Come on, Y'all

So far, it's been a nice, lazy Saturday, mostly.

The dog woke me up about 9am with an urgency which expressed a desperate need to leave the building. That was followed by a collect call from a pay phone from someone seeking assistance who'd remembered enough of my name to get a home number from the directory. It wouldn't have been a problem if I'd actually known the person as a church member or true acquaintance, but I don't give rides to people I don't know.

Beyond that, nothing particularly exciting is happening. My accomplishments to this point include procuring a camcorder to record a second sermon for distribution in the church search, wrangling an agreement from my son to videotape said sermon tomorrow, responding to a couple of emails, working a couple of crossword puzzles, and slowly meandering my way through two newspapers.

Then my eye lit on this headline: Thousands still wait for Rita aid money. The bullet point reads: Auditor finds two-thirds of cash for Texas unspent.

OUTRAGEOUS!!

Okay. I'll bite. Yes, federal monies generally come with red tape. State officials are right to do what they can to avoid fraud. But this is ridiculous!

How many more hurricanes have to come crashing through the area before homes initially damaged in Rita, and already approved for assistance, are repaired? I went to a couple of meetings after Ike roared through town and was flabbergasted to hear that there would bee a need to distinguish between Rita damage and Ike damage. I guess you can't use Rita money on Ike damage? Even if the Ike damage was caused by the fact that the state futzed around with the Rita recovery money and didn't get the initial repairs done, which might have prevented the additional damage in the first place?

Get real, people!

These families are hurting. They are families who didn't have much except their homes before the first storm hit. For the vast majority of them, they are living in housing which was probably untenentable right after Rita came through and is in even worse shape after Ike.

It may be a false assumption, but I'm assuming the state has those multi-millions that are laying idle in some kind of interest-bearing account. It would be stupid of them not to. (But I wouldn't put a bit of stupidity past most governmental entities.) If there is interest being earned, will those monies head toward hurricane damaged areas for repairs that weren't funded the first time around? It seems that we ought to end up with some kind of benefit for the unconscionable delay in releasing the funds.

I know it takes time for governments to take action, and I know it takes time to recover from disasters of the proportions of Rita and Ike. However, families that suffered housing losses in Rita will never truly begin their own recoveries until their homes have been repaired. Is it right for us (as in govermnent) to continue to delay that recovery just because some minor percentage of individuals may commit fraud? These literally poor people have been through the bureaucratic wringer and come out of the process mauled. Anyone who's hung on this long probably has more than earned the right to a repaired home!

Come on, state officials! Let's get this recovery in full gear before the next version of Her Horribleness or His Hirrobleness comes roaring through town and not only adds insult to injury, but contempt to the pains that have already been endured.