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Author Topic: What the heck? (Weird story about evacuee)
Kayla
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/washpost/20050911/ts_washpost/in_rural_texas__blessings_and_culture_shock

This line made me think the write was. . . over reaching.

quote:
Summoning all his wit and charm, he began the task of resettling his people.

quote:
For the Jackson family, some members are seeing a new beginning kick-started by a portfolio of aid: up to $2,000 from the federal government, local contributions of up to $500, gas vouchers and food stamps, a month's free rent, donated furniture and other help. "This might leave me better than I was," said Oscar's cousin, Keith Conrad, whose employer in New Orleans, Cisco Food Service, quickly placed him in a job in San Antonio and gave him a loaner car to commute from Seguin.
Okay, no problem there.

It would be a downward slide for his parents, however. They had saved their entire lives and finally bought a house.

quote:
Oscar was essentially relocating a complex habitat of humans. Technically, they weren't all Jacksons -- there were the Lees, the Strongs, the Goodwins -- but they were all somehow related to Oscar, and survival had bound them together. In New Orleans, some of them were renters, some lived in Section 8 housing and a precious few held mortgages. Most were working class: a window washer, a cook at Pat O'Brien's, a food service delivery driver, a courier, a cashier at a gourmet grocery store, a security guard, a bank teller, and a construction worker.
Okay, she makes it sound like he's relocating an entire nation of people and it's only 24-32 people (depending on the part of the story,) and it's not like he's actually responsible for all of them. If anything, I would think his father is probably more in charge of the group, but whatever.

This is the part that just kills me.

quote:
As a car salesman, Oscar earned about $6,000 a month, making him the top breadwinner. His sister, Paula, a licensed nurse practitioner, held two full-time jobs in New Orleans. All lived paycheck to paycheck.
$72,000 a year and he's living paycheck to paycheck in Section 8 housing? What the heck?!?

quote:
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church volunteers worked 24-7 refurbishing an arts-and-crafts house to make available for an evacuee family. "It's a risky thing in these days and times," said Lynn Campaigne, one of the volunteers who was spurred to action after watching images from New Orleans. "As our lawyer said, 'You have to remember these people have nothing. They're not necessarily people who are going to say, Oh, thank you.' " But compassion trumped all concerns and church volunteers steamed ahead, trying to get the house ready.
Huh?

quote:
Most nights, Oscar and his relatives were fed dinner by His Way Community Church. In addition to nightly meals, pastor William Butler helped provide resolution when tensions over money arose. The situation was ripe for exploitation. Another evacuee in town -- unrelated to the Jacksons -- stood in front of the Wal-Mart with his sad story, pocketing $800 but giving the four women in his group only $25 each.

The Jackson families agreed that all donations would be split evenly. The $3,000 Wal-Mart card someone gave them was carved up 24 ways.

Okay.

quote:
Privately, the pastor worried they were taking too many trips to Wal-Mart. "They want to open that junk drawer that we all have in our homes, and have a drawer full of junk."
[Roll Eyes]

How annoying is it to have someone judge you?


quote:
A group called Seguin Area Recovery, formed after the 1998 floods, had raised $20,000 for the New Orleans evacuees and was prepared to help.
How?

quote:
A fragile existence was taking hold. Oscar learned that his car dealership would pay him two months' salary. On Friday, both of his sisters landed jobs, one in a mental health clinic and the other as a telemarketer. Oscar's cousin, Keith, was waking at 3:30 in the morning to drive to his job with Cisco in San Antonio.

So, they got jobs and Oscar is getting 12 grand. Why are they in Section 8 again?




This story was annoying for so many reasons. Arg.

Is it just me? I can't even figure out why it bothers me so much.

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Theaca
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Maybe because someone making $72,000 a year doesn't have much excuse for living paycheck to paycheck? And nurse practitioners make pretty good money too. My parents know a lot of people that squander their money every year and don't save anything. Expect that they'll be taken care of by the government when they run out of money after retirement. I can't understand that mentality at all.

...

OK, now I read it more in detail and it just keeps jumping around. And in one place it calls Paula a nurse practitioner and another place it calls her an LPN. HUGE difference.

I can't tell much of anything from that story except that the culture shock was a tad overdone and she didn't do much research.

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TomDavidson
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I suspect that she latched onto one or two of the more charismatic people in the group and left out the crunchy bits. For example, Oscar is most likely supporting other members of his family or has outstanding debts; he's also a car salesman, which means that anything he says about his income is almost certainly a lie.
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