Now That's Just Crazy!

Oh, wait, I forgot.  My city says I have to be out of my camper BY March 1.  No campers, trailers or Katrina cottages may remain after that date.  This is the same city that is nitpicking me to DEATH over ridiculous details that are not critical but they can enforce if they WANT to.  And apparently, they want to.   Because they won't let me pass the open inspection no matter WHAT I do.  I've been through the budget of FOUR volunteer agencies as well as about $35,000 I paid for work to pass this danged inspection and every time they show up, it's a longer list than before.  Latest estimate on how much it will cost to get past the inspection now is ANOTHER $15,000.  This is the same city that says I can't live in my house in it's current condition.  Now I can't live in the FEMA camper, either.  So I can only live in the driveway.  I sure wish my two tents hadn't been stolen while I was at work!  Now I need them. 

The Feds and State have come up with every plan to *help* those of us who are still struggling to get back into our homes except what we really freakin NEED.  And that is two things.....enough money to complete repairs AND someone to run interference with these building inspectors who think it's a real scream to jerk us around.  If your home is not livable by now, it does not mean that you are lazy or greedy or stupid or think the world owes you a living.  It means that you were probably at work and missed all the help agencies of which there are very few left.  It means you probably got screwed over by an idiotic or unscrupulous contractor and had to spend the rest of your rebuilding money to fix what they did.  It means you have probably been jerked around by the building inspectors and have done the same work over and over and over again because each one has a different opinion or the same one can't remember what he said from one visit to the next.  And of course, they all deny ANY of this is true, when every word is, hand to God, I'm not kidding.  It probably means you had to do mitigations that were supposed to be covered by a mitigations grant but ended up not being covered.  But you have to do the mitigations anyway, most costing tens of thousands of dollars.  It probably means you are STILL waiting for money from your insurance company.  You are probably disabled or a middle aged single female or couple over 65.

Personally, I am a middle aged single disabled female.  Although I wasn't disabled until I started living in the camper and actually, not until June 08.  I used to be quite robust and healthy, but my body functions are beginning to shut down now.  I have been screwed over by idiotic AND unscrupulous contractors, paid to have work they did redone, some work was never done at all, some is still left to be fixed, had to do about $23,000 in water mitigations from the grant that was supposed to just barely fix my home and was cut from the mitigations grant, been jerked around by building inspectors to the point where nearly everything in my house has been rebuilt 3 times and I lost out on a LOT of help because I was at work when they came by my house.  By the time I figured out I HAD to be home, they were starting to leave.

Just to keep things interesting, FEMA would stop by 3 to 5 times a month and God help you if you weren't there when they came or there would be a VERY curt note left there that was slightly threatening in tone held to the door with huge pieces of red duct tape.  They spent enough money on people to come to my house to make sure I wasn't damaging their Toxic Trailer that has to be crushed when they take it from me and to make sure I still *need* it (like I would rather stay in that 200 s.f. tin can than my 2640 s.f. home) for me to not only finish fixing my house, but maybe even have a bed and couch!  You can just feeeel the eyeroll, can't you?  Last month it finally went down to just one person who came to tell me I'm about to lose the only shelter I have and the Feds are done with me.

Now that I am not able to work anymore, I constantly stand on the edge of foreclosure.  My mama saved the house once and now I hover on the edge again.  If I lose the house now, I lose every penny of my retirement.  EVERY PENNY.  I don't have enough years left to work (if I am ever able to drive again) to replace that.  My credit is destroyed because of all of this, down from 718 to probably off the scale, now.  Not being able to work has just finished me off.  There is no agency to help someone like me and I am by no means the exception to the rule, I AM the rule.  There are thousands JUST LIKE me.  There is no program to help those disabled by breathing the corrupt air in the campers.  Those whose thyroid has shut down, who suffer severe breathing problems, etc.  We live in a state where if you don't have children, the only help that is available to you is food stamps if you become disabled and are not 65 or older.  We are sick because of the campers.  The campers came from FEMA during the bush administration.  We are still in those campers because special circumstances surround our recovery and there is no remedy for those circumstances.

But the bush administration has done enough for the thousands who remain essentially homeless.

REALLY??????

Those of us who are about to become homeless people with mortgages would like to know how many of our tax dollars are going overseas to fix Iraq this year.  How much has gone there since August 29, 2005?

But enough has been done for their own countrymen, the people who put them all in office and pay their salaries.  Easy to say on your way out of town, eh?  Too bad it's not on a RAIL.