Post by Shadow on Sept 10, 2005 9:35:49 GMT -5
Breitbart
By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
The federal government's relief agency said Friday it will discontinue its program to distribute $2,000 debit cards to hurricane victims and use bank deposits instead, two days after hastily announcing the novel plan to provide quick relief.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it will scrap the program once officials finish distributing cards this weekend at shelters in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, where many of the evacuees were moved. No cards will be issued to victims in other states.
Hurricane victims at other locations will have to apply for expedited aid through the agency's traditional route _ filling out information on FEMA's Web site to receive direct bank deposits, FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule said.
"We tried it as an innovative way to get aid to evacuee populations in Texas. We decided it would be more expeditious with direct deposits," she said, citing the large staffing operation that would be required to replicate the Texas operation in other states.
Under fire for its initial response to the hurricane, FEMA Director Michael Brown had announced the debit card program as a way to quickly get $2,000 to the neediest families and empower them "to make their own decisions about what do they need to have to start rebuilding their lives."
He did not describe the program as applying only to Texas, which has accepted the largest number of evacuees and is the home state of President Bush, though Rule said that always was the plan.
They have no homes and in some cases just the clothes on their backs...
How do you do a direct depoist into a bank that is under twenty feet of water?!?
By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
The federal government's relief agency said Friday it will discontinue its program to distribute $2,000 debit cards to hurricane victims and use bank deposits instead, two days after hastily announcing the novel plan to provide quick relief.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it will scrap the program once officials finish distributing cards this weekend at shelters in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, where many of the evacuees were moved. No cards will be issued to victims in other states.
Hurricane victims at other locations will have to apply for expedited aid through the agency's traditional route _ filling out information on FEMA's Web site to receive direct bank deposits, FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule said.
"We tried it as an innovative way to get aid to evacuee populations in Texas. We decided it would be more expeditious with direct deposits," she said, citing the large staffing operation that would be required to replicate the Texas operation in other states.
Under fire for its initial response to the hurricane, FEMA Director Michael Brown had announced the debit card program as a way to quickly get $2,000 to the neediest families and empower them "to make their own decisions about what do they need to have to start rebuilding their lives."
He did not describe the program as applying only to Texas, which has accepted the largest number of evacuees and is the home state of President Bush, though Rule said that always was the plan.
They have no homes and in some cases just the clothes on their backs...
How do you do a direct depoist into a bank that is under twenty feet of water?!?