Hurricane Katrina Survivors - Any Better Off Than the Day Katrina Happened?

Living in Colorado, our family does not come in contact with Katrina survivors. The Colorado mountains is just not a place you find a lot of hurricane victims. We do get them from time to time though, and this article is about the most recent Katrina survivor to move up to the Pikes Peak Mountains in Colorado.

I do not know this person, but I know a bit about him. He is a Katrina survivor, he got here a few weeks ago, and was helped by a local agency while waiting on a check. After receiving the check, he paid for a month in a trailer this agency had rented for him here in an RV park, then he left after about a week, two at most. A few days later, he came back, this time with a Coleman pop up trailer, pulled by a pickup truck.

We noticed the pop up trailer about a week ago, and figured it was a hunter. However to our surprise, we told that he was a Katrina Victim, and that he was here for at least three months! I about died. Three months, in a pop up, in the mountains of Colorado, in the dead of Winter. I don't know how many reading this have ever spent any amount of time in the mountains of Colorado in the Winter, but let me tell you, it's mighty cold in these mountains in the Winter, and right now is very cold.

This man could not have picked a worst time of the year to stay in a pop up in these mountains. Since he has been here, it has snowed about 5 times. We have close to a foot of snow on the ground, and the temperatures have been horribly cold, in the single digits, and tonight it is going down to -4!

We felt so bad for this man that we made him a big plate of food on Christmas, and wrapped him up a small gift, and a card, and my husband took it over to him. I was so shocked when my husband came back, bag of food and goodies in hand, and said, "he don't want it"! I flipped. My husband said that the man said he did not know him, and did not want the food. My husband told him Merry Christmas, and left.

This all really broke my heart. Is this what our Country has come to? A family reaches out to a victim, and that victim has been through so much in the past two years, that they no longer trust anyone. That is just so sad, and heart breaking. I certainly hope that no one reading this ever feels that they cannot trust someone reaching out to help them. I have to question, what is happening to the survivors of Katrina? I've read horror stories, but this is the first up close and personal encounter I've had with a survivor.