Official Humanitarian Outreach
BARBARA BUSH: This is truly the perfect time of the year for the downtrodden to spend a few months vacationing in Houston while their homes are bulldozed into the Gulf. It is so hot and miserable here that most normal people will be indoors, so your loitering won't inconvenience too many folks. Come on down and join us, whether you lost your house to Katrina or the repo man. In fact, given how poor you are, come on down even if your house is still in tact. For all I know, you'll be improving your unimaginable standard of living despite no longer having four walls and a roof over your head!
Here are some accommodations I think you'll probably like:
1. Overpasses: Featuring some of the greatest traffic nightmares in the nation, Houston has among the best overpasses you can unroll your sleeping bag or park your shopping cart under. With Tommy "Teflon" DeLay's constituents driving Beemers and Jags, you won't find any federally funded mass transit here. Most overpasses sport at least 20 lanes, so leaks are kept to a minimum, meaning standing puddles and cesspools are as well. You'll wake up with fewer mosquito bites than you would riding the St. Charles trolley to the mansions you used to clean. Rats are a different matter, but I've heard that if you keep the fatback at least six feet from your bedding, you should be OK. And Houston rats don't have that pesky cholera.
2, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th Wards: You'll find your kind of people here. There is plenty of Texas hospitality in the form of sleeping arrangements because most of the residents stay up all night dealing. Heck, just knock on three or four doors at random and chances are one of your relatives will answer.
3. County and/or Municipal Jail: As much as you, folks, seem to love sleeping on concrete floors in sports arenas, you will undoubtedly be in seventh heaven having your own mattress in a cell where only a couple of people, rather than a couple thousand, reside. To ensure a space in these facilities, watch your crime. If you choose theft, in Houston, petty larceny will get you 30 to 90 days whereas grand larceny involving millions of dollars and corporate bankruptcy yields little more than DOJ photo ops.
4. Lakewood Church: Joel Olsteen is a beloved man of God in this town. He won't open his 700,000 square foot, ostentatious mausoleum/church to any poor, colored family, but he will be sure to say a prayer for you, when the TV camera's red light is on or book publishers are sitting in the front pews.
5. Harris County Democratic Headquarters: Even during working hours, there is enough unused office space to house at least 1,000 degener -uh - disenfranchised.
Honestly, I'm not sure which so-and-so invited you people, but now that you are here – which is sort of scary – I guess I might as well grit my dentures and wish you, a 'Happy Temporary Welcome to Texas!' Trust me: you'll love it so much here, you won't want to leave when we force you out!
http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2005/090905.asp