Justice Restored?

So, while I was volunteering in NOLA over winter break ('07), one of the areas I worked on was helping people appeal their FEMA recoupment notices. Most of these people were being asked for around $20,000 to be returned to the federal government, because it had been given to them in error. This $20K was distrubuted to help people pay for lost personal property.

In the cases I saw, and I'm sure many others, these people didn't have ANY money to give back. Oddly enough...they had spent the money on...of all things...new personal property (imagine that...the nerve!) And these clients had their receipts to prove it. Receipts for pots and pans, clothes, toiletries, furniture, etc.

So, I understand the government demanding replayment of funds that were fraduently collected by survivors who were trying to "work the system." But that wasn't the case here at all. They were a woman who lived with her abusive boyfriend, so when he collected homeowners insurance on his house, and didn't share any with her so she could replace HER property that was in the house, she applied for FEMA funds. They were a woman who was encouraged by FEMA to apply for more funds, because the FEMA worker glanced in her house and saw that she had nice furniture that would certainly rise above the $5,000 she was going to get in homeowner's insurance. These are the people that were going to have their $20,000 debt, sent to a collection agency, because the government wasn't careful in reviewing claims and too disorganized to do its job properly.

The attorney I was working with told me that there was probably no chance that these people would get the waivers we were requesting, because FEMA is flooded with these sort of requests. I mean, why would they grant waivers to special cases, when nearly every recoupement they were issuing was due to a special circumstance (most notably, FEMA error in dispursing the money in the first place)? But like all of the freedom fighters in NOLA, she said we had to try.

Luckily, this week, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Lousiana ordered a preliminary injuction for FEMA and Homeland Security to stop recoupments until these people have a chance to be heard. Perhaps this is a small sign that justice is getting back on its feet in the Gulf Coast?