A Friend In Need Is A... Wait, Where'd They Go?

There’s been a whole mess of talk out on the internets concerning the effects of the Katrina evacuee influx to Texas. None of it has been particularly positive. In fact, Dallas and Houston appear to be fed up with their respective sets of evacuees. Either that, or sick of themselves, and are engaging in some wafer-thin scape-goating. It’s difficult to tell where the truth really sits, and really, we’d understand their issue either way (sucks to be in either city, with/without a evacuee/refugee “problem”).

While our neighbors are crying tears of Good Samaritan’s Remorse, Austin has become home to between 4,000 and 7,000 evacuees (depending on who you ask), which is an approximate one-time 1% boost in our population. To our knowledge, this has occurred with little fanfare.

Fortunately for us, the only changes Austinist has seen are a slight increase in the number of dudes pissing all over the alley behind Room 710, and a whole slew of benefits and/or organizations that cropped up to help ease anyone’s transition into Central Texas life. There weren’t a whole hell of a lot of employment opportunities available in Austin at the onset of the Katrina evacuation, and that situation has certainly not improved in any measurable sense since.

So where the hell are these people living, and what are they doing to support themselves? That’s a good question… that we’re… asking ourselves. Which is a pointless exercise, but hopefully you catch the drift: no one appears to know what evacuees should be doing (Move back to… rubble? Find a new home, they’re on their own? Get a stable, local job? FEMA trailer? Hello? Transportation? Anyone out there? What the fuck, man?), but those who have settled in Austin proper appear to be doing their best under utterly confused (and possibly abandoned) conditions. That is to say, if they are suffering, they appear to be doing so in silence.

Which, if true, is a damn shame. Not that it would be better if there were more gun-clapping, but it’s difficult to say that just because the cart is quiet: the wheels are all working. That’s an awful butchering of a shitty cliché, but it fits here. We only wish the best for those who are making life new here, as Austinites. Welcome.

*Image courtesy of Storms 411 (outhouserag)

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By truecraig in Other on February 17, 2006 3:55 PM 0 Comments

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brutha nick

Support themselves? for a while, they were selling newspaper, not bad huh? They were following the paperboy and jacking the rolls off the lawn and slanging them on the corners, still wrapped in the plastic. Mutha Fugging Sweet, that I had to pay them to get my paper back. DAMN

Benji

The one New Orleans metaphor I keep coming back to is the 'party friend' analogy. New Orleans is your 'party friend' you knew in college. He had a cool pad, cool friends, and it seemed like you could always go over to his place to hang out. And you didn't have to call first. Just drop in. Because the party never fucking stops, man. He had good drug connections, knew a ton of hot chicks, and as charming as he was, he never had an overbearing girlfriend that made you go home at four. He was the shit. When you were twenty-two. But now you're thirty. And your party friend is knocking on your door because his house fell down and he wants to know if he can crash on your couch. For a few years.