Saturday, December 8, 2007

We are the people of Renaissance Village

Renaissance Village has many times been referred too as“FEMA's Dirty Little Secret”. It is more likely that RenaissanceVillage is FEMA’s and HUD’s “Inconvenient Truth”. The sky might have been blue over Renaissance Village, but it is always raining in our world.
Where hope is disappointment.
Where recovery is a mirage.
Where life is a nightmare.
Where housing assistance is a dream.
Where confusion is everywhere.
Where compassion is fleeting.
Where depression is reality.
Where FEMA travel trailer means Sickness and Death.
We ask you to Please take the time to listen and learn,because the truth can only speak if you take the time to listen.We also ask you to take action in anyway you can to help themistreated people. Disasters will happen again, and when thenext one comes, you might be the one wanting fair and impartialtreatment. Renaissance Village is row after row after row of 573stark white Travel Trailers crammed onto a vast dusty lot. They are placed in such close quarters and have so little insulation thatif you sneeze in side your trailer, your next door neighbor feelsobligated to say god bless you from inside their trailer, and if you belch you feel obligated to say excuse me to your neighbor. It was built as temporary housing for those left homeless byHurricanes Katrina or Rita. They are not homes they areweekend campers designed to be lived in 30 hours a month onweekend trips or vacations. With one or two people in a total living space for bedrooms, living room, kitchen, dinning room,and bathroom of 125 square feet to 225 square feet it is hard let alone families with 6 to 8 people, some of which will be children. If you do not think this is a hardship on a family Isuggest you try it for a week, no try it for over 100 weeks. Not tomention the effect that it has on the children spending 1/8 of their childhood in a place like this. The 62-acre park was built on pasture land owned by the nearby Jetson Center for Youth. It is like other trailer sites that the Federal Emergency ManagementAgency (FEMA) has erected around Louisiana since HurricanesKatrina and Rita. Although it is considerably bigger than most itcertainly isn’t pretty. The roads that separate the travel trailers are covered with dusty gravel that radiates clouds of gray dust every time a car passes by, every breeze creates a dust that fills your lungs. The dust hangs in the air and leaves an uncomfortable film over your entire body and everything else atthe FEMA site.
When it rains the site is turned into a river ofwater and a lakes of water and mud.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This seems a recent post. Having spent LOTS of time in RV in 05/06, can you tell me, who manages that park now?

Also, the trailers were meant as temporary housing, and the park opened around 29 months ago. It was never meant to be a permanent solution, yet much of the piece revolves around the shortcomings of ANY trailer park. Is your beef with FEMA for providing it at all?

I'm just trying to understand.