Political Quotes

“this amendment would again extend FEMA temporary financial assistance through the end of December and then provide those section 8 vouchers to FEMA-assisted families when FEMA assistance expires, and that is exactly what the gentleman was talking about, but I think that the amendment is unnecessary. The President currently has the authority to extend the length of this temporary assistance, as he has already done before. This assistance was supposed to expire at the end of 18 months, but the President extended it through August of 2007 to allow FEMA ample time, I think, to work with the families and help them secure permanent housing. This means that this assistance will have lasted a full 2 years since Katrina. Since the hurricanes, FEMA has provided billions of dollars in assistance directly to individuals and households to support their recovery, including flood insurance payouts, direct payments for rental assistance, payments for home repairs and lost property. But FEMA assistance was supposed to be temporary to give families that were affected by the devastation time to get back on their feet. But today, as was said, 35,000 families are still living in FEMA trailers. Our efforts should be focused on moving these families to permanent housing, including homeownership, instead of keeping them in limbo. It really concerns me that we move from FEMA and then turn it into section 8 housing.”