Katrina Confinement Rage: Captured in a paper prison

2/24/07 Kathleen Johnson.

One of the outcomes of the Katrina FEMA housing experiment is the raw emotional reaction of residents to living “confined” in FEMA trailers and also captured in an endless paper trail for assistance. It is a chronic state of learned helplessness as the FEMA system flexes its power by increasing the aggressive manner in which it demands the residents find solutions to this canned housing in a geographical area devoid of housing solutions because of the total devastation of the local housing market, lack of manpower and materials to rebuild, the demise of the economic engine that supported their household – employment, decimation of the property tax base that supports the local infrastructure, and the impossible task of navigating the solution trail laid by Federal, State and local government - leaving most in a paper prison.

The quest for a solution

The confinement rage manifests not only from the stress of confinement in FEMA trailer housing but also to the inflexible boundaries of the FEMA guidelines that have excluded those renting at the time of the storm, those buying land “contract for deed”, those “living” in another’s domicile, the insurance industry denial of claims with the wind vs. water war, and a slow unresponsive drudgery of an endless paper work trail for grants meant to makeup the shortfall in insurance monies for re-building. The Federal funds allotted to the States to quiet, for the most part, the insurance industries failure to meet its obligations, has itself, quagmired. The solution flexed its power by dehumanizing the residents with a humiliating paper trail and agonizing year long plus wait for funds that, in most cases, will only replace materials and not pay for a contractor thus leaving the homeowner dependent on the ever spiraling down volunteer labor pool. The solution is twenty years hence. Some will be first – someone will be last. Some will never rebuild at all.

System Facilitator – the Case Manager

The one facilitator the system has to abate some of these issues, the “Case Manager”, turns out to be an entity supplied by “donation of labor” outside the FEMA platform. There is a chronic shortage of Case Managers and there are no funds allotted to pay Case Managers although some of the larger Disaster Relief Organizations (DRO) do pay their Case Managers up to $38,000 per year. In Hancock County, where there are 46,000 residents, there are about 20 Case Managers (paid and volunteer) which would mean a resident load of approximately 2,300 residents per Case Manager. With 12,000 homes damaged - that would mean that each Case Manager would have 600 cases. In a real world Case Managers are expected to manage approximately 30 cases a year. For most grants outside the government sector – the resident must have a Case Manager apply for them. For issues related to the paper chase - it's the Case Manager that can help the resident wade thru the layers of bureaucracy, assist with construction management issues, and solicit volunteers and resources. For the elderly - that task can be daunting or impossible without a Case Manager.

Confinement Rage

Just like in a prison – these residents captured in this paper prison. It took a tedious paper trail to get the FEMA trailer. It takes an even longer convoluted paper trail to exit to a real housing solution.

As “outsiders” the Case Managers glimpse the pathological reactions of residents to the prolonged confinement in FEMA trailers and the confinement of the fiscal solutions available to them. It is manifested in resentment- even rage against a system that has set these inflexible boundaries The raw emotional reactions are evident every day in the office and home visits. There is a general deterioration into pathological behavior The symptoms include depression, severe chronic headaches, dissociation, inability to concentrate, repressed rage, inability to plan beyond the moment, developmental regression, impaired impulse control, inability to anticipate logical consequences of the failure to comply to deadlines on FEMA funding programs, out of control obsessive thinking, borderline personality traits, alcoholism and drug abuse.

Some residents become passive while others become rebellious, and the assigned government officials who were completing their tasks with compassion did nothing to stop the government officials that reveled in exercising their power over the residents making their life difficult with frivolous requests for more “paperwork” lasting up to eighteen months. In some cases it becomes a game of tag between officials and their supervisors with one or both being divisive leaving the resident languishing without a solution while the petty bickering went on behind the scenes.

The symptoms of this confinement rage amongst the caretakers themselves is kindly labeled compassion fatigue. The symptoms of this rage are manifested in resignations, lack of productivity, conflict in the work environment, turf wars between DRO’s, and often the denigration spirals down to outright libel, slander and mud slinging coupled with ongoing local, State, and Federal investigations as problems arise with missing funds and misappropriated donations.

Viewing the outcome thru a prism

In the years to come it will be interesting to read the sociologists conclusions on this unique type behavior as a result of the confinement paradigm that has come out of the Katrina disaster – long term confinement in a confined living space and the accompanying paper prison. The breadth and scope of this disaster will provide enormous hindsight into what will work in the future. Unfortunately the rebuilding program is projected to take up to twenty years – the indices by which the sociologist conducts his research and draws conclusions are here now. We really need the sociologists input sooner than later. The preconceived notion of the FEMA trailer solution must give way to scientific methodology and, with objectivity; we must be open to new ideas. The solution is needed now and must be flexible like light thru a prism and not a confinement system akin to a paper prison.