Federal funding expires Thurs. for those who fled Puerto Rico

[struggle4progress]

By: Boston25News.com
Updated: Feb 15, 2018 - 10:03 AM

WORCESTER, Mass. - Nearly five months after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, hundreds of evacuees are living in Massachusetts and struggling to get on their feet.

But their federal funding expires Thursday.

City councilors estimate more than 700 evacuees from Puerto Rico have settled in Worcester ...

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/trending-now/federal-funding-expires-thurs-for-those-who-fled-puerto-rico-now-what/700520842

[struggle4progress]

1. Feds owe evacuees safe shelter

José Luis Anaya and his family have been living in the Quality Inn in West Springfield for two months. They arrived in Massachusetts from Guayama, Puerto Rico, after the home they rented flooded and most of the houses in their neighborhood were leveled; their home sustained so much damage during Hurricane Maria that it became uninhabitable.

“Our main issue was that our daughters have asthma, and one of them had terrible skin sores because of the mosquitoes,” said Anaya. “Their school had no power, and the environmental conditions were just terrible for them.” The town also had no potable
water.

The island, and the American citizens who live there, have been largely ignored by President Trump, and the response of the federal bureaucracy has been sluggish. Now people like the Anayas face arbitrary FEMA deadlines and unrealistic rules that may force thousands of families back into unlivable housing ...

The Anayas are one of the 600 families or individuals, as of Tuesday, using FEMA’s transitional shelter benefit in Massachusetts, second most in the country after Florida. FEMA assesses the eligibility of those in the program by conducting inspections of their homes back in Puerto Rico. Some recipients have been told their homes are fine, when the reality is far different. “Some inspectors would only look at the outside of the house, missing conditions inside. The walls in our home had huge black mold stains, and the mold had a fuzz, like hair!” said Anaya, whose home back in Guayama initially passed the inspection, a finding that endangered their benefits. (They were eventually accepted again, for a different reason — their landlord sold that home.) Families can appeal such FEMA home eligibility determinations, but the agency has been slow to process those appeals ...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2018/02/15/the-feds-owe-puerto-rican-evacuees-safe-shelter/uwZKbZR6OVvx1O557b5qWN/story.html