FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - In a story June 30 about Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees, The Associated Press reported erroneously that about 2,000 Puerto Ricans are using federal housing assistance vouchers to stay at Florida hotels. Nearly 1,700 Puerto Ricans are staying in hotels across the country, not just Florida.
A corrected version of the story is below:
Injunction sought to prevent Puerto Rican evacuees’ eviction
A civil rights group is seeking a federal injunction to block the eviction of about 2,000 Puerto Rican hurricane refugees from Florida hotels as the assistance vouchers they received are set to expire
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A civil rights group sought a federal injunction late Saturday to block the eviction of nearly 1,700 Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees from hotels across the country as the assistance vouchers they received are set to expire.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF filed a lawsuit seeking relief for the Puerto Ricans, whose federal housing assistance vouchers expire at midnight. They could then be evicted.
The Puerto Ricans came to Florida after last year’s Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that devastated the U.S. island. It caused more than $100 billion in damage when it hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, and the island is still struggling to recover. More than 2,300 customers remain without power, and tens of thousands of businesses closed after people fled to the U.S. mainland.
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said Saturday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency could extend the program under current law, which he says was done more than a decade ago after Hurricane Katrina caused thousands from Louisiana to flee to Texas.
“There is no question that FEMA’s response to Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria has been woefully inadequate and unlike responses to other natural disasters experienced in the U.S.,” said Kira Romero-Craft, managing attorney for LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
Keith Turi, a FEMA administrator for the program, said in a video news release that the agency is working with state and local officials and volunteer organizations to find assistance for the evacuees and will help pay for a flight home.
Nelson and Democratic members of the Florida Legislature said Saturday that officials have told them the island remains too devastated to take back evacuees who remain on the mainland. There are few jobs, they said.
Richard Gonzalez, who has been working as a card dealer at a South Florida casino, told The Miami Herald that he was planning to drive to Orlando to live with his mother and brother.
“I would like to go to Puerto Rico right now, but to what?” he told the newspaper in Spanish. “I tell my wife: ’What are we going to do? Without work, I can’t do anything.’”
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