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Last Published: 3/12/2010 12:54:05 AM
The Human Factor
Posted by:
WDSU-TV on
September 20, 2006 at
11:58AM EST
Anchor Norman Robinson blogs and broadcasts LIVE from Houston September 18 - 22.
While on my
travels in Houston
for 6 On Your Side LIVE, I have heard from many evacuees. Some had wonderful
stories of new found lives and better opportunities. Others told hard luck
stories that tear at your heart.
We have
been criticized, by some, for focusing on those who are having difficulty
adjusting and not focusing on the success stories. But I believe it’s worth
mentioning that it’s the less fortunate who are in most need of help from all
of us.
As much as
they've been criticized for complaining about our displaced underclass, the
city of Houston
is at least attempting to look for ways to get its arms around the problem. Cindy
Gabriel with the City of Houston's Hurricane
Housing Task Force readily admits that, “Houston
city leaders underestimated how long the evacuees from New
Orleans would remain in Houston."
She told 6 On Your Side LIVE that Houston Mayor Bill White has
directed her group to manage a coordinated response using as many public
and private outreach organizations as possible. The task at hand: analyze the
needs of the evacuees who are elderly, destitute and without job
skills. The goal: to discover ways to help them get on their feet.
This is an
unprecedented task. Houston
does not have public housing or a welfare program. What the Mayor proposes is a
public/private partnership for job training and temporary housing
assistance for those who enroll in those job training programs.
What few of
us seem to realize, is that Houston
took in tens of thousands of our neediest citizens. And despite the
fact some Houstonians are now calling for a mass exodus, it appears city
leadership is contemplating the “human” factor, and showing its compassionate side.
The city knows that there is no where for these evacuees to go, and no one to
help them.
If given
the power, would you write off thousands of people, just because they’re characterized
as destitute? Or should we, as I have heard some people say, jump for joy that
the problem is now in Houston and no longer in New Orleans?
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