The Cost of Compassion
Houston officials made the decision to accommodate over 150,000 homeless Katrina evacuees, and as a result the city's social, medical and mental resources have been severely depleted. Schools are overcrowded, an already stressed highway system is topped out, public money is depleting, and murder in the city is on the rise.After the public buildings and churches whose doors initially opened to the influx of thousands of Katrina evacuees were replaced with FEMA-funded apartments and trailers, many of New Orleans misplaced citizens made little effort to migrate elsewhere. This left Houston officials to haggle with FEMA for the dollars needed to care for their new temporary citizens.
Cindy Gabriel, a spokesperson for Houston's Joint Hurricane Housing Task Force said the city is out about $29 million on housing assistance spent but not reimbursed by the federal government.
Did Rent-Free Backfire?
With free rent and free utilities being paid, the incentive for a significant percentage of the evacuees to work is gone. The joblessness among the evacuees receiving housing assistance is high, with only 22 percent who have found employment. To try to offset the numbers of the unemployed, Houston set up job retraining centers and held job fairs, but the outcome was disappointing.
Rising Crime
One of the biggest concerns to Houstonians is the increase in crime in a city that was already fighting a pre-Katrina rising crime rate. Since opening its doors to the evacuee's Houston has experienced a 5.8 percent increase in violent crime in the past 11 months.The rise in crime was predictable as the Houston population increased almost overnight changing the ratio of police officers per thousand Houstonians to 1.9 compared to 2.3 before Katrina, already down from the national average of 2.8.
Calls to the police department jumped from an average of five calls on hold before Katrina to averaging 40-plus after the storm. "We used to have five calls holding, then it was 30, 40, 50, 60 calls holding or left over," said Officer John M. Trevino of the 19th District.
Katrina's Turf
Southwest Houston, a low-income and high-crime section of the city, is now sometimes referred to as "Katrina turf" after many of the Katrina homeless were moved into FEMA paid apartments which had previously been vacant for years. To attempt to control and protect the area and two other crime-ridden sections of Houston, the police began a "Gang Murder Squad" to work undercover in these areas.In January 2006, the squad arrested eight suspects linked to nine homicides and all those arrested were New Orleans evacuees. This prompted Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold L. Hurtt to ask FEMA for $6.5 million in order to increase the strained police force.
Gangs Evacuated Too
In less high-profiled crime, there has been a noticeable rise in crime among youth. An increase in evacuees and non-evacuee teens fighting with each other in the public schools is a concern to parents along with the increase of teen gangs and retaliatory gang crime. "Houston police say evacuees have been victims or suspects in about 20 percent of the city's homicides, more than double their percentage in the population. This is leading to a feeling among some Houstonians that perhaps the evacuees are wearing out their welcome." said CNN Correspondent, Ed Lavandera.Although not all crime is on the increase, violent crimes and robbery has increased since Katrina. According to the Boston Globe, in 2006, Houston has had 252 murders, 56 of which involved Katrina evacuees either as the criminals or the victims. Last year, for the same period, Houston had 194 murders. New Orleans questionable record for incarcerating criminals was blamed for many of the criminal evacuees who were free to migrate to Houston.
"New Orleans allowed a lot of these guys to stay on the street for whatever reason or be picked up and released after 60 days," said Capt. Dale Brown, of Houston's homicide division. "Texas law, I don't want to say it's tougher, but we take these offenses very seriously."
Judge Robert Eckels, chief executive of Harris County, which includes Houston told Associated Press Writer, Paul J. Weber, that Katrina evacuees arrested in the Houston have cost the county's criminal justice system more than $18 million.
