Frustration Grows Among Evacuees, Locals

Angry at what she called rudeness by Red Cross workers and frustrated at her inability to find an apartment so she can move out of a shelter, Mary Joseph gave full vent to her feelings Saturday.

“They’re treating us like dogs,” said Joseph, 54, as she sat outside the Reliant Arena, where she sleeps on a cot. “They just want to get us out of Houston as fast as they can. Thanks for nothing.”

Across town, Bessie Buckner, 72, a Houston resident, had a different view: The Hurricane Katrina evacuees are getting preferential treatment for support like Medicare and food stamps while residents are being shut out.

“It’s devastating, but there’s a lot of Houstonians and there’s no help for them,” Buckner said. The evacuees “just come in and they get everything. That’s not right.”

As Houston’s effort to provide shelter and support for evacuees -- the largest effort of any city in the nation -- enters its third week, frictions, although not widespread, have begun to wear away patience and goodwill on all sides.

Some say it’s simply human nature, and part of the natural fallout from such a traumatic event.

More than 90% of the families who took refuge in the Astrodome and Reliant Center have found more permanent housing; many have enrolled children in schools, some have found work. Of the 24,000 evacuees initially housed in the Astrodome and Reliant Center, 1,650 have not been placed and have been relocated to the arena. Many of the services available initially have been shut down.

Some Houston residents complain that evacuees are getting public housing ahead of Houston residents and free tuition to private schools for their children. Watching evacuees use their debit cards from the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for what appear to be non-essentials, some Houstonians are resentful.

One man wrote to the local newspaper that he will never again donate to the Red Cross.

Amid evacuee complaints about the Red Cross, agency officials asked Coast Guard Lt. Joe Leonard, in charge of the shelter program, to ban reporters from the Reliant Arena, where the evacuees are living on cots. Leonard complied.

Red Cross official Scott Snyder said Saturday that the privacy of evacuees must be protected -- an explanation that evacuees sitting outside the arena laughed at.

“What he means is he doesn’t want you to know the truth,” said Priscilla Pittman, 38. “It’s just one run-around after another in there and nobody seems to be in charge.”

“The food is awful, it’s too cold, and every time you ask somebody anything, the answer is the same: ‘We’re working on it,’ ” said Pamela Virgil, 49.

The frustration and jealousy sparked a scuffle this week at Jesse Jones High School when a Houston student tossed a soda can at a group of evacuees getting off a bus to attend classes. The brawl ended with five students arrested for disruption and three hospitalized for minor injuries.

“Some people are saying they’re trying to take over the school,” said junior Byron Johnson, 16.

The major frustration among evacuees appears to be inability to find housing.

That frustration may increase today when housing placement services are removed from Reliant Arena. Officials Saturday said the services are being moved from the Astrodome complex but declined to say when or where they will reopen.

As evacuees have been encouraged to leave Reliant Arena, social service offices there are being closed. The YMCA has closed its game room and basketball courts, and evacuees now get cold food rather than hot. The sense of controls has increased. Signs have been placed near the doors to Reliant Arena: No Drugs, No Gambling, No Alcohol, No Sex.

Houston police and the Harris County sheriff’s department have dozens of officers at the arena complex although evacuees complain that they are not taken seriously when they report crimes such as theft or harassment.

Carolyn Scantlebury, an official with the task force organized by the Harris County Housing Authority, said she is not surprised that the remaining evacuees are upset.

They are going through a kind of grieving process, she said, after the damage done to their lives by Katrina.

The evacuees are moving from “shock to confusion to anger,” she said. “I know many evacuees are frustrated -- living on a cot is not comfortable.”

Some stores are offering discounts to evacuees, causing resentment among residents, even among people who support the shelter program.

At the Galleria, a high-end shopping mall, stores offered discounts to evacuees who show their Louisiana driver’s licenses. At Nordstrom the discount was 15%; at Charlotte Russe 40%. The Apple Store provided free Internet access.

“I think it’s fair for Houstonians to give away necessities,” said Cathy Nguyen, 35, of Houston, carrying four Nordstrom bags filled with shoes. “I pay taxes, I live here and I should be able to get the discount too. Do you really think they’ll be better off if they get 15% off Chanel makeup?”

Ronald Gorman, 45, an evacuee, said he has noticed “bad attitudes” from other shoppers who noticed him using his debit card to buy $1,500 in clothes, hair products, Nike Air Tennis shoes and a watch.

“We’ve been flooded out, we didn’t have a choice,” said Gorman, whose wife is still missing. “If [Houston residents] flood out, we’d welcome them. We wouldn’t turn our backs on them.”

If there is one thing both evacuees and residents agree on, it’s that the shelter program and emergency support should end soon.

Officials running the Reliant Arena and the shelter in the downtown convention hall hint that the shelters will close soon but refuse to say when.

“We’ve welcomed them and given them so much,” said Buckner.

“Now they need to get up and do something with their lives.”