Posted 2/22/2006 05:28:00 PM by Douglas

Wow, what an amazingly realistic, if totally un-PC article regarding the hurricane refugees still stuck in Houston.

New Orleans doesn't want its poorest residents back — unless they agree to work.

That was the message from three New Orleans City Council members who said government programs have "pampered" the city's residents for too long.

The news that some New Orleans City Council members weren't keen on the city's poorest returning home added another layer of discomfort in Houston, where local residents and elected officials alike have stretched to meet the needs of thousands of Louisiana residents in the months after Hurricane Katrina.

Chief among the complaints: Houston didn't discriminate when New Orleanians — from the poorest to the richest — filled this city's homes, hotels, motels and shelters. And Houston didn't flinch when nearly 100,000 evacuees needed subsidized housing for up to a year. So why, asked one Houston city councilman, are only the educated, healthy and employable welcome back in New Orleans?

Man, what balls. Like the man says, Houston didn't get to pick what people showed up at the dome last September. So Katrina flushes the pot in New Orleans and we're stuck with all the turds?

"We don't need soap opera watchers right now," said New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas, during a housing committee meeting. "We're going to target the people who are going to work. It's not that I'm fed up, but that at some point there has to be a whole new level of motivation, and people have got to stop blaming the government for something they ought to do."

Something tells me this is not an effective way to motivate people to get off their ass and get to work.

Labels: New Orleans