Vol. 72/No. 50      December 22, 2008

The report estimates that of the 163,000 children the U.S. Census Bureau says were displaced by the storms, 20,000 remain displaced and are in need of extensive health-care services. Many families ended up spending years in overcrowded and formaldehyde-laced trailers provided by FEMA.

The report reviewed the health condition of 261 children displaced by the hurricane now living in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, area. Most of them had been living in FEMA’s Renaissance Village in nearby Baker, the largest and last to close, in May 2008.

According to the report, 41 percent of these children under four years of age had iron deficiency anemia, twice the rate for homeless children in New York City shelters and two and a half times the highest recorded by the Centers for Disease Control for the most vulnerable section of the working class or what the report called “high risk minority populations.”

The report said 42 percent had a respiratory allergy or infection. Just over a quarter of the children had hearing or vision problems. More than half of elementary school-age children had a behavior or learning problem.

Even before the storms, one in five 12th graders in New Orleans dropped out before graduation. After Katrina, some 60,000 displaced students remained in Louisiana. Many were moved from school to school. After the first post-Katrina school year, the report says, about 10,000 students in the state were no longer enrolled.

Reflecting the fact that the brunt of the social crisis following the storm fell on the most oppressed layers of the working class, 96 percent of the 261 children in the study were African American. All of the children came from families with incomes far below federal poverty level. Those that reported income made about $5,000 per year.  
 
 
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