Time is Running out for Puerto Ricans Sheltered in Hurricane Hotels

HARTFORD — The fourth floor of the Red Roof Inn felt like a city block on a recent Friday night, as families spilled from their rooms into the hallway. Doors were propped open. Chihuahuas skittered around on the carpet, and a cluster of teenage boys had claimed a spot by the elevators, a speaker thumping with hip-hop. At the end of the hall, in a room where a window framed the dome of the State Capitol like a postcard, Janette Febres’s husband and 12-year-old son watched television on the bed the three of them have been sharing for nearly three months, reaching the end of a day as empty and restless as many of the ones before it. The living conditions were cramped, and the room did not have a microwave or a refrigerator. Ms. Febres has asked housekeeping to stop cleaning the room just so she could have something to occupy her time. Even so, she was grateful. Her room, like those that many other families were staying in, was paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Amid the turmoil that has unraveled much of her family’s life since fleeing Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, the room was one of the few things that seemed stable. “For us,” she said, “this is home.” But she is worried about how long the support will continue. The desperation that followed Maria’s devastation and the stumbling response has given way to uncertainty for many Puerto Ricans throughout the country. Some who left for the mainland United States have returned home, while others have laid roots in new places, finding jobs and securing permanent housing. Yet thousands of other families remain in limbo and have been relying on hotel rooms provided by FEMA as they decide whether to go back or forge ahead elsewhere. Many people staying in the hotels have described confusion over where their cases stand and anxiety about whether they will be able to stay as deadlines rapidly approach — for some, as soon as this week. Continue reading the main story

“It has me on pins and needles,” said Wanda Arroyo, 56, who has been living in a hotel in Queens. “It has gotten to the point that I don’t even pick up the letters slipped under my door because of the expectation that one will say I’m being kicked out.”

Nearly 4,000 families spread across 40 states and Puerto Rico remain in hotels under FEMA’s transitional sheltering assistance program, federal officials said. Most families — more than 1,500 — were in Florida, while hundreds of others were in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. More than 800 were in hotels in Puerto Rico.

Most of the stays have been extended until March 20, but about 200 households have been alerted that FEMA would stop paying for their rooms as of Wednesday. The agency had already cut off assistance last month for some households after federal officials determined that their homes in Puerto Rico were habitable and had functioning utilities.

FEMA said that the agency was hearing appeals from some who had been denied further assistance and added that it was possible for the program to continue after March if Puerto Rican officials found that it was still needed. But agency officials stressed that the program — which was also used to support families displaced by hurricanes in Texas and Florida — was supposed to be short-term.

“This is a bridge to other longer-term solutions,” William Booher, a FEMA spokesman, said, adding that “survivors are responsible for their own recovery and to actively look for permanent housing solutions.”

Some who were told that their homes were fit to live in disagreed, like Ms. Febres, who argued that her house needed significant repairs. Others said they had difficulty getting clear answers from the agency about where their case stood.

In some cases, local officials and charities have stepped in. In Connecticut, officials intervened on behalf of about three dozen families who were told that they had become ineligible for help. After FEMA declined to extend assistance, the state agreed to cover the hotel expenses of 17 families until Wednesday. State officials said that additional money had been set aside to help families in Connecticut who were losing their aid this week.

“The families are in a constant state of unrest,” said Wildaliz Bermudez, a Hartford councilwoman who visited families staying at the Red Roof Inn downtown. “They were displaced in Puerto Rico and now they’re being displaced here.”

The situation has been a reminder of how the storm’s devastation continues to ripple five months after Maria raked over the island. The families in the hotels have been part of an exodus as Puerto Rico has struggled to recover. Researchers have projected that by next year, nearly a half-million will have left Puerto Rico for the mainland United States after the hurricane.

Where the families in the hotels will ultimately end up remains to be seen.

In lobby of the Hartford hotel, one woman said that her daughter had gotten a nursing job and that her family was looking for an apartment. Among others, there was an air of weariness, as they anguished over what might come next. Job interviews had been unsuccessful or language barriers made it difficult to find work. Some were simply aimless as weeks went by with little to do. When Ms. Febres needed to go to the store, her family made the three-mile walk to a Walmart just because they wanted to burn energy.