[Haul Asp]

Crime is up. Schools are overcrowded. Hospitals are jammed. Houston welcomed a flood of hurricane evacuees with open arms. But now the city is suffering from a case of compassion fatigue.

Public services are overwhelmed, city finances are strained and violent crime is on the rise. When city leaders in New Orleans made comments two weeks ago suggesting that they wanted only hardworking evacuees to return, some Houston city-council members erupted in protest—fearing that politicians in the Big Easy were trying to stick Houston with their undesirables. "We extended an open hand to all kinds of people," says Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. "If they want to return home, it's their right." And if they want to stay, she adds, they "need to stand up, get on their feet and get jobs."

The newcomers are also taxing the area's health-care system. Already burdened by a high proportion of uninsured people before Katrina, Houston has had to contend with thousands more. The problem will likely only get worse: on Jan. 31, more-generous Medicaid rules for Katrina victims expired. As a result, countless patients who had been receiving treatment in doctors' offices may now turn to overwhelmed emergency rooms. "Our hospitals are struggling financially to get by, and this doesn't help," says David Persse, Houston's EMS medical director. "Hospital CEOs are about to have coronaries." Worse still, infection rates for sexually transmitted diseases are increasing—possibly an outgrowth of high rates in New Orleans, city health officials say.



Let me reiterate...GO HOME NOW!