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| Two of the thousands of Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria temporarily living in U.S. motels |
If Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials in Washington don't extend an emergency aid program known as the Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program in the next two days, thousands of hurricane refugees could face eviction this Saturday June 30th.
As a real estate professional who works in the industry, there's nothing more heart-breaking to witness, or be a part of than an eviction - even if a resident has done something to deserve it.
In the same way that separating immigrant children from their parents and incarcerating them is a violation of the very principles the United States was founded upon, the idea that an agency of the federal government could be responsible for a mass eviction of U.S. citizens who fled an island nation ravaged by a hurricane is simply outrageous.
And just as outrageous as the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding Trump's overtly racist and discriminatory travel ban earlier yesterday in a closely-watched 5-4 decision.
Even as thousands of Americans prepare to attend mass protests against the Trump administration's heartless immigration policies this Saturday June 30th in Washington, New York and other cities, it could be a really shitty weekend for many of the 2,300 displaced Puerto Rican families currently depending on vouchers from FEMA's TSA program to live in motels around the U.S.
Given Trump's full descent down into a dark, racist, unhinged obsession with scapegoating and vilifying non-white immigrants in a desperate effort to rally the conservative supporters who applaud his vile bigotry and concocted rage, it's not surprising that mainstream media coverage of his repugnant tweets, repeated lies and conflicting statements on immigration is overshadowing so many other important news stories.
Like the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico and the looming expiration of FEMA's TSA voucher program.
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| Maria Baez-Claudio and her 5-YO grandson who has cerebral palsy wait for his school bus to arrive |
For example, "The Disaster Is Not Over", an 8-minute digital documentary produced by NBC News' NBC Latino, looks at the story of Maria Baez-Claudio (pictured left).
She's a healthcare professional from Puerto Rico displaced by Hurricane Maria who currently lives in a Super 8 Motel in Kissimmee, Florida with the help of a TSA emergency rental subsidy voucher provided by FEMA.
She's a the sole caregiver of her 5-year-old grandson Christian Dariel, a wheel-chair-bound special needs child with cerebral palsy who needs constant supervision to eat, and dress - he must wear diapers because he is unable to use the toilet on his own.
As the short NBC documentary shows, Baez-Claudio applied to FEMA for an extension on the emergency rental subsidy she receives, but her application was denied because FEMA officials now claim that Puerto Rico is now "livable".
But as CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reported back on June 1st, on the first official day of the 2018 hurricane season, a staggering 11,000 customers of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority who lost power last fall after Hurricane Maria hit, are still without electricity.
And many of the homes that are still partially standing, particularly those in hard-hit rural areas, still haven't been repaired and have roofs and walls covered by blue plastic tarp at a time when Puerto Rico's hot, muggy season stretches from May to October - temperatures in July are expected to average in the upper 80's and low 90's.
Activists in Florida are currently urging the passage of some kind of humanitarian intervention by Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott and the Republican-majority Florida legislature - but that's the same state legislature that has diverted $1.3 billion over the past decade from state funds earmarked for affordable housing to the general fund to spend on other programs.
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| Tamara Rivera-Santiago & Marinelys Cartagena in front of the Lancaster, PA motel where they've been living |
With no clear idea of where she and her grandson will go, or how they will live.
Try and imagine having that on your mind as you look across a motel room at your 5-year-old grandson.
An innocent child afflicted with cerebral palsy.
That same haunting uncertainty is also being faced by hurricane-displaced Puerto Ricans in 30 other states including Lancaster, Pennsylvania where Tamara Rivera-Santiago and her three children, and Marinelys Cartagena (pictured above) and her four children have been staying in the Budget Host Inn just outside Lancaster with the aid of temporary emergency vouchers provided by FEMA's TSA program.
As reporter Tim Stuhldreher reported for Lancaster Online back in April, both women fled their respective towns in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria last fall due to lack of electricity and long lines for basics like food, fresh water and gasoline.
According to Stuhldreher's article, Rivera-Santiago had a job in Puerto Rico working at a bakery, but the business closed when it could no longer get supplies from the U.S. mainland to operate - so she had to flee the island with her children.
While Stuhldreher reports that various local charities in the Lancaster area have organized to try and assist some of the hundreds of Puerto Ricans who arrived in the local area after Hurricane Maria (Lancaster already had a fairly large Puerto Rican population before the storm), at least seven families temporarily being housed in the Budget Host Inn with FEMA assistance could be forced to leave this Saturday.
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| Embattled (and reviled) DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen |
Remember, FEMA is under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security which is currently headed by Kirstjen Nielsen - a heartless, right-wing Trump sycophant whose become the face of Trump's vile anti-immigrant bigotry.
Nielsen spent much of the past two weeks defending a widely-reviled border policy that criminalized people seeking asylum in the U.S. and separated their children from them.
Nielsen was famously confronted by protesters who booed and shouted "Shame!" at her at a DC-area Mexican restaurant last week, and according to Yahoo News, last Friday morning, a large group of protesters stood outside her townhouse in Virginia and played audio recordings of unaccompanied immigrant children crying for their parents and chanted "How do you sleep at night?"
So even though Puerto Ricans are in fact American citizens, in the narrow lens of a Trump administration rooted in racism, xenophobia and bigotry, they are non-white people - the likelihood of DHS extending FEMA's TSA housing voucher program is slim.
In addition to insisting that Puerto Rico is now "livable", FEMA (under Nielsen and Trump) is instead contacting some of the 2,300 displaced Puerto Ricans currently housed in motels around the U.S. and offering them one-way plane tickets back to the hurricane-ravaged island as hurricane season gets underway.
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| NJ Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy visits a shelter in San Juan, Puerto Rico back in December |
Here in New Jersey, back in February, two months after visiting the island of Puerto Rico with other state politicians to inspect the devastating hurricane damage, newly-elected Democratic Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order creating an 18-member, three-month commission tasked with finding ways to help the 30,000-plus displaced Puerto Ricans currently living in the Garden State.
Back in March, I listened to a segment on NPR's The Takeaway documenting the many difficulties faced by some of the many Puerto Rican Americans still living in motels around the country six months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island - where hundreds of small business that residents depend on are still closed on an island that was already facing an economic crisis.
I heard some of those stories first-hand from displaced Puerto Ricans in months following Hurricane Maria.
One of the most difficult aspects of my day job managing the leasing for a residential apartment community in Hamilton, New Jersey is having to be the person responsible for delivering bad news to anxious people in transition desperate to get an apartment.
It's especially hard when you have good people whose applications are denied due to circumstances that they had nothing to do with; like a messy divorce that torpedoed someone's credit because of an ex-spouse's poor financial decisions.
Or an applicant who works two jobs and has solid income who's application is denied because they were injured on the job and the reduced pay from workman's compensation caused them to be late on their rent four times in a 12-month period before they got back on their feet again.
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| The Quinones family in their Queens, NY hotel room |
And the difficulties and stress of the transition made it extremely difficult to find work, and arrange for child care while adjusting to living in a new city or town.
As reporter Alexandra Starr reported in a segment for WNYC back in January, the plight of Christopher and Charline Quinones (pictured left) is a perfect example.
Both parents wake early for an almost 2-hour commute into Manhattan where they search for work - they're lucky enough that grandmother Rosa can stay "home" and watch the girls during the day.
But the stress of trying to find a job, living in cramped quarters with five people and being far from their relatives who are still back in Puerto Rico weighs heavily on the family - multiply their story by thousands and you get a basic sense of the ongoing humanitarian and housing crisis that's happening to American citizens right.
Back in late November and December of 2017, more than a few people from Puerto Rico who'd been forced to flee the devastation of Hurricane Maria called or emailed my office desperately looking for affordable housing.
Unfortunately, the income and residency requirements that the privately-owned real estate management company I work for uses to screen applicants made it impossible for the displaced Puerto Ricans I spoke or emailed with to get approved for the 2-bedroom apartments they were usually seeking.
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| Displaced Puerto Ricans in a temporary shelter in Orlando, Florida days after Hurricane Maria |
That's not the case for all, a number of displaced people from Puerto Rico already had family ties or friends living in the U.S. - some were lucky enough to able to temporarily shack up with loved ones, find work and save enough money to get their own place.
But for many displaced people, meeting the application screening criteria, including income and credit checks, plus coming up with the application fees, first month's rent and security deposit (some properties also want last month's rent up front too), just made finding a decent place too steep a hill to climb - even when they had already managed to find work here.
It's not like anyone called me in tears or anything, but I could hear the tension in the voices of Puerto Ricans who called me; they called me from New York, Florida, New Jersey and I even got some calls from as far north as Boston and Connecticut.
To a degree, these were some of the lucky ones, people who'd been able to get flights off the island to reach U.S. cities like Miami, Atlanta and New York relatively soon after Maria totally devastated Puerto Rico - many were able to find temporary shelter with relatives who already lived here.
By the time most reached my office they were coming to grips with the reality that most apartment applicants need to show proof of monthly income to get an application approved.
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| Trump throws paper towels with thousands of Puerto Ricans without power and many missing |
It's not easy telling desperate Americans devastated by a natural disaster doing everything possible to get back on their feet that they can't qualify for an apartment.
The Trump administration's handling of aid to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria was epic fail.
And questionable at best (who can forget Trump throwing paper towels to displaced residents seeking federal assistance?), so in my view FEMA at least bears a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure that Americans displaced by that natural disaster have decent housing while they find a way to get back on their feet.
FEMA provided housing subsidies to victims of other U.S. hurricanes like Katrina for two or even more years - it's only nine months since Hurricane Maria and the federal agency under Kirstjen Nielsen and Trump are already trying to yank housing vouchers out from under the feet of those who still need them.
A decision that's clearly linked with the heartless ethnic and racial bias that's defined the Trump administration's approach to, well, pretty much everything.
FEMA has two days left to grant an extension of the TSA program.
But with the White House currently obsessed with deporting non-white people (even American citizens like Puerto Ricans), this Saturday when the TSA deadline expires, the sanctity of finding a home even could become even more elusive than it already is for those still in need of a helping hand.
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