Long lines, confusion over cash aid

For the evacuees whose lives were ruined by flood, their days are now spent waiting for housing, food stamps, school registration and cash to restart their lives. Frustration is growing.

"Basically you spend all day going from line to line to get the assistance you need," said David Williams, who said he spent four days on his rooftop in New Orleans before getting rescued. "Then you get only two to three hours sleep before you get on line again."

"I got here on line at 7 a.m. and I was probably the 3,000th person on line," he said.

Williams and many others were waiting outside a convention center across from the Astrodome stadium -- the single largest gathering U.S. point for Hurricane Katrina refugees over the past week -- to receive several hundred dollars of payments from the Red Cross.

The money came from private donations, and will be distributed at other sites across the region in coming days.

A spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Washington initially said that the
Federal Emergency Management Agency was making the payments, then said she did not know the amounts involved. A FEMA spokesman said that planned $2,000 U.S. government vouchers for refugees would not be distributed on Thursday as previously announced.

Officials overseeing the Astrodome complex sealed off the perimeter for part of the morning, offering little explanation.

"I don't understand what's going on, it's just a bunch of confusion right now," said Terrance Green, 24, a Red Cross volunteer helping process aid applications. "Everyone is saying different things."

FRUSTRATED AND TIRED

Carolyn Biggs, who held her six-month old great-grand daughter in his arms, said she started her morning at 4:45 a.m. on the housing line. "Now I've got to go all the way to the back of the line, I don't think it is fair," she said, referring to the Red Cross payment line.

"I'm tired, I'm very tired," she said, suggesting that all the services be coordinated into one line. "I am frustrated."

She was however one of relatively few to figure out that the U.S. government would pay for two weeks in a hotel, information unknown to thousands living under the same roof at the Astrodome and other Houston facilities.

Dorothy Bell, 41, a retired nurse from New Orleans, said she had done little but wait in recent days. For her efforts she said she had received $149 in food stamps, more than $900 in
Social Security benefits and was hoping on Thursday to receive public housing.

"As long as I find a place to stay, I'm not worried about the money," she said.

Bell was lucky enough to be on a queue that extended inside where it was air conditioned. Outside, a steady sun beat down as the temperature rose into the mid 90s. Mounted police watched the line, and a helicopter occasionally hovered above, adding to the noise of thousands of agitated people.

But for most refugees, there was no choice but to wait and take whatever was being given. "If they gave me four dollars, I'd wait in line," said Williams.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050908/ts_nm/evacuees_dc