more light on the poor from Katrina

"About 40,000 people are on the waiting list for housing vouchers in the District, and 30,000 people are on the waiting list for public housing units. Michael P. Kelly, the Housing Authority's executive director, said that 29 public housing units are vacant but that the agency does not plan to set them all aside for storm survivors. 'It's not one versus another,' said Kelly, a former director of the New Orleans Housing Authority. 'It tugs at me very much, the needs of my old clients versus the needs of my new ones.'

Patricia Mullahy Fugere, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, said it was important for the federal government to provide more funding to eliminate any such competition. "This underscores how desperately out of balance the supply is to meet the demand."" Housing Expedited For Storm Survivors