Location, location, location
That’s what the real estate biz is all about, right? Well, in our post-Katrina world, this article says it doesn’t make any difference.
I don’t know who’s getting boned worse — the average American taxpayer or the family who’s stuck living in a high-dollar icetray instead of getting a little help toward actually cleaning up their home (and these folks are also average American taxpayers). I know if it was me, I’d certainly much rather the feds spend less on a trailer and advance me a little cash to buy lumber/wallboard/lights etc. $3300 a month, on average? Jesus Roosevelt Christ.
Now, I know plenty of folks are glad to have these FEMA trailers. At least it’s a roof and four walls, as flexible as they might be, so they can live on their own property while they do work on their place. But there’s gotta be a better way. So many homeowners have yet to see bupkis from their insurance and their personal repair dollars have about run out.
Speaking of insurance, it has been nearly four full months since I saw the initial adjustor at my place of business. He died shortly afterward, so let’s say it has been over three months since Adjustor #2 visited my place. Have I seen Dollar One? No. The weird thng is, my insurance company WANTS to pay me, or at least that’s what they say. They’re all falling all over themselves every Friday when I call, but it seems the holdup is with the independent adjusting firm in Baton Rouge, which never returns my calls. There are thousands of others of us are in the same boat — everyone feels sorry, but it’s always someone else’s fault you haven’t gotten help yet.
And, again on the subject of insurance, I have received my homeowner’s insurance bill for the coming year. Not surprisingly, it has doubled. Good thing I didn’t have enough damage to file a homeowner’s claim, so I’m counting myself highly lucky there.
I keep telling myself how lucky we are that we’ve had so much go right for us in all this. But we’re coming up on the five-month anniversary of this storm, and that’s a long time to wait (too freaking long) when so many folks are self-financing themselves out of a disaster. My business landlord, my next-door neighbor and seemingly two-thirds of the people I talk to are still waiting on some kind of help we’ve pre-paid for.
I guarandamntee you none of these companies are willing to wait five months for us to pay our premiums.
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Amen!!!!
It has been 5 months and all my adjusters are finally satisfied they have run me over the coals enough about what I lost, how I lost it, and what the definition of ‘uninhabitable’ is. I *just* got my first check last week. I am supposed to be getting 4 checks from 3 different sources. The one I did get of course was the one for the 200 someodd bucks worth of food that spoiled in my fridge. The biggest one, from my business insurer that should include business interruption coverage, is still nowhere to be seen.
I think what needs to happen is that someone needs to successfully sue an insurer in Civil District Court and be awarded a)what they were supposed to get 3-4 months ago b)interest on that amount and c)penalties totaling 5x what they were supposed to get for failure to settle a claim in a timely fashion. First time that happens, there will be a few hundred claims people walking around the city cutting people checks for their claims and hand delivering them to boot.
That’s exactly what I was thinking but didn’t know how to word it. Thanks NO_DOC. +1
We also have to get madder and bitch about the “Dutch Solution” a helluva’ lot more.
It’s going to be an over priced, forced federally regulated load of shit
that will not have the ability to float over water with 200 mph winds
and water forces lapping it into the Gulf of Mexico - this is an extreme waste
of federal money!! Get pissed about some thing real!
All money is green folks.
Come on, the “Swiss Mix” isn’t gonna’ make itself…
Laurie
Is Metroblogging New Orleans censoring comments? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, as you believe I’m a “new user” and put my lost comment here into approval - but where is it?
No censorship far as I know. But sometimes there are comments entered improperly and they don’t show or they show twice.
Last week I picke a guy up in Nebraska who said he was a refugee from Miss. He had been injured and lost his truck and tools in Katrina. He was sent to ND for medical treatment, and to Minn for recovery. He was unable to get employment but FEMA contacted him there and promised $8400 for his truck and tools, but not til March. Job service sent him to Oregon for work, but when he got there the project was finished. He headed back to Miss expecting work, but since he had no home, vehicle or job, he was turned away. Is this for real? I went to 2 different shelters to get him off of the road. Who is getting rich off of all the aid?
Not the people who need the money.
Laurie
Well Dean, I would be very skeptical about your gent being the real deal, as it seems every grifter and hard luck case in the US is suddenly from LA or MS. Also, most of the MS medical evacuees who left the state either went to TN, FL or AL per the people who were in charge at the time. Most LA medical evacuees who left the state went to TX or AK. However, the majority of medical evacs landed people in either LA or MS.
That being said, most of the people I know got the inital FEMA aid, but have long since gone through it. Most have not received their insurance checks. Many are without housing of their own and are living with family of friends. The healthcare system in New Orleans is fried extra-crispy and can’t handle the people we have down here already for lack of nurses, nurses’ aides, foodservice and security personel, janitors/housecleaners, radiology techs and just about anyone else you can name. Including doctors. Overall, we are better than we were three weeks after Katrina, but if we were 20% then we might be 45-55% now, and that was the relatively cheap and easy stuff to fix.
What FEMA money?