Culberson to jobless evacuees: Get outta town!

It looks like the irritation over unemployed hurricane evacuees is growing among local officials: Earlier this year, Mayor Bill White said Katrina evacuees were welcome to say in Houston as long as they found jobs, and this weekend, U.S. Rep. John Culberson told reporters said he wants "deadbeat" evacuees to get out of town. "Time has long since passed for the able-bodied people from Louisiana to either find a job, return to somewhere in Louisiana or become Houstonians," Culberson said. "You have to make an effort not to have a job in Houston."

Many evacuees don't agree, it seems, claiming that various problems have kept them from finding jobs 10 months after they were displaced by the hurricane. Ayodele Ogunye, a job counselor with WorkSource, the regional job assistance program, said evacuees complain that Houston's bus and rail system is too confusing or that they can't get professional licenses validated in Texas. But some of their problems are mental, Ogunye said: Some evacuees claim emotional distress, others lack confidence and some may not know how to find work. "I cannot help to wonder if (the unemployment) has anything to do with the uniqueness of the community," Ogunye told the AP. "It seems like some have never had to make choices or decide for themselves." Still other evacuees say they have tried to find work, but haven't had any luck hearing back from potential employers — perhaps, they say, because businesses worry they'll head back to Louisiana in a few months.

Neither the city nor FEMA track unemployment among evacuees, but a poll commissioned by the city in March found that 85 percent of the 606 evacuees surveyed were jobless. Of those, 60 percent said they were looking for jobs.