Denice and I reported for duty at Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid at nine am sharp this morning. Going in I had no idea what to expect. There had been a rumor flying that we might be helping displaced NO\'s register to vote in the upcoming elections. After meeting the four other law students from Columbia, we met Heather our co-ordinator. She herself is a Katrina evacuee so her descriptions of the struggles and problems, concerns and hopes of the evacuees here in Austin had that much more of an impact. Many of you might be surprised to hear that there are still about 75,000 evacuees living in Texas, I know I was. Our actual project is to assist some of the 4,000 evacuees living on both public and individual FEMA assistance here in Austin. What struck me the most about this is how much the disaster is still effecting people\'s lives in places that get much less media/public attention. I have to confess before I left when people would ask, \"What could you be doing in Austin? Its not like Austin was all that damaged by Katrina\" I wasnt quite sure how to reply. Now I know. The influx of 4,000 people who are all in need of public assistance effects every aspect of the city\'s workings. It puts a strain on job markets, housing supply and Austin\'s already existing and strained public assistance program. Hosting the evacuees has also brought the issue of race and poverty a bit more to the forefront here. As Heather explained the situation of most evacuees here to us she mentioned that most public housing is located on the outer edges of the city, however the public transportation system is set up with limited access to those places. Thus when people complain, \"well these people just don\'t want to work\" they ignore the reality of the situation. For some evacuees it is a prohibitively long walk just to get to a bus station to then get in to the city. On top of the problems of daily life for these folks, most are dealing with the bureacratic nightmare that is FEMA. One of the primary problems with securing benefits has been the \"shared household policy\" basically if three people lived in an apartment in NO and all got evacuated to different cities, only the first to have reached FEMA and registered was able to secure benefits. This policy was changed by FEMA in Nov. 05 but many FEMA administrators are still not aware of their own agency\'s policies. So the five of us will spend the week making contact with the evacuees, documenting their situations and helping them file appropriate appeals. As we begin this adventure I am humbly reminded at how easy it is to fall in to the lull of our every day lives and forget the struggle and suffering of others. While the media attention has died down and the Red Cross donation boxes have disappeared from the trendy uptown bars, there is still much work that remains to be done, both practical and ideological. I just hope that our small contribution will make at least a small impact, even if it is only by making our own friends and family aware of the work still to be done.\r\n\r\nOriginally posted: http://bls-shn.blogspot.com/2006/03/howdy-from-austin.html