Life post-Katrina: The challenges one year later One year after the storm, Troupe and her staff are still getting calls and people are still filtering in who haven’t received services. People with mental illnesses are suffering, FEMA is impatient and many people, even Troupe’s tenacious staff, are hung up on. There has been a 200% increase in the suicide rate in Jackson County alone.
The situation with Mississippi’s Medicaid system is not helping matters, either. Pre-Katrina, problems were already rampant: there had been significant cuts, with 65,000 people losing prescription drug and transportation benefits. After the storm, displaced people found that Mississippi is a state that doesn’t recognize other state’s Medicaid. Troupe went to DC to begin to change this. Troupe finds that “by the time people get to us they are frustrated and depressed. You cannot do this work behind your desk. You have to go out, knock on doors, and find out what is really happening.”
The majority of people served by the Coalition are on fixed incomes. Housing is still a crisis: rents are high and there is little subsidized, accessible housing. There is a great need for funds to re-hab destroyed rental property so that people can move back to their own communities. There is also a need for counselors, especially in trailer parks; people need to be able to talk about how their lives have been turned upside down. The next crisis is that the 18 month “lease” on FEMA trailers will be up in February, leaving many people wondering where they will go next. And one year later, emergency preparedness still does not have a coordinated plan for people with disabilities. Monroe notes: “The mindset is still that this is a group of folks that are a problem.”
One important part of the Coalition’s work is providing education for the disabled and their families. Many do not know their rights. “Women with disabilities who are raising children hear ‘no’ from so many people that they learn to make do. They learn to cope. This was even more apparent after Katrina,” Troupe relates. She tries to make that coping easier in many ways, including creating Emergency Preparedness Kits, with flashlights, radios, candles and food. These were delivered just after the hurricane, and will be again this September, for Emergency Preparedness Month. “In a crisis,” Troupe says, “sometimes people forget about the people who need help the most.”
