States struggle to shelter the dispossessed

New Mexico, Arizona offer aid
In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson declared a state of emergency and released about $1 million to help victims of Katrina as the first of up to 6,000 evacuees arrived Sunday. He also relaxed certain state transportation rules to speed up the building of temporary housing for the refugees.

Refugees also began arriving in Arizona, which has agreed to take up to 2,500. They were greeted on the runway by Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

Several people had to be helped off the plane and down the stairway to the tarmac, where pink, yellow, teal and black flip-flops had been set out for them.

Then, carrying garbage bags, backpacks and brown shopping bags with their only belongings, the evacuees were led into the airport for physicals before boarding buses to the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“We’ll take care of them,” Gordon said. “We’ll make sure they know that the city cares.”

Other states pitch in
In Denver, Qwest Communications set up a bank of at least 50 phones at a processing center so refugees could call their loved ones. Colorado state Rep. Debbie Stafford said she was trying to arrange long-term shelter for the storm’s victims, and also reunite people with their cats and dogs.

State and local officials in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia and other states with a refugee influx began setting up programs to link refugees with employers. Business owners are trying to help, too.

KATRINA: SHELTERING THE DISPOSSESSED A breakdown of American Red Cross shelters set up in eight states to handle Hurricane Katrina victims. These figures do not include victims still in New Orleans, or at hotels, motels or church or state shelters across the South. — Texas: 74 shelters, including the Astrodome; 56,000 people — Louisiana: 175 shelters; 55,000 people — Mississippi: 113 shelters; 17,000 people — Alabama: 48 shelters; 5,200 people — Florida: 41 shelters; 3,600 people — Arkansas: 7 shelters; 3,000 people — Georgia: 17 shelters; 1,100 people — Tennessee: 3 shelters; 1,000 people

In Richland, Miss., a fast-food restaurant hung fliers offering jobs at a shelter. A steel company sent employees to a shelter at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson to recruit new workers. And Craigslist, the Internet-based classified advertising service, was filled with job offers for victims willing to relocate.

Pene Long, who owns a spa in Richland, said she had given a stylist’s job to a woman whose home in Biloxi was devastated. Long said she was going to hire nine more displaced people.

“I was getting ready to put a big ad in the paper, and I said, ‘Why would I do that?’ There are tons of people out here looking for work,” she said.

At the Houston Astrodome, evacuees were issued jeans, T-shirts, underwear, socks, hats, sneakers, sandals and other clothes, along with toiletries, aspirin, towels and other items. They were allowed to make free long-distance phone calls, courtesy of SBC Communications.

Torres Smith, 42, a machine operator at a New Orleans seafood plant before Katrina hit, was evacuated along with his wife and four children and is now sleeping on a cot in what used to be centerfield in the Astrodome.

“As far as I can tell, this is going to be our new home for a long time,” he said. “I’ll do anything — cut grass, wash windows, wax floors. I can’t just sit around here, looking at people lying in their cots. I feel like I have to be a part of something positive.”

Simon Henderson, 47, an electrician, carpenter and plumber who stepped off a refugee bus from New Orleans a week ago, is now helping out other refugees at his new residence, the Reliant Center across the street from the Houston Astrodome.

On Saturday, he helped relief workers build 16 new shower stalls. On Sunday, he was helping a team of paramedics.

“They’re feeding me. They’re housing me,” he said, while rushing bags of batteries for blood pressure gauges and hearing aids into the center. “This is the least I can do.”

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