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Article: A very late checkout: New York's last Katrina evacuees prepare to depart (under duress) from the JFK Airport Holiday Inn.(Intelligencer)
- Article from:
- New York
- Article date:
- June 5, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 New York Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THIS WINTER, FEMA put up over 300 Hurricane Katrina evacuees in New York City hotels. Almost all of them have gone back to their lives, their jobs. But not Theon Johnson. He's currently sprawled out watching Halloween 5 on one of the two full-size beds in his room at the JFK Airport Holiday Inn. He is one of four evacuees still living in a hotel in the city.
The others left in February and March, when, after spending more than $500 million, FEMA stopped paying for hotel rooms housing some 40,000 evacuees across the country. That left many scrambling for places to live. But thanks to the city's squatters-rights law, evacuees here were safe. Their rooms weren't ...