[ad_1]
This week, papers were scattered on a small coffee table in Richard Gonzalez's motel room to prevent him from becoming homeless. There was a summary in English that his daughter in Puerto Rico had made for him. There was a contact list for social service agencies. There was a piece of paper where Gonzalez had scribbled the phone numbers of a dozen apartments for rent.
But Saturday morning, after finishing his 8 o'clock at 4 o'clock in the morning, as dealer of the Seminole Casino in Hollywood, Gonzalez was preparing to leave the Extended Stay America hotel in Fort Lauderdale , his smallest home of the last two months.
Gonzalez, 53, intended to drive north to Orlando, where his mother and brother lived for several years. Like thousands of US citizens from Puerto Rico who fled to Florida after Hurricane Maria last September, Gonzalez does not know what comes next. The money that hides his head will disappear, because the hotel coupon program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency expires on June 30.
What Gonzalez knows is that he does not return to Puerto Rico – at least not yet. Asked about what he will do after this weekend, Gonzalez, whose wife and adult daughter and son are still living on the island, began to cry.
"I would like to go to Puerto Rico now, but what about?" he said in Spanish, explaining that jobs are not found. "I say to my wife," What will we do? Without work, I can not do anything. ""
FEMA has extended the term of its coupon program, known as Transitional Shelter Assistance (TSA), four times since October, sometimes with a few days in advance. 39; agency presented a final proposal: Accepting a single plane ticket to the island before July 1, or finding another accommodation.
The vast majority chose to stay. Of the 600 families in Florida who were still part of the hotel voucher program on June 26, only 44 had returned to Puerto Rico under the guise of FEMA, according to the agency.The latest national statistics provided by FEMA show that out of nearly 2,000 families staying in hotels as of June 2, only 11 had flown and 180 had demonstrated.
Luis DeRosa, president of the Puerto Rico House Trade at Miami, who worked to help displaced families in the area it was stated that FEMA was making a mistake by cutting help to the hospitality industry.
Richard Gonzalez tries, unsuccessfully, to find long-term housing in South Florida since he fled Puerto Rico in January. Meanwhile, he lives in hotels on FEMA coupons, but the coupons program ends on June 30th.
Rua Ellis Ellis Rua [email protected]
"If you cut them, where are they going to go – the street?" DeRosa said. "It's what the federal government calls forced homelessness."
Most displaced families in Florida landed in Osceola and Orange counties, occupying in some case the lion's share of whole motels in Orlando and Kissimmee. But 46 of those families were still living in Miami-Dade County hotels this week, the third-largest county in the state.
More than 7,000 families – and more than 19,000 people – have participated in the voucher program since the hurricane. Maria devastated Puerto Rico nine months ago, erasing her power grid and probably causing thousands of deaths. In the weeks that followed, FEMA was strongly criticized for its slow response.
Since then, most families have managed to leave their hotel and stay with family members, find low-income housing or return to Puerto Rico. But for the last occupants of the hotel, affordable housing seemed impossible to find. " We already have an affordable housing crisis," said Gladys Cook of the Florida Housing Coalition, a nonprofit organization in Tallahassee that is pushing for affordable housing in the state. "When there are more people who do not have resources trying to get into this system, it becomes more of a bottleneck."
Among those who are stuck, Ariana Colon, a 20 year old mother who has a year … old son and another child due in four months. Colon lives at the Holiday Inn of Kissimmee, the fifth hotel in central Florida that she and her boyfriend have been occupying since Christmas. Colon works a few hours a week at Burger King and his boyfriend works as a barber.
But that's not enough, Colon said. Landlords of apartments and one-room studios have asked her three times the initial monthly rent – the first and last month's rent plus a security deposit – something that she can not just not allow yourself. In addition, waiting lists for designated low-income units typically last from one to two years.
Some owners, Colon adds, even quoted his young son as a justification for sending her away. "They said there were too many people in the same place," she said.
Prior to Hurricane Maria, Colon lived with his grandmother in Bayamón, near the north coast of Puerto Rico. Even though their home was not totally destroyed by the storm, the situation was desperate: Colon spent three days searching for infant formula.
She also saw government officials – in particular, says Florida Governor Rick Scott – saying on television that Florida had opportunities to offer those who chose to come
" Come here, there are jobs, there are places to stay, "says Colon. "Once we got here, there was nothing."
Colon is discouraged, but, like Gonzalez, does not move.
"I came here and I'm ready to fight," she said. "I did not come here just to make money, I do not want to feel like I came here for nothing."
In recent weeks, Senator Bill Nelson has called for a further expansion of the ASD program, but its means have been largely ignored. On Thursday, he made one last unsuccessful call to his fellow senators to force FEMA to extend the coupon program.
Nelson sought the unanimous consent of a bill that he sponsored, which means that he would have been adopted immediately if no one had objected to it. But Senator Ron Johnson objected a few moments after Nelson spoke.
Nelson also called on FEMA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to activate a program called Disaster Housing Assistance, or DHAP, which would provide monthly subsidies to some. He lamented a perceived double standard, noting that the DHAP program was activated after Hurricane Katrina in 2009 but not after Hurricane Maria.
"If it was good enough for people fleeing New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina, why is not it good enough for people who are also devastated now in Florida, having fled the deplorable conditions in their home island, our fellow Americans from Puerto Rico? "Nelson said.
FEMA argued that the DHAP program is actually less effective than its alternatives. An option, known as a direct rental program, gives some families the opportunity to move to vacant properties in Puerto Rico. "DHAP is not needed to house the survivors of the disaster," FEMA wrote earlier this month on its website, saying the direct leasing program "offers the same housing option to survivors as DHAP. in a more efficient and profitable way ". "
Another option, known as rental assistance, could help families whose homes in Puerto Rico are still considered uninhabitable by FEMA.The money could be used for rent, either in Puerto Rico or on the mainland.
But these options did not provide any recourse to people like Gonzalez, who say they did their best to find an apartment, but stand now
On Tuesday, Gonzalez drove an hour south of Fort Lauderdale to Miami Gardens for a meeting at Casa Refugio in Miami, led by officials from FEMA and the Puerto Rican government.One day earlier, Gonzalez was felt encouraged by a phone call suggesting that the meeting could help him find a longer-term housing solution.But when he arrived, he said, he felt cheated.
"It was a sham", declared Gonzalez "It was just to ask those of us who are here to return to Puerto Rico."
Gonzalez left the meeting with resources, including information on housing assistance programs in Puerto Rico and anti-poverty associations in Florida. But he says when he tried to call three of the numbers, no one answered.
He likes his job at the casino. It's a position similar to that he's withheld at home, and he notes with pride that he was named June's employee. In the long run, he sees room to move forward and earn more money for his family
Of course, everything is outstanding for the moment.
"Here the hard thing is the apartments," Gonzalez told me. "Where will I get help?"
El Nuevo Herald reporter Luis Antonio Hernandez contributed to this report.
