Two lawsuits trying to stop Katrina evictions

The FEMA Answers wiki was having some trouble yesterday but it's back up now, with considerable news on the litigation side of the hurricane evacuee crisis. It reports there are two separate courtroom efforts afoot to stop evictions of Hurricane Katrina victims. One resulting court order, in Sylvester v. Bossiere, has stayed evictions in New Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. Separately, attorneys in McWaters v. FEMA — the big class action filed Nov. 10 — are trying to stop FEMA's threatened evictions from the hotel program, not for love of the conditions in the hotels, but because destitute evacuees there are not being offered other housing or relief money to find their own homes. A McWaters request for a temporary restraining order was filed this past Monday (Nov. 28). The court papers, which are long on description and short on legalese, are here. (Warning: large file, slow download.) They allege that many of the evacuees still in hotels are poor, many still have not received any cash relief, and

...(iii) for those who did receive the initial, three-month Assistance benefit of $2358, none has received a single additional dollar, despite FEMA promising to provide benefits beyond the initial three-month stipend; and (iv) thousands who received Assistance and used some or all of that Assistance on bare essentials other than rent have been declared by FEMA to be ineligible for continuing Assistance, and have been ordered to reimburse the government for any money spent on anything other than rent.

A separate, earlier restraining order petition sought overall changes in the way FEMA is handling its relief program, including a request that the court stop FEMA from punishing people who spent relief money for purposes other than rent. See p. 7 of the Nov. 28 document for a summary.