Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

This has been flying under the radar for a few days, but I’m really quite pleased that Mayor Street is opening up several city buildings to 5000 New Orleans evacuees.

Philadelphia transformed an empty school into a makeshift hotel yesterday as it prepared for up to 5,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees now expected to begin arriving as early as tomorrow.

“FEMA has finally come through,” a slightly frustrated Mayor Street said after touring the refitted Wanamaker School in North Philadelphia. “We’re going to receive people. This is a very, very good thing.”

Earlier yesterday, Street had been critical of the federal government’s response in New Orleans and of what he saw as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s sluggishness in sending evacuees to Philadelphia.

Yesterday, with nearly a quarter-million Katrina evacuees already in Texas and more still pouring in, Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to airlift some to other states that have offered help.

“There are shelters set up in other states that are sitting empty while thousands arrive in Texas by the day, if not the hour,” Perry said. “We are doing everything we can to address the needs of evacuees as they arrive, but in order to meet this enormous need, we need help from other states.”

Aid centers will be set up at airports in Houston and Dallas where incoming evacuees can be given food, water and medical care before they are flown out.

The evacuees will be spread out over a couple of city and school district buildings. The two I know about are in North Philadelphia and in Bella Vista. Without question, this is going to be a budgetary hit for a city that can’t take many, but it is unquestionably the right thing to do. Hopefully some more information will be available in the coming days so that people with special skills from the area can donate time and expertise. Computer geeks, tutors, teachers, mental health professionals etc, will probably all be needed, so get ready to answer the call.

I’m taking a walk down to the Bella Vista building to have a peak and maybe a few pictures.

Update: I just got back from my stroll to one of the buildings that will be used to house refugees from New Orleans. The building, which formerly housed the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) is located on 11th and Catherine and is currently being used by the Police athletic league. It’s quite a substantial building and one of the features that I think will make it as comfortable as possible for the incoming evacuees is the presence of athletic fields on the roof. I assume this is relegated to tennis, handball and basketball, but I can’t say for certain.

I walked around the entire building and spoke briefly with some of the residents of 12th street, on the back side of the building, who were having a labor day block party and barbeque. Other than the increased activity, most seemed unaware that they would soon be getting new neighbors.

One thing I’m concerned about is that this neighborhood, Bella Vista, has experienced a boom in housing prices in the last few years and that we may see some “not in my backyard” bullshit thrown at people who definitely don’t deserve it and have far bigger things to worry about. We all need to be as welcoming as possible and realize that this will have no effect on the quality of our lives or the price of our rowhouses and condos. If we are inconvenienced at all, let’s please remember that we are not the ones who lost everything, including likely loved ones, and have been relocated over 1000 miles from what was home.

During the winter months, I could get some great pictures of the building from my roof, but at the moment trees obscure the view. I’ve placed a few pictures from street level beneath the fold.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 5th, 2005 at 11:58 am and is filed under General, Philadelphia, Katrina. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.