Puerto Rican evacuees in Central Florida fret over housing as officials point fingers
January 21, 2018 in News by Ken
source: www.orlandosentinel.com
by Bianca Padró Ocasio and Carlos Vázquez OteroContact Reporters
Two and a half months after fleeing their home in Puerto Rico, Maria Baez Claudio was told she and her 5-year-old grandson had to leave the Super 8 motel in Kissimmee because their federal housing assistance was running out.
“We have nowhere to go,” said Baez, 53, who had been living in a public-housing complex in San Juan before coming to Orlando. “We have no family here. We have no financial options to move anywhere. We are practically on the streets.”
Baez has benefited from FEMA’s Transitional Shelter Assistance — a hotel voucher program for families displaced by Hurricane Maria — along with her grandson, Christian, who has severe brain damage that affects his abilities to speak and walk.
Although the temporary shelter program was extended until March 20 following a request from the governor of Puerto Rico, hundreds of people like Baez are falling through the cracks of an often-confusing and bureaucratic federal aid process. And with recovery efforts moving slowly on the island, evacuees are hesitant to return.
“I filled out the application, but they said that San Juan was supposedly habitable, even if San Juan is still not powered at 100 percent. It’s at about 50 percent, and the power comes and goes. And that’s one of the reasons I didn’t qualify [for the extension],” Baez said.
But on Jan. 13, the day she was supposed to be on the streets, the office of U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, stepped in and helped her successfully appeal her decision with FEMA. She was granted a TSA extension until Feb. 14.
Although FEMA extended the TSA program until March 20 for evacuees in Florida, it is not a blanket extension for all its beneficiaries. According to FEMA spokesman Daniel Llargués, the extensions are granted on a “case-by-case basis with rolling deadlines.”
In a call with Gov. Rick Scott last week, FEMA administrator Brock Long said the program would be extended for “individuals whose homes in Puerto Rico have not yet been determined by FEMA to be restored to safe and livable conditions and have power.”
