Thread: Feds To Hand Out $2,000 Debit Cards To Evacuees

don't know, had someone telling me they had heard it on the news today, was trying to find out if it is true or not.

I am on their mailing list. I will try and find out.

I just sent an email to the 9/11 families to see if they had heard anything. Will let you know. It would not surprise me though. I am sick to death of people that won't get off their lazy asses and work and want to depend on the government to take care of them! Well I think they have had a wake up call!

This should surprise no one.


www.sun-sentinel.com

FEMA's waste continues as millions in extra payments given out for Katrina




By Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz
and John Maines Staff Writers

October 20, 2005



With hundreds of thousands forced from homes battered by Hurricane Katrina, the federal government cut red tape to rush $2,000 checks and debit cards to help victims pay for clothes, food, transportation and a place to live.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency intended the aid for displaced Gulf Coast families and limited it to one payment per household.

But in three Louisiana parishes, FEMA issued more checks than there are households, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $70 million, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation has found.

And in 36 parishes and counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, FEMA awarded $102 million to at least 51,000 more applicants than local officials said were displaced by the storm.

The newspaper's findings are based on a review of $1.46 billion in FEMA claims paid through Sept. 22 and interviews with local officials from 54 counties and parishes.

Some of the same patterns of waste and fraud found after Florida's four hurricanes last year are occurring in the Gulf Coast states despite assurances by federal officials that steps have been taken to curb abuses.

In Mobile, Ala., residents coached each other on the right words to use when calling FEMA to get the $2,000. Many who received the money never had to leave their homes. Some had minor roof leaks. One said her furniture got wet because she kept opening her door to watch the storm.

"Unbelievable," said Mobile Police Lt. Christon Dorsey, a member of a hurricane fraud task force.

He estimated fewer than 300 Mobile County residents were displaced and in need of emergency aid, not the 17,050 who collected $34.1 million.

"That's unreal," he said. "That's extremely disproportionate to what it should be."

In Pike County, Miss., Katrina displaced 25 families, yet 2,494 collected nearly $5 million and "made a ton of money," said Civil Defense Director Richard Coghlan.

"I'll tell you, it was Christmas," Coghlan said. "We're talking plasma TVs. We're talking stereos. We're talking bicycles."

In Louisiana's Iberville Parish, 70 miles from Katrina's landfall in New Orleans, the storm knocked down trees and power lines but caused no major damage, said emergency manager Laurie Doiron. Still, 819 parish residents received $1.6 million from the federal government.

"I can't possibly fathom 819 people needing $2,000 in immediate assistance," she said. "What do I attribute that to? FEMA being free with the money, too free with the money."

The Sun-Sentinel previously reported that FEMA paid $31 million in Hurricane Frances aid to residents of Miami-Dade County, one of the few areas of Florida not hit by last year's four hurricanes. And, in a series of reports last month, the newspaper identified more than $330 million over five years going to applicants across the country who never suffered the devastating effects of disasters.

FEMA officials have assured Congress they have fixed many of the problems, but Richard Skinner, inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, told the Sun-Sentinel Wednesday "we have not validated" that.

Skinner said he is aware Katrina emergency aid payments far exceed the number of families local officials report as being displaced.

"This has been brought to our attention and we are looking into it," he wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper.

Asked to explain how FEMA could issue more checks than there are households in the three Louisiana parishes, Skinner wrote: "This is what we will find out through our ongoing work."

Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, has established an Office for Hurricane Katrina Oversight and dispatched teams of auditors and investigators to "ensure disaster assistance funds are being spent wisely." So far, 14 people have been charged with fraud in connection with the $2,000 aid payments, according to the department. "We expect many more," Skinner said.

FEMA began the $2,000 "expedited assistance'' a week after Katrina devastated coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, and as the government faced criticism for its slow response.

"Through FEMA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has dramatically streamlined its procedures to urgently expedite these payments of $2,000 per household," the government announced Sept. 10.

"We are committed to cutting red tape and getting help to people who need it," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "We are getting real assistance in record time."

FEMA waived its usual procedure of sending an inspector to an applicant's home to first verify damage. Instead, it approved payments based on a phone call or online application, which the agency said took 20 minutes.

Every four hours, FEMA sent information on those approved to the U.S. Department of Treasury, which then issued checks or deposited the money directly into the applicant's bank account. For two days, FEMA issued the $2,000 through debit cards to evacuees at Texas shelters.

The aid was intended for those "severely impacted" by the storm who did not "have the usual means of identifying damage to their property or are unable to provide the immediate documentation necessary," a Sept. 7 FEMA news release said.

"Nearly $690 million in assistance helping ... families displaced by Katrina," the government announced three days later. Money was in hand or on the way to thousands of storm victims "who are hurting, and in many cases, far from home," Chertoff said.

As the money flowed, local officials encountered confusion and anger by residents over why some got $2,000 and others didn't. FEMA did not answer the newspaper's questions about its criteria for awarding the money. One rule the government made clear: One payment per household.

Yet in Orleans Parish, ground zero for Katrina, FEMA gave $458 million to 224,008 applicants. That's 41,888 more than the estimate of households in the parish as of 2004, according to Claritas, a leading U.S. demographics research firm. The difference translates to $83.8 million.

In St. Bernard Parish, FEMA issued 3,929 more expedited payments than households -- $7.9 million -- and in Plaquemines Parish the difference was 1,876 payments, or $3.8 million.

Even after adding all those living in college dorms, nursing homes, military quarters and institutions, the number of recipients still exceeds possible applicants in the three parishes by nearly 35,000 -- for a total of $69.9 million.

FEMA did not explain the discrepancy and instead released a statement saying the government responded to the "largest natural disaster our nation has faced'' and had to help victims dispersed across the country, "many far from home with nothing but the clothes on their back.''

The statement also said, "While the system may not have been perfect, if any have taken advantage of it by lying to FEMA in order to make an easy buck, we will work with the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force to seek full prosecution."

Throughout the Gulf Coast, emergency managers contacted by the Sun-Sentinel said they believed many people took advantage of the money.

"My people suffered almost nothing," said Travis Prewitt, emergency manager in East Feliciana Parish, just north of Baton Rouge. "I didn't have a single structure, as far as I know, in the whole parish destroyed."

But 520 East Feliciana residents collected $1 million in expedited FEMA aid.

"It appears as though I've got about 520 cases of fraud," Prewitt said. "I did not have 520 individuals up here that suffered any losses."

About 130 miles west of New Orleans, in Vermilion Parish, La., Katrina was "just like a nice, breezy day," said Robert LeBlanc, emergency preparedness director. "We didn't get any damage to a piddly row of beans.

"You flabbergast me," LeBlanc said, when told 19 parish residents received FEMA expedited aid. "I can't fathom anybody had damage from Katrina in this parish."

FEMA issued $658,000 to 329 applicants in Scott County, Miss., where "we probably should have gotten about half that many," said Alvin Seaney, county civil defense director.

At least two farmers received money after they told FEMA that Katrina damaged their chicken coops. One planned to return the money.

"He got a check for $2,000 that said `for temporary housing,'" Seaney said. "He didn't need a house for himself; he needed a house for the chickens."

Money went to undeserving applicants in Copiah County, Miss., including a friend of the emergency management director, Donald Weathersby.

She lost $36 worth of insulin when power went out, and collected $2,000 from FEMA, he said.

"We'll give her $36 for her medicine, and $50 for gas to go pick it up, but $2,000 is ridiculous," Weathersby said. "She doesn't even live in the house. She rents it. And the house had no damage."

In Hinds County, Miss., which includes the city of Jackson, local officials "feel very sure there were illegal claims," said Emergency Management Director Larry Fisher.

At most, Katrina displaced 150 families in Hinds County, not the 5,756 who received $11.5 million in emergency assistance, Fisher said.

He said he warned a FEMA official briefing the Jackson City Council in mid-September about residents exaggerating claims.

"I told him, `I don't know what your criteria is, but we do not have that many people drastically impacted or not able to stay in their homes by any means,'" Fisher said. "He told me ... these claims had been filed and would be verified. My concern was I had not been called, nor any of my staff, to verify any damage."

All Harold Miller, Jr. had to do to collect the $2,000 was tell FEMA he lived in Baton Rouge in a home damaged by the storm, federal prosecutors say. Miller actually lived and worked in Portland, Ore., where he has been charged with fraud. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Portland is investigating others there who may have fraudulently obtained expedited aid from FEMA.

FEMA made "no effort before disbursing the money to verify anything," said Lance Caldwell, the federal prosecutor in Miller's case. "As far as I'm concerned, there may have been considerable losses to the government because of this type of fraud."

Across the country, authorities have arrested people who collected FEMA payments using false addresses, including a north Florida couple who claimed they lost homes in Slidell, La., and then spent some of their $4,000 on cocaine, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in western Louisiana.

Two inmates at the Avoyelles Women's Correctional Center in Cottonport, La., are under investigation for claiming to be Katrina victims in applications to FEMA.

"They couldn't have been displaced. They were incarcerated," said Harry Normand, chief criminal deputy of the Avoyelles Parish Sheriff's Office.

Jailhouse workers intercepted their FEMA checks.

Some local officials said FEMA may have been motivated to hand out money without adequate controls to counter criticism. In the early days after the storm, the government was repeatedly accused of abandoning victims and waiting too long to send in troops and supplies.

"I suspect after the bad publicity that they just started throwing money out," said Ronnie Hughes, president of Ascension, La. Parish, where 1,552 residents collected $3.1 million. "We did not have 1,500 families displaced in Ascension Parish, I can tell you that."

At a news conference earlier this month, President George W. Bush praised the expedited aid program.

"We've done a good job of getting $2,000 to people," Bush said. "I think that the notion of helping people immediately worked pretty good. It worked good because the government responded with the checks."

Didn't they do this already in mid-September? or is this an on-going thing?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9241177/

$2,000 debit cards for Katrina victims
Families at Astrodome are to get them today

Updated: 8:20 a.m. ET Sept. 8, 2005
WASHINGTON - The federal government plans to hand out debit cards worth $2,000 each to families displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff, under fire for his agency’s response to the disaster, held a conference call with governors of states with evacuees and described the plan. While many details remained to be worked out, the plan was to quickly begin distributing the cards, starting with people in major evacuation centers such as the Houston Astrodome.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the cards are aimed at providing “some immediate cash assistance to those who are in shelters, those that were evacuated.�

Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who participated in the conference call, said the cards will be offered “to people in shelters as well as people who are not in shelters but who have evacuated the area and need help.� He said the hope is the cards will encourage people to leave shelters voluntarily.

Only for neediest
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is administering the program. FEMA officials said the program is aimed at those most in need, so not all families that fled their homes will be eligible.

“For instance you may have some people who have insurance and insurance is meeting their living expenses while they have been displaced,� said Ed Conley, a FEMA spokesman in Houston. “You have some people who may be looking at an option such as a cruise ship where all of their needs are going to be met. It is going to vary by family.�

The cards are to be used to help victims purchase food, transportation and other essentials.

It’s unclear how much the debit card program will cost the government, but it could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars since hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, said he had concerns about the potential for abuse.

“That’s a lot of money. The question is how do you separate the needy from those who just want a $2,000 handout,� he said.

Photos used to curb abuse
The cards will be issued on a one-per-household basis, said Natalie Rule, a FEMA spokeswoman in Washington. As a safeguard against fraud, FEMA will use aerial photographs of devastated areas to verify that the refugees were, indeed, forced from their homes in cases where they cannot provide documents to prove their losses or identities.

“We’ve got a huge population of people that have been evacuated with very little by way of possessions and we have to have a way to make sure these people can function,� Rule said. “If there are those who are out there to cheat the system, that is going to be very disappointing. But the main goal is to get the aid out.�

Rule said the agency was setting up registration centers in shelters in Houston and Dallas where evacuees could obtain the cards.

FEMA is working to set up similar registration centers in other shelters across the country, Rule said, and evacuees can also get the debit cards by calling 1-800-621-FEMA or going to the agency’s web site at http://www.fema.gov.

The insanity still continues. I wonder if Jorge Bush gave racial perference to Mexicans before he handed out the cards. The great American give away still continues. Yeah he's really serious about cutting spending. The only thing that I'm shocked about is that Bush's nose doesn't grow a mile long everytime he gives one of his boring sophomoric stump speeches.