‘Just When We Get Comfortable, They Move Us’

Ramona Watson knew ahead of time that her family had to leave the Astrodome, where they had taken refuge two weeks earlier, but that didn’t make it any easier to pack up their meager belongings, collect her children and mother and head off Thursday to yet another shelter.

Along with the remaining 3,600 New Orleans evacuees at the Astrodome and Reliant Center, the family walked several hundred yards to the Reliant Arena, a concrete-floor venue for rodeos and livestock shows.

“I’d rather stay at the dome, but they said we had to move so here we are,” said Watson, 38, as she arrived, pushing the wheelchair in which her daughter Shantrell, 10, and son Jeremiah, 2, sat. Shantrell has a broken foot.

Watson’s daughter Elaine, 11, walked alongside; son Chris, 12, was out playing with other Astrodome kids; her mother Dorothy, 59, looking exhausted, trailed behind.

“I wish we could stay in one place,” said Elaine.

“The family’s together, but after that, I just don’t know,” said Watson.

Houston officials had hoped to have all evacuees in the Astrodome and the adjacent Reliant Center placed in permanent housing by Sunday when the Houston Texans play the Pittsburgh Steelers at Reliant Stadium. When meeting that goal by Sunday looked unlikely, officials decided to relocate the remaining evacuees.

At their peak, Sept. 4, the two facilities housed 23,000 of Hurricane Katrina’s victims, most of whom had suffered wretched conditions at the Superdome in New Orleans.

The Houston effort to help them has been the single largest in the nation and has been widely praised.

Although most evacuees have found housing -- either on their own or through help from governmental and nonprofit agencies -- officials concede that placing the remaining evacuees has been more difficult than anticipated.

“There have been a couple of glitches,” said Coast Guard Lt. Joe Leonard, the officer in charger of the Astrodome shelter.

One is that some of those forced to flee New Orleans, hearing that parts of their city will soon be reopened, are reluctant to rent housing in Houston if they can return home.

Others are unable to find housing that suits them, and some are waiting to learn if they are eligible for help from the Harris County Housing Authority or the federal Section 8 rent subsidy program.

“That’s what we do -- wait,” said Karen Hubert, 36, holding her son Dumond, 7 months. “I’m praying I’ll learn today if I can get my own place.”

For many of those who were relocated, it was their third move; some already had been sent from the Astrodome to the center, some had been housed earlier in the Reliant Arena and then were relocated to the center.

The latest move was announced Wednesday morning.

“Just when we get comfortable, they move us,” said Naomi Gray, 55. “I’m tired of moving.”

Officials said consolidating the remaining evacuees from two locations into one -- the arena -- will make for a more efficient operation.

“The arena will be open as long as it’s needed,” said Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, the county’s chief executive officer. “There’s no deadline.”

Keoka Lewis, 32, said she has found an apartment for herself and her year-old son but it won’t be ready for two weeks. “I’m getting good at waiting -- no big deal,” she said.

Dozens of Red Cross volunteers helped evacuees pack their belongings and make the trek to the arena. Officials hope the move will be complete by Friday night.

Along with the heat and humidity, it was also a day when the Houston relief effort for Katrina’s victims showed signs of straining under the volume of requests and the rigidity of some bureaucratic rules.

The move from the Astrodome and center was halted for hours because the Red Cross ran out of the wristbands issued for admittance. That left some families waiting in the afternoon heat, ready to enter the Reliant Arena but blocked by Houston police and Red Cross volunteers.

“This is not justice,” said Jason Dauzart, 21, when his family was denied entrance for lack of the right wristbands.

Red Cross official Scott Snyder, told of the Dauzart family’s dilemma, said he did not know what he could do for the family or others shut out because of the wristband problem.

Meanwhile, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials announced that 50,531 Katrina families in the Houston area have registered for aid.

But Jason Dombrowski of FEMA said it could take weeks or longer before any family gets more than the $2,000 emergency assistance because applications need to be evaluated to see if each family qualifies for more money. Eligible families can receive up to $26,500.

Guy Rankin, director of the Houston area’s Katrina Housing Task Force, appealed to apartment owners to contact officials if they have three- and four-bedroom apartments to rent. The larger apartments are needed to accommodate extended families, Rankin said.

“Our goal is to keep these families together,” he said.

How long the Houston public will remain supportive of the effort to help Katrina evacuees is unknown. A poll done for the Houston Chronicle this week found that 30% of those surveyed felt the evacuees were “bad for Houston.”

Eckels said the cost of the Katrina evacuation effort is in “the tens of millions of dollars” -- including $1.5 million in overtime for law enforcement officers. The county hopes to be reimbursed by the federal government.

“We should not be punished ... for our generosity,” said Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, appointed this week by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to work with the federal government on evacuation issues, including reimbursement.