The New York Times

November 14, 2005
Editorial
Stonewalling the Katrina Victims

Public outrage is clearly growing over the federal government's
woefully inadequate program for housing the hundreds of thousands of
people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Last week a group of survivors
filed the first of what are likely to be several lawsuits alleging that
the Federal Emergency Management Agency has failed to live up to its
responsibilities. The recovery effort has been subject to blistering
criticism from conservative, nonpartisan and liberal groups alike.

The same basic question is this: Why did the Bush administration focus
on trailer parks built by FEMA - which is actually not a housing agency
- instead of giving the lead role to the Department of Housing and
Urban Development, which has so much experience on this issue?

Many, including the Brookings Institution and the conservative Heritage
Foundation, urged the administration to switch on HUD's famously
successful Section 8 program, which gives families government vouchers
to find decent housing in the private real estate market. That program
worked well after the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California. But the
White House - which seems less interested in conservative philosophy
about how to make government programs work than with simply cutting the
amount of money that gets spent on poor people - has been working
feverishly to cripple HUD and destroy the Section 8 voucher program for
years.

So the administration rigged up a hastily thought out program that is
less flexible and less helpful than Section 8 - and confusing in the
bargain. Still focused on tax cuts for the wealthy, the administration
is apparently hoping that people who need housing will be frustrated by
the difficult process of applying for federal relief dollars and simply
give up and go away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/opinion/14mon2.html