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The residents of Belle Harbor Manor spent four miserable months in emergency shelters after Superstorm Sandy's floodwaters surged through their assisted-living center on New York City's Rockaway peninsula.
Now, the home's disabled, elderly and mostly poor residents have a new headache: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has asked at least a dozen of them to pay back thousands of dollars in disaster aid.
Robert Rosenberg, 61, was among the Belle Harbor Manor residents who recently got notices from FEMA informing them that they had retroactively been declared ineligible for aid checks they received two years ago in the storm's immediate aftermath. FEMA gave Rosenberg until Nov. 15 to send a refund check for $2,486 or file an appeal.
The head of FEMA and all those responsible for this huge mistake should be the ones required to pay back the money they illegally distributed to the wrong people, and then face disciplinary action. Such as firing for failure to do the job for which they were hired. It is this kind of government blunders that show the people of America that government workers do not do their jobs to the fullest capacity
"Everyone asked, 'Do we have to pay this back later on? Is it a loan?' They said, 'No. It's a gift from Obama,'" he said."
What a bunch of horse manure from these "victims"..
They collected (and happily spent!) a bunch of money for housing, spent it on something else entirely & now they're crying about being "on a fixed income".
Their *spending* sure isn't "fixed"..
The people who paid that money into the federal government don't get a "fixed income", their income might go away at any time, with or without cause.
Eh, Im of the view that if you give someone money then that should be considered a "forever lost" exchange. People spend money, that's what we do. And if an agency gives money to someone, theyre going to spend it. If you as an agency gave someone money in error, that's on you not them. Of course opinions are like b-holes, everyones got them.....
Eh, Im of the view that if you give someone money then that should be considered a "forever lost" exchange. People spend money, that's what we do. And if an agency gives money to someone, theyre going to spend it. If you as an agency gave someone money in error, that's on you not them. Of course opinions are like b-holes, everyones got them.....
So you'd rather everyone wait months (or years) of the bureaucracy to work through who is illegible and for how much. Seems... dumb.
"Everyone asked, 'Do we have to pay this back later on? Is it a loan?' They said, 'No. It's a gift from Obama,'" he said."
What a bunch of horse manure from these "victims"..
They collected (and happily spent!) a bunch of money for housing, spent it on something else entirely & now they're crying about being "on a fixed income".
Their *spending* sure isn't "fixed"..
The people who paid that money into the federal government don't get a "fixed income", their income might go away at any time, with or without cause.
Pay your bills, deadbeats!
You quote this guy but leave off the most important part. They knew they were living in an adult home. They knew the shelter was being paid for by the state. They knew their status and still encouraged them to apply and apparently did not state it was only for temporary housing. Which seems likely given this guy was already in temp housing paid for by the state. The error is on them, this guy didn't lie on the application and was encouraged to apply, they knew his status from the start. So I wouldn't call this guy with a spinal disability and other serious health problems a deadbeat. Would you rather have chronic health issues as well as a spinal disability and have to live on a small fixed income rather than be healthy person, able to travel, and with no cap on your career options and income? Being poor, sick and quite likely coping with chronic pain is hardly an ideal set of circumstances. Yet you seem to have no empathy or understanding at all for older folks living with illness and on a very small income. If the FEMA bunch had not known their housing status and if it was made clear this could only be used for temp housing or the parties lied on the application then they would be liable for misusing the funds. But that's a completely different set of circumstances altogether. Given their track record for mucking things up, I'd bet much of the problems were caused by the reps themselves.
When you're speaking of the people and money paid into the federal government, think about the massive Wall Street bail out and what that cost the people. They get a bail out but then the government takes aim at these sick, low income, older people? That seems about right, the low income poor are an easy target without power, connections and money. I think it's disgusting they are making such an issue of this with these people. We lost 10 million dollars in the Iraq War that was never accounted for. They are asking for another 5.3 billion of the peoples money for this ongoing entanglement in Iraq. In fiscal year 2012, $31.2 billion was obligated for U.S. economic assistance, $19.1 billion went to 182 countries with the rest obligated to non-specified regions. But the these incompetent FEMA nit-wits want to force people like Mr. Rosenberg to pay back a couple thousand, when they knew his temp housing status and who was paying for it to begin with. But then it becomes his fault when they knew they were in temp housing already and that they weren't paying for it. Why then would they approve his application? So much for shifting blame and aid for the lower case people at home.
The residents of Belle Harbor Manor spent four miserable months in emergency shelters after Superstorm Sandy's floodwaters surged through their assisted-living center on New York City's Rockaway peninsula.
Now, the home's disabled, elderly and mostly poor residents have a new headache: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has asked at least a dozen of them to pay back thousands of dollars in disaster aid.
Robert Rosenberg, 61, was among the Belle Harbor Manor residents who recently got notices from FEMA informing them that they had retroactively been declared ineligible for aid checks they received two years ago in the storm's immediate aftermath. FEMA gave Rosenberg until Nov. 15 to send a refund check for $2,486 or file an appeal.
The head of FEMA and all those responsible for this huge mistake should be the ones required to pay back the money they illegally distributed to the wrong people, and then face disciplinary action. Such as firing for failure to do the job for which they were hired. It is this kind of government blunders that show the people of America that government workers do not do their jobs to the fullest capacity
Who do these people think they are, corporate America? Geez, the nerve.
You quote this guy but leave off the most important part. They knew they were living in an adult home. They knew the shelter was being paid for by the state. They knew their status and still encouraged them to apply and apparently did not state it was only for temporary housing. Which seems likely given this guy was already in temp housing paid for by the state. The error is on them, this guy didn't lie on the application and was encouraged to apply, they knew his status from the start. So I wouldn't call this guy with a spinal disability and other serious health problems a deadbeat. Would you rather have chronic health issues as well as a spinal disability and have to live on a small fixed income rather than be healthy person, able to travel, and with no cap on your career options and income? Being poor, sick and quite likely coping with chronic pain is hardly an ideal set of circumstances. Yet you seem to have no empathy or understanding at all for older folks living with illness and on a very small income. If the FEMA bunch had not known their housing status and if it was made clear this could only be used for temp housing or the parties lied on the application then they would be liable for misusing the funds. But that's a completely different set of circumstances altogether. Given their track record for mucking things up, I'd bet much of the problems were caused by the reps themselves.
When you're speaking of the people and money paid into the federal government, think about the massive Wall Street bail out and what that cost the people. They get a bail out but then the government takes aim at these sick, low income, older people? That seems about right, the low income poor are an easy target without power, connections and money. I think it's disgusting they are making such an issue of this with these people. We lost 10 million dollars in the Iraq War that was never accounted for. They are asking for another 5.3 billion of the peoples money for this ongoing entanglement in Iraq. In fiscal year 2012, $31.2 billion was obligated for U.S. economic assistance, $19.1 billion went to 182 countries with the rest obligated to non-specified regions. But the these incompetent FEMA nit-wits want to force people like Mr. Rosenberg to pay back a couple thousand, when they knew his temp housing status and who was paying for it to begin with. But then it becomes his fault when they knew they were in temp housing already and that they weren't paying for it. Why then would they approve his application? So much for shifting blame and aid for the lower case people at home.
Again, you want FEMA to actually look through hundreds of thousands of applications for emergency aid, a process that certainly would take some time, before issuing payments? That's completely asinine. FEMA paid out something like $13.6 billion if funds. We're not talking about a few hundred or a thousand people. Nor is it like FEMA employs thousands and thousands of workers who mostly don't do anything but sit around waiting to analyze applications for emergency relief.
So what you're saying is you want to delay $13.6 billion in aid until someone can actually do I detailed review, audit the application to ensure that everything is accurate, and only then provide people with funds for emergency housing months afterwards because $5.6 million was paid out where it shouldn't have been?
I get from your post that you hate FEMA, which okay, fair criticism. I think FEMA, and things like national flood insurance have a lot of unintended consequences and generally aren't good programs although the basic idea of disaster relief I'm okay with if not the implementation. That's really a separate issue. You cannot pay out disaster relief months after the fact and call it disaster relief. It just isn't.
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