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Sep 21 05 11:33 AM
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Quote:"Why go back to Louisiana?" Ramsey said. "I knew from Day One when I landed in Palm Meadows that I wasn't going back."The Family Empowerment Coalition, a group of 13 local nonprofit agencies, began interviewing evacuees at Palm Meadows on Tuesday. The group's focus is on the long-term needs of those staying in South Florida.Some of the evacuees might not realize how expensive living here can be, Coalition president Wendy Tippett said."We're just trying to get them to understand the economic conditions in Palm Beach County," she said. "We want to allow them at least a chance to avoid homelessness."Other evacuees plan to migrate to a trailer park village in Louisiana planned by the company that owns Palm Meadows.The three-bedroom trailers Magna Entertainment will bring to Marksville, La., sounded less appealing to some evacuees after hearing Monday night that those on their own would be grouped with strangers."Everyone is going to invade everyone's privacy," said Tim Andrews, 25, who is staying in one of the center's rooms with his father. "They're trying to make family. You can't make family."After hearing Magna board chairman Frank Stronach talk of the trailer village during the first week of their stay, evacuees said they thought families and individuals would get their own trailers."Maybe some people might have misunderstood," said Gary Van Den Broek, Palm Meadows general manager. "It is one of these things. It happened on a whim. They [have] got to work out a plan as time goes on."While all the details haven't been settled, evacuees would be able to stay in the trailers rent-free for up to five years. There would be at least 100 trailers. If Palm Meadows evacuees don't fill all the bedrooms, Magna officials would contact Red Cross officials in Louisiana to find more families to house, Van Den Broek said.Andrews is resigned to going to Marksville."I guess we have to go where the trailers are," said Andrews, who was doing temporary work after being injured on a construction job. "We're going to go wherever they situate us. We gotta go with the program."
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