Katrina Update: Court Victory vs. FEMA
Monday, June 18
- Organization: Mississippi Center for Justice
Greetings:
I’m so pleased to report a tremendous legal victory this week. For months going on years, we and a small army of pro bono lawyers have been battling individual cases of FEMA efforts to terminate housing assistance benefits and to demand repayment of benefits already paid, even as 75,000 people remain in FEMA trailers on the MS coast and untold thousands of others still lack adequate shelter 22 months after Hurricane Katrina.
We also sought systemic relief, as MCJ Advocacy Director Yumeka Rushing and AmeriCorps Attorney Crystal Utley are on the litigation team and counsel of record for the Mississippi plaintiffs challenging FEMA’s egregious due process violations in Ridgely v. FEMA.
On Wednesday, June 13, the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana agreed with us, certifying a national class of hurricane survivors and barring FEMA from terminating housing assistance or seeking repayment of benefits without due process protections.
It is particularly heartening that Judge Helen Berrigan apparently shares our sense of outrage and sadness about FEMA’s derelictions, writing that,
“The FEMA appellate process, if it can be navigated at all, takes months. In the meantime, the defendants appear to treat the plaintiffs and their prospects of homelessness and the despair and stress of such added worries as if it were gnats to be brushed away while the defendants busy themselves with creating more bureaucratic regulations. To brush off the correction of errors to the appellate process under these circumstances of real human suffering is simply unacceptable.”
Despite the federal court ruling and despite the efforts of Crystal and other advocates, USA Today’s front page story this weekend gives unfortunate emphasis to FEMA’s claims of massive overpayments, rather than to the ongoing suffering of hurricane survivors exacerbated in too many cases by FEMA’s malfeasance. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-14-fema-overpayments_N.htm?csp=34
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, lead pro bono counsel in Ridgely, was among the 20 national firms that contributed 10,000 hours assisting MS hurricane survivors in 2006 and are on pace to do the same again this year. It was our privilege to give recognition to their work last week at our annual DC-area fundraising reception. Our honoree, the legendary Congressman John Lewis, provided welcome validation of this massive effort, saying, “Thank you, Mississippi Center for Justice, for getting in the way,” and exhorting us to keep doing so.
This has been a banner week for Crystal, MCJ’s Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Attorney who coordinates Katrina legal clinics and pro bono placements. In addition to the court victory and the Page 1 quote in USA Today, she learned that she was chosen from 358 nominations to be the 2007 recipient of the Spirit of Service Award given each year to one of the 75,000 AmeriCorps members throughout the country. The award will be presented in July at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in Philadelphia.
Someone who attended our DC reception -- our most successful ever, by the way, with many thanks to all who made that possible -- asked me why, since things are still so bad on the coast, I haven't kept up my e-mail updates -- so here you go.
Thank you for your continuing concern and support -- it means so much to us.
Martha
Martha Bergmark
President
Mississippi Center for Justice
5 Old River Place, Suite 203 (39202)
P. O. Box 1023
Jackson MS 39215
phone: 601-352-2269
direct line: 601-209-1892
fax: 601-352-4769
www.mscenterforjustice.org
I’m so pleased to report a tremendous legal victory this week. For months going on years, we and a small army of pro bono lawyers have been battling individual cases of FEMA efforts to terminate housing assistance benefits and to demand repayment of benefits already paid, even as 75,000 people remain in FEMA trailers on the MS coast and untold thousands of others still lack adequate shelter 22 months after Hurricane Katrina.
We also sought systemic relief, as MCJ Advocacy Director Yumeka Rushing and AmeriCorps Attorney Crystal Utley are on the litigation team and counsel of record for the Mississippi plaintiffs challenging FEMA’s egregious due process violations in Ridgely v. FEMA.
On Wednesday, June 13, the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana agreed with us, certifying a national class of hurricane survivors and barring FEMA from terminating housing assistance or seeking repayment of benefits without due process protections.
It is particularly heartening that Judge Helen Berrigan apparently shares our sense of outrage and sadness about FEMA’s derelictions, writing that,
“The FEMA appellate process, if it can be navigated at all, takes months. In the meantime, the defendants appear to treat the plaintiffs and their prospects of homelessness and the despair and stress of such added worries as if it were gnats to be brushed away while the defendants busy themselves with creating more bureaucratic regulations. To brush off the correction of errors to the appellate process under these circumstances of real human suffering is simply unacceptable.”
Despite the federal court ruling and despite the efforts of Crystal and other advocates, USA Today’s front page story this weekend gives unfortunate emphasis to FEMA’s claims of massive overpayments, rather than to the ongoing suffering of hurricane survivors exacerbated in too many cases by FEMA’s malfeasance. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-14-fema-overpayments_N.htm?csp=34
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, lead pro bono counsel in Ridgely, was among the 20 national firms that contributed 10,000 hours assisting MS hurricane survivors in 2006 and are on pace to do the same again this year. It was our privilege to give recognition to their work last week at our annual DC-area fundraising reception. Our honoree, the legendary Congressman John Lewis, provided welcome validation of this massive effort, saying, “Thank you, Mississippi Center for Justice, for getting in the way,” and exhorting us to keep doing so.
This has been a banner week for Crystal, MCJ’s Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Attorney who coordinates Katrina legal clinics and pro bono placements. In addition to the court victory and the Page 1 quote in USA Today, she learned that she was chosen from 358 nominations to be the 2007 recipient of the Spirit of Service Award given each year to one of the 75,000 AmeriCorps members throughout the country. The award will be presented in July at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in Philadelphia.
Someone who attended our DC reception -- our most successful ever, by the way, with many thanks to all who made that possible -- asked me why, since things are still so bad on the coast, I haven't kept up my e-mail updates -- so here you go.
Thank you for your continuing concern and support -- it means so much to us.
Martha
Martha Bergmark
President
Mississippi Center for Justice
5 Old River Place, Suite 203 (39202)
P. O. Box 1023
Jackson MS 39215
phone: 601-352-2269
direct line: 601-209-1892
fax: 601-352-4769
www.mscenterforjustice.org
Topics: