Friday, September 02, 2005 What About Military Base or Tent Cities for Victims CNN: Officials at the Astrodome in Houston are saying the facility has reached capacity, have stopped accepting refugees from flooded New Orleans. Exhausted evacuees who had traveled more than 300 miles on buses to be housed at the Astrodome were turned away late Thurs and diverted elsewhere. Hmm, according to ePluribusMedia's article "Housing the Homeless" our govt must provide housing for the homeless b/c doing otherwise is ILLEGAL: "According to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, which was passed to respond to America's growing homeless population, the fedrl govt has a "clear responsibility and ... existing capacity to meet the basic needs of all the homeless." This responsibility is met by Title V of the act which says that surplus fedrl property should be made available, and that non-profit or govt agencies that aid the homeless population could obtain said properties at no cost." If our govt can't put these refugees up at our amply accomodating military bases as ePluribus proposes, then what about military "tent-cities"? Our military set up fully functioning "tent-cities" w/air conditioning, bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens and wooden sidewalks in the middle of nowhere & in FL when Hurricane Andrew hit in 92, why in the hell can't this be done for the hurricane refugees? If Homeland Security wasn't up to the task of taking care of a catastrophy of this mammoth proportion, perhaps Bush shouldn't have scrambled to destroy FEMA (in an attempt to privatize FEMA) and start an unecessary war that he now can't and won't pay for. Oh well, I guess those 3000 LA Nat'l Guardsmen & their equipment belongs in Iraq, b/c let's face it-- we just never know when the Tigris River will flood, huh? |