Newsweek: The Dispossessed: 'This Is Like a Prison'

[Pirate Smile]

The Dispossessed: 'This Is Like a Prison'

Katrina drove them from New Orleans. Rita made them move again. Life on the road for a frustrated group of evacuees.

Oct. 3, 2005 issue - It's a journey without a destination. Almost a month ago, Glenda Smith, 42, was flooded out of her home in New Orleans. Along with seven family members, including two infants under the age of 6 months, she spent two nights on a city bridge, two weeks on a cot in Houston's Astrodome and two nights at Fort Chaffee, a military base in Arkansas. Much of that time was spent waiting in line. She has lost her possessions—twice. Having been driven from New Orleans by Katrina, she was chased from Houston by Rita. Now she is living in a cabin at the Arkansas Baptist State Convention's campground—but only until mid-October, when she will have to leave the unwinterized camp. "This is like a prison," she says.


Two evacuees leave Galveston, Texas, after fleeing New Orleans earlier this month

Smith is mad at just about everything—the weather, the unfamiliar food (she can't get red beans and rice in Arkansas), the lack of choices and freedom. "They don't feed us right here. And yesterday my daughter was washing her baby's only clothes, and they stole them from the washer," she says. "I'm so confused, so frustrated. We don't know where we're going to go next. They're going to ship us out like little bitty puppies all over again."

Pat Batchelor, who is in charge of the camp in bucolic northwest Arkansas, is sympathetic: "The people who came this week were upset and raw and angry." Among the recent arrivals were some of the neediest victims of Hurricane Katrina. "Very often we're finding the people who are coming are either addicted to drugs or have mental problems and haven't had their medications for a few weeks," says Batchelor. Some black evacuees say they encounter culture shock; "there aren't that many African-Americans in the county," says Batchelor. There are jobs available at the local Wal-Mart and Tyson chicken plant. Many early evacuees have taken them and moved out of the camp, but 350 evacuees remain, and when an additional 140 arrived from Houston, some of the teenage boys made gang signs with their hands. With little to do, some evacuees are blowing their $2,000 checks from FEMA. One family hired a stretch limo to go shopping. Local hustlers are hanging about, offering, for a fee, to take evacuees to bars or casinos. Most of the new arrivals, however, are "hardworking and salt of the earth," says Batchelor.

-snip-
Glenda Smith has yet to receive her FEMA money. "No one can answer anything," she says. " 'I don't know.' That's all I hear from everyone. I don't know if I'm coming or going. I'm so tired, I could just die."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9470155/site/newsweek/