marvin Nauman courtesy FEMA)

More than 86 percent of the business disaster loan applications received to date have been processed, said Barreto, and more than 269,600 damaged properties have been inspected.

But even with these loans and other government assistance, the international aid agency Oxfam America released a report Monday showing that state and federal agencies are continuing to neglect poor communities caught in the hurricanes.

"Recovering States: The Gulf Coast Six Months After the Storm," examines current conditions, and long term implications, for lower income families whose vulnerabilities were laid bare by Hurricane Katrina.

“Despite critical reports and investigative hearings of government failures, despite the flurry of commitments to confront poverty in the U.S. – six months after Katrina, little has changed,” said Minor Sinclair, director of Oxfam America’s Regional Office.

“It’s unconscionable that the same vulnerable people abandoned in the height of the storm could again be neglected in the recovery," Sinclair said. "There are still thousands of people who don’t have a place to live and don’t have answers to the most basic questions about their futures in the Gulf Coast.”

Several key elements of the report analyze statistics related to the number of still displaced people, endemic poverty rates in Louisiana and Mississippi, and the repercussions of states’ proposed plans for federal funds.

Oxfam’s aims in the Gulf Coast since Katrina and Rita have been to empower poor communities that have been most deeply affected by the storms. Oxfam is partnering with 16 local community organizations such as the NAACP, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, and Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, to provide assistance to vulnerable groups.

On February 16, President George W. Bush submitted a request to Congress for an additional $19.8 billion for rebuilding the Gulf Coast, including an additional $4.2 billon in Community Development Block Grant funding, which Oxfam calls, “a major step toward reconstruction of the Gulf Coast,” but advises, “by no means should it be the last step.”

Homeowners on Sugar Mill Drive must gut their houses to remove the mold that resulted from Hurricane Katrina's flooding. In St. Bernard Parish, every home in every neighborhood was affected. January 2006. (Photo by Greg Henshall courtesy FEMA)

A portion of the $85 billion for relief and recovery in the Gulf Coast that has already been approved by Congress is dedicated to Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding designed to assist low and moderate income communities with decent housing, expanded economic opportunities, and quality of life improvements.

Although $11.5 billion has been already been appropriated for CDBG programs in the Gulf Coast and an additional $4.2 billion is waiting to be approved, regulations which govern the use of these funds have been loosened and the drafts of state housing recovery plans focus on a narrowly defined group of homeowners.

As a result, the lowest income groups stand to lose this important part of the recovery package, Oxfam warns.

“It is time to make good on the nation’s promises,” Sinclair said. “More funds for affordable housing must be made available immediately, through the new money that must be approved by Congress and through state plans that target the lowest income communities. This is the critical first step to a long road to recovery that builds back better, through federal support of local initiatives.”

Only 10 days remain to apply for disaster assistance. A 60 day extension to March 11 was granted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Disaster officials are urging residents of disaster-designated counties and parishes in the Gulf Coast states to register during the next 10 days for federal and state financial assistance to help them recover from uninsured or under-insured losses caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

This local resident writes suggestions on a sticky note at the Louisiana Recovery Planning Day Open House in Baton Rouge to give input identifying recovery issues unique to her community and parish affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. (Photo by Robert Kaufmann courtesy FEMA)

For those wishing to apply by phone, the toll-free number is 800-621-FEMA (3362). Speech or hearing-impaired applicants can call the TTY number 800-462-7585. The lines are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and multilingual operators are available to take calls.

"There is no reason for anyone who sustained hurricane losses not to make that call and get whatever assistance they are eligible to receive," Paulison said.

"We will continue to do everything in our power to provide the needed resources and speed the recovery of the Gulf Coast," said Barreto of the Small Business Administration.

"We want to remind all those eligible that the application deadline for physical damage loans is March 11, and we also want to urge applicants whose loans have already been approved to schedule their loan closings as soon as possible so that the rebuilding of their communities can proceed in earnest."

Applicants can check the status of their SBA disaster loan applications by calling 1-800-659-2955 or emailing SBA at disastercustomerservice@sba.gov.

FEMA said Monday it will meet a Wednesday deadline to get more than 1,400 people out of emergency quarters on three Carnival cruise ships and into travel trailers or local hotel rooms. Most of these people are first responders and their families in New Orleans and in St. Bernard Parish.

Meanwhile, to prepare for the 2006 hurricane season, just three months away, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still working on the levees that surround New Orleans, with June 1 target date for completion.

The force of Hurricane Katrina broke the levees six months ago, flooding New Orleans with water from Lake Ponchartrain, the industrial canal and other sources.

The Army Corps of Engineers has been charged with rebuilding the levees, and they say it is a daunting task. Contractors are working 24 hour days, building levee walls as high as 17 feet. This time, the levees are being reinforced with concrete backings.

"It's a tight schedule," said Fred Young, who is Corps project manager for the levee reconstruction program. "Supplies are tight and labor's tight down here, and we're just trying to do the best we can, and June 1 is our goal."

Critics point out that the government is only repairing breaks in the levees that it can see.

"We're doing repairs on the breaches, but there are many, many, many miles of levee that we don't have any idea of," said Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Public Health Research Center.

There's little chance the repaired levees will protect the city from strong storms, van Heerden added, perhaps leaving New Orleans just as vulnerable as it was before Katrina - which peaked as a category five hurricane and was a strong category three storm when it made landfall.

Van Heerden said, "The whole system is susceptible to flooding with a category two."