Stitching a Safety Net for Evacuees

The federal government has handled many disasters, but never a challenge like this: resettling hundreds of thousands of people uprooted within the nation’s borders.

Dozens of federal agencies -- working with state and local governments and private charities -- are trying to improvise a safety net capable of helping support displaced people for months.

At the Social Security Administration, officials waived rules requiring people to provide identification to cash their benefit checks.

Children are being placed in classrooms under a federal law that requires schools to accept homeless students.

The federal Refugee Resettlement Program, which ordinarily helps victims of overseas turmoil, may be called on to resettle hurricane victims.

And in an unprecedented move, 200,000 special debit cards worth $2,000 apiece are to be handed out to evacuees, the Homeland Security Department said.

The challenges after Hurricane Katrina are enormous; the price tag unknown. Government bureaucrats are rewriting rules on the fly to provide cash, medical care, housing, education and jobs for as many as 1 million Katrina evacuees who must rebuild their lives.

“There is nothing in our history on the scale of what we are trying to accomplish,” said Wade F. Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services. “The typical disaster is one in which people are expected to move into a shelter for a week or two, and then the electricity is restored and they can go back home to clear away branches and submit insurance claims.”

No such scenario here. So the government must improvise -- and take risks.

With the U.S. Postal Service holding thousands of Social Security checks undeliverable in New Orleans, the government is trying to locate recipients and issue emergency funds.

“There is room for fraud,” acknowledged Wes Davis, the Social Security Administration’s regional communications director for the five-state area that includes Louisiana and Texas. “But our greatest concern now is to make sure people get paid. We can deal with reclamations later if that’s what we need to do.”

Evacuated children are scattered across more than half a dozen states. With the school year beginning, many are being placed in classrooms with the presumption that Washington will help to pay later.

Medicaid eligibility rules, which vary among states, will have to be waived to ensure continuing care for evacuees with cancer, diabetes, kidney problems, mental illness and other chronic conditions. Advocates are urging the federal government to pick up the entire Medicaid cost in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

“New kinds of Medicaid waivers may be needed,” said Mark B. McClellan, the federal government’s chief administrator for Medicare and Medicaid. “We are moving now to think of the longer-term needs of people who have been displaced and getting them into benefit programs that will help get them on their feet.”

The U.S. Marshals Service is using its “Con Air” fleet to fly evacuees, not prisoners. “So far as moving civilians, this is probably the first time,” said spokesman Donald Hines. The marshals have evacuated more than 3,500 people from New Orleans.

Giving the evacuees a fresh start will require tens of billions of federal dollars, reinforcing the role of Washington after years of Republican criticism of “big government.” An administration that has sought to move away from Depression-era programs is resorting to strategies reminiscent of the New Deal.

Emergency grants totaling more than $190 million have been issued to four states, in part to put hurricane victims on the government payroll to assist in the recovery. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas will be able to hire hurricane victims in part-time jobs distributing food and clothing, and helping with shelter arrangements and cleanup.

Much of the planning for the long-term response is being handled in two departments that have been targets of conservatives in the past: Health and Human Services and Education.

“We need to help evacuees all over the country,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. “Food, healthcare ... all of the things it takes to get one’s life on track. You will hear much more about that soon.”

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings met Wednesday with representatives of more than 50 U.S. educational organizations to discuss how to enroll displaced students in new school districts.

“We are trying to get a handle on what is the right level of [federal] resources,” Spellings said. “There are [different] kinds of scenarios. There are cities like Houston, which has been heavily, intensely impacted. And then there’s Anchorage, Alaska, which may get a couple of kids who are living with family members.”

Said Mark Franken, chairman of the Refugee Council USA, a coalition of groups that advocate for refugees: “I feel a real sense of urgency here.

“The longer it takes to get beyond stabilizing the affected areas and into a long-term response, the more difficulties we are going to end up facing as a nation.”

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) is proposing to use the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program for evacuees. Administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, the program relies on religious and private organizations to resettle foreigners nationally. In 1980, its most active year, the program resettled 300,000 refugees, among them Cubans who fled in the Mariel boatlift, Haitians and Vietnamese.

“To Americans, the scale of this disaster is inconceivable,” said Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “But it is not inconceivable in terms of what happens around the world with refugees. It is something that can be handled in an orderly manner, and people should be able to get back on their feet.”

Some historians look back to the Oklahoma Dust Bowl of the 1930s to find a comparison to the displacement created by Katrina. A prolonged drought on top of years of poor agricultural practices forced about 300,000 people to abandon the farms and communities that been the source of their livelihood. Many headed to California.

“There are a lot of similarities here,” said Donald Worster, a professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence who focuses on environmental history. “These are ecological or environmental refugees, running away from a disaster that is at least partly man-made.”

The federal government responded to the Dust Bowl, but it saw its role as far more limited than the government of today. “They paid farmers not to plant,” said Worster, author of a history of the period. “They set up resettlement camps. Nobody quite knew what to do; they had to invent it as they went along.”

Some of those programs, such as the Farm Security Administration, became part of the New Deal.

Congress is expected to act soon on legislation to streamline the delivery of federal aid to the hurricane victims by making changes in dozens of federal programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps and the tax code.

On Wednesday, the House voted to eliminate a requirement that college students repay Pell Grants when natural disasters force them to withdraw from classes.

“We understand the impact of this storm,” said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). “We’re going to expedite everything we can.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Evacuees dispersed across the nation

States across the U.S. have taken in Gulf Coast evacuees by the thousands, with Texas housing the most.

*--* Percent of state general Unemployment fund expenditures Rental vacancy going State rate, July 2005* to public rate, 2004 assistance, 2003 Texas 5.0% 0.8% 13.9% Alabama 4.0 0.1 14.8 Arkansas 4.9 3.3 13.5 Louisiana 5.6 0.1 7.3 California 5.1 7.5 5.4 United States 5.0 -- 10.2

*--*

*--* Per pupil expenditures Per capita to operate schools, State income, 2004** 2002-2003 Texas $21,691 $7,136 Alabama 20,476 6,300 Arkansas 18,704 6,482 Louisiana 19,643 6,922 California 25,411 7,552 United States 24,020 8,041

*--*

NOTE: All figures are approximate. As of Wednesday

*Preliminary, seasonally adjusted

**Estimate, in last 12 months, in 2004 inflation-adjusted dollars

Sources: Associated Press, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, Kaiser Family Foundation, National Assn. of State Budget Officers, U.S. Census Bureau; Compiled by Times librarian John Jackson

Times staff writers Mary Curtius, Richard B. Schmitt and Richard Simon contributed to this report.