04:18 PM CST on Thursday, December 8, 2005

Associated Press

Evacuees hoping to preserve a government program providing hotel rooms to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina have their day in court on Friday, when a federal judge hears an array of complaints against the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In addition to hearing claims that Katrina victims face unfair and premature eviction from hotels, Judge Stanwood Duval will hear testimony and arguments that FEMA has wrongfully denied rental assistance to some evacuees.

"We plan on calling three victims, at least two of whom are about to be evicted from hotels," said Howard Godnick, an attorney for evacuees, who is seeking to make the lawsuit a class-action on behalf of all Katrina evacuees.

FEMA had set a Dec. 1 deadline for ending the hotel program but extended it to Dec. 15 after widespread criticism. In addition, 10 states -- Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas -- will be allowed to apply for extensions lasting until Jan. 7.

But, even after extensions, some could face homelessness if the hotel program ends, Godnick argues. FEMA officials contend that anyone properly registered with FEMA and eligible to receive fedral assistance will have the tools and the funding they need to get temporary housing.

About 41,000 hotel rooms are now occupied under the FEMA program, which has cost the agency about $350 million so far, FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said Thursday.

In addition to trying to preserve the hotel program, the lawsuit contains a long list of complaints about FEMA's response to Katrina.

For instance, it says that FEMA has unfairly applied a rule limiting housing assistance money to single households, meaning people living at the same address in the storm-struck areas could be forced to share one housing check if they are unrelated and were evacuated to different far-flung areas of the country. Also, the suit seeks to stop FEMA from trying to recoup aid checks that were meant for rent but were spent on other storm-related necessities, and to allow victims to continue receiving rental assistance even if their initial three-month allocation of rent money was not spent on rent but on other needs.

In their response to the lawsuit, government lawyers say the lawsuit should be dismissed under sovereign immunity laws that protect government agencies from liability in the performance of their duties.

Some of the claims in the lawsuit are moot, FEMA lawyers add, noting the single household rule and the rules governing use of the initial rent aid checks were waived after Katrina. Godnick counters that the government has failed to publicise those policy changes.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)