The Bush administration said yesterday that it will extend housing aid through March 2009 for hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a blanket expansion that more than doubles the amount of aid typically received by evacuees after a major disaster.The decision is recognition that 20 months after the 2005 storms that devastated the Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana coasts, many residents remain without permanent addresses.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it will continue to maintain trailers, mobile homes and apartments for about 130,000 households, an arrangement originally scheduled to expire two months ago. Federal law requires that aid provided by FEMA end 18 months after a disaster is declared unless the president grants an extension. President Bush has already approved one extension that would have expired in August.
"The overwhelming scale of this human tragedy has meant that families have been displaced for an unprecedented period of time," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said in a statement. "Such a reality calls for an unprecedented, compassionate response."
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