No Word as to a Roast Goose, but...

FEMA backed away from their most recent Scrooge imitation:

Responding to an outpouring of criticism, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced on Tuesday that most of the estimated 150,000 hurricane evacuees still living in hotel rooms would have an extra month to find other housing before the federal government stops footing the bill...

Under the new deadline, evacuees living in hotels in Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, California, Tennessee, Arkansas and Nevada will be able to remain, on the government's account, through Jan. 7, the date previously set just for Louisiana and Mississippi. About 35,000 hotel rooms are occupied by evacuees in those states.

For those staying in 3,700 rooms in other states, the new deadline will be Dec. 15 instead of Dec. 1.

"We are not kicking people out into the streets," R. David Paulison, acting director of FEMA, said in announcing the revised deadlines at a news conference here. "We want families in decent housing."

The hotel program, started by the American Red Cross, has already cost the federal government about $300 million, or an average of about $59 a night per room. It was begun after emergency shelters were overwhelmed by the number of people fleeing the coast.

Thanks to Firedoglake for the link, and the Scrooge reference.

However, the move to apartments is a mixed blessing. I don't know anything about Anthony Patten, but he made a good point last night on The Lehrer Show:

However, I do want to say something about when we had the opening of the show, I overheard an interview from the FEMA representative talking about moving people out of hotels and into apartments.

And, quite frankly, the people of New Orleans feel like that's the wrong move. You're locking people into one-year contracts outside the city of New Orleans. And what that does is it stops those people from partaking in the re-growth of New Orleans and the rebuild.

I would suggest use those same resources, put people up down here in New Orleans next to their home in the hotels or wherever we can find space for them and allow them to be involved in rebuilding their own neighborhoods.

And I think that you'll find things will happen a lot quicker because they're personally invested and it probably will save the taxpayers money, too, because folks want to build their homes; people want to be back home.

Don't get me wrong: hotels are not built as permanent housing--and people who've evacuated have suffered quite enough. But I agree with Patten--provided the rebuilding effort gets moving the way it should.

New Orleans is too important to ignore.