FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 08, 2005
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The White House - Office of the Press Secretary
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President Discusses Hurricane Katrina Emergency Disaster Relief |
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Multimedia |
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Room 350
Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Fact Sheet: President Bush Announces New Initiatives to Provide Relief
THE PRESIDENT: I want to thank the members of my Cabinet who have joined me
today. Today I'm going to take this opportunity to speak directly to our
citizens who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Many of you have been evacuated from the flooded and destroyed areas and now
find yourselves far from home -- without proper identification or even a change
of clothes. So today I'm announcing two important steps that we are taking to
provide you the help you need, steps that will cut through the red tape so that
we get that help into your hands as quickly and easily as possible.
The first step is providing every household with $2,000 in emergency disaster
relief that can be used for immediate needs, such as food or clothing or
personal essentials. For those of you who are living in the large centers, such
as the Houston Astrodome, I know that you don't have cars or transportation and
cannot get yourselves to the centers to collect these funds. I also know that
some of you do not have access to a savings or checking account, or ways to cash
a check. FEMA and Red Cross teams are either -- are working or soon will be
working with your shelters to meet your challenges and to get assistance into
your hands as soon as possible. By registering for the first $2,000, you will
begin the process of arranging for the delivery of other, longer-term assistance
that will be made available in the coming weeks for eligible households.
For those of you who are staying with family members or in a rented room or a
hotel or apartment, FEMA is also working to get these funds in your hands. Here
are two ways that you can register for this assistance. You can call
1-800-621-FEMA, that's 1-800-621-FEMA; or if you have the capability to use the
Internet you can log on to www.fema.gov. A
FEMA representative will arrange for your assistance to be delivered by mail or
deposited into your bank account. If you have special needs, the FEMA
representative can help arrange to get the money to you in another way.
Now, we have 3,000 people who are working around the clock to take the calls.
We're in the process of training more, and that number will be increasing
dramatically. More than 400,000 families have already been registered. We still
have tens of thousands more people who need to be processed, so I ask for your
patience if you experience problems in trying to contact FEMA.
To those of you in our faith-based and community groups who have opened up
your hearts and homes, I want to thank you for your service to our fellow
Americans. If you've not been in contact with a FEMA representative, please do
so to help the people in your shelters. And, again, you can call 1-800-621-FEMA.
By calling a FEMA representative, you can assure that the people you've taken in
are registered and able to receive the emergency assistance funds.
As we work to deliver this emergency relief, we're also working to ensure that
those of you who have received federal benefits administered by the states of
Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana will continue to get those benefits in the
states where you're now staying.
So the second step we're taking today is designed to make it easier for you
to register and collect these benefits in any state in the country. We will
start by granting evacuee status for all of you who have lived in counties that
have been declared disaster areas. We know that many of you no longer have the
legal documents or the records to prove your eligibility for the benefits you've
been getting. We understand that. And so with this evacuee status, you will be
able to register for your benefits without many of the traditional
administrative requirements for verification and enrollment.
The special evacuee status applies to the full range of federal benefits
administered by the states. These programs include Medicaid; temporary
assistance for needy families; child care; mental health services and substance
abuse treatment; food stamps; housing; foster care; women, infants and children
nutrition; school lunch; unemployment compensation; and job training.
The states that have opened up their doors should not be penalized for coming
to the aid of Americans in distress. And so I'm going to work with the Congress
to reimburse the states that are taking in evacuees from the affected areas
along the Gulf Coast.
I want to thank the governors and the leaders of the states that have taken
in so many of our fellow citizens. I want to thank you for your compassion. And
we understand that this is going to strain your budget, so the federal
government, as I just said, will operate under this principle: You should not be
penalized for showing compassion. State enrollment teams are already set up in
many shelters, and many have 1-800 numbers that people can call. Any evacuee can
contact the nearest state or local benefits office to get the information about
enrolling.
And those of you who are staying in a home or church that has access to the
Internet can find out how to receive these benefits by going to
www.govbenefits.gov. These are just
some of the many steps we'll be taking in what will be a long relief effort. We
have much more work to do. But the people who have been hurt by this storm know
that -- need to know that the government is going to be with you for the long
haul.
In all the steps we take our goal is not to simply provide benefits, but to
make them easy and simple as possible to collect. The responsibility of caring
for hundreds of thousands of citizens who no longer have homes is going to place
many demands on our nation. We have many difficult days ahead, especially as we
recover those who did not survive the storm. I've instructed all agencies to
honor their memory by treating the dead with the dignity and respect they
deserve.
Throughout our history in times of testing, Americans have come together in
prayer to heal and ask for strength for the tasks ahead. So I've declared
Friday, September the 16th, as a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance. I ask
that we pray -- as Americans have always prayed in times of trial -- with
confidence in His purpose, with hope for a brighter future, and with the
humility to ask God to keep us strong so that we can better serve our brothers
and sisters in need.
Thank you.
END 2:33 P.M. EDT
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