[StBernard] Recovery for RENTAL PROPERTY

[Westley Annis]

geo,

I'm not saying the tax payers should bail out people with rental property.  
I didn't expect this money and it came as a shock to me that money may be
available.  But if it does become availiable, which I'm not counting on, I
will take advantage of it. The reason it is available is that it seems to be
part of the block money congress has granted Louisiana for ecomonic
recovery.  People like me paid off our mortgage on the property with
insurance money and didn't have money left over for repairs.  So we are
waiting for an SBA loan, which is taking forever so the property sits.  
People need places to live if they want to come back.  Our state needs
rental stock.  Lots of people were renters before this hurricane and they
still need a place to live.  My tenents want to come back but have no place
to go. Worker that are here from other areas to help us to rebuild need a
place to live.  This is a long term recovery.  It's my tax money too.  If it
is not used here you can bet it will be given to other parts of the country
that don't need it as much as we do.  You don't believe that the country
will save that money do you?  It will be wasted somewhere else, so why not
to help us rebuild our ravaged city?  And don't think that most of us
landlords were rich slum lords.  We barely broke even every month by the
time we paid insurance, our mortgage, and repairs and upkeep on the
property, while trying to keep the rents affordable to our tenents.  Yes, it
is a business, but our ecomony needs businesses to come back too if we want
any kind of real recovery for our community, and most business can't afford
to. We need help just like everyone else, we lost everything too, not just
our homes but our business too. 60% of the rental stock in the New Orleans
metro area was destroyed.  These people that lived in them are real people
that lived somewhere and want to come home.

Laurie