Why are so many desperate & homeless folks being sent to Texas?

[stickdog]

Could it be all of the "affordable housing" Texas generously offers its poorest citizens?

Or the fact that Texas Repukes would love another sharp increase in Texas' 2.5 billon "affordable housing" budget?

http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/just/features/0505_05/prisonbudget.html

[longship]

1. Geography

Texas is the closest refuge that has not been clobbered by Katrina.

[stickdog]

5. Arkansas, Florida & Alabama are all close.

Alabama was hardly "clobbered" by Katrina. And places like Jacksonville, MS were completely unscathed.

The fact of the matter is that the poorest of the poor are primarily going to Houston and Dallas. Atlanta isn't much further from NO than Dallas.

[rainbow4321]

13. Refugees started heading to Ft Smith, Arkansas this morning....

Dallas filled up...

[stickdog]

15. Do you know where/how they're being housed in Dallas?

[rainbow4321]

17. See these threads about Dallas housing:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4611444&mesg_id=4611444


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1748825&mesg_id=1748825

[Totally Committed]

2. Also, in addition to this, it is a big enough and RED enough state

to "absorb" all those BLUE voters from New Orleans and sort of negate their impact, politically, on the Republicans.

If the elections look like a Democratic landslide (I know, I can dream...), look for these people to have trouble voting at all because their residences will not be considered "permanent", and they probably won't find that out until it's too late to get an absentee ballot. I think the Republicans will find a way to deny them their vote, is what I'm saying.

Just my thought.

TC

[FogerRox]

21. very good point TC

[kdmorris]

3. It's the only road leading out of town.

All the rest of the roads to the East and North are destroyed and impassable.

[stickdog]

6. Really? Could you post a link about this?

[kdmorris]

19. Here's one

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3331422#

If you click on the link for "Map of Bridges destroyed", it shows that the bridge to Slidell to the East is destroyed, and the bridge north is destroyed.

However, I didn't know about Route 55, which goes north after they go West for a while, so maybe "all" was a little premature. But west is the only way you can go until you get around Lake Pontchartrain.

[Drum]

4. TX drew the short straw,

and it is a huge state, as every Texan will remind you.

[jpak]

7. JEB told Georgie to keep "them" out of FL...

n/t

[Tikki]

8. Texasisiana baby....

coming soon to your Nation.....49 states.




Tikki

[Liberty Belle]

9. They should send 'em to Bush's ranch at Crawford.

Give them Cindy's tents, now that she's off to Washington.
Better yet, bus some of them to D.C. to lead the impeachment rally on the 24th.

[rainbow4321]

10. Pitstop for some, on their way to Tulsa

On there way to Tulsa and it's suburbs. But Dallas did get 130 more buses than what they were told to expect.

There was a GD " police scanner thread" and last night around midnight they were talking about 20-30 bus filled caravans being told "head to Dallas".

It was not til this morning that they started sending them to Ft Smith, Arkansas..one person said "Ok, so send them to Dallas?" and was told about the "new destination".

[Mass]

11. Massachusetts offered 4,000 beds, but that's a lot farther.

[Poppyseedman]

12. You do realize Texas is the closest state with the resources

that offered help on the scale that is needed. Should have they refused help because it was Texas, bush home state ???

Of course it could be Bush MIHOP by dancing the KKKarl Rove mystical Texas two step dance that caused the Hurricane to move far enough away from Texas not to cause damage, but to hit La. instead as to make his home state rich .

:sarcasm:

[stickdog]

14. There are dozens of cities closer to NO than Dallas.

[Poppyseedman]

16. Name one city that offered to house 15,000 plus people on the spot????

for as long as it takes to get them on their feet.

The state of Texas has done an magnificent job helping out it's neighbor state.

No matter bush lives there or not.

[rainbow4321]

18. Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and other TX cities are already full

Other cities between these TX cities are kind of small, don't have the local resources to take on such a task.

I know Dallas is asking it's suburbs to take some of the refugees. So some of them **may** get the people, but it is the larger cities that are the initial drop off/coordination sites.

[StellaBlue]

20. Texans

while concerned about absorbing all these people, both physically and economically, are ready to help our neighbors, as they did for us during the Runaway Scrape, when a whole bunch of poor, dirt-farming Texians high-tailed it across the border into Louisiana during the Texas Revolution.

My hometown in North Texas, about 415 miles from NO, is absorbing some 500+ people, and, largely, the people in the county feel glad to be able to help in a more active way. I do hope all these 500 people register to vote, too!

Also, has anyone else noticed that Governor Hair (aka Rick Perry), speaks remarkably NORMALLY compared to the Chimperor? Like myself, Perry was born and raised in Texas, is a 5th generation Texan (I know, not impressive to New Englanders haha), and, yet, he doesn't have a ridiculous Cletus accent?!?!?!?!?! Meanwhile, our pal W, who lived in Texas approximately from age 2 to 13, then went to elitist boarding schools in New England, Yale, Harvard, etc., and yet sounds like a TOTAL YAHOO?!

Sorry... end of my personal rant.