How about some personal responsibility?

AP: FEMA to Stop Funding Hotel Rooms Dec. 1---

FEMA will stop paying for hotel rooms for most evacuees of hurricanes Katrina and Rita on Dec. 1, officials said Tuesday as the agency pushed victims to find more stable housing.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that 53,000 families remain in hotels _ mostly in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi _ after losing their homes to the storms that devastated the Gulf Coast this year.

FEMA had previously set the December deadline as a goal to have evacuees out of hotels and into travel trailers, mobile homes or apartments until they find permanent homes. Tuesday's announcement marked the first time the agency said it will cease directly paying for hotel rooms that have cost at least $250 million since the storms struck.

FEMA granted exceptions to evacuees in hotels in Louisiana and Mississippi, where there is a shortage of housing. Evacuees in those states have until Jan. 7 to find homes, said David Garratt, FEMA's acting director of recovery. He said 9,830 households remain in hotels in Louisiana and 2,508 in Mississippi.

FEMA was to announce the housing plan in Washington at a briefing with reporters.

"There are still too many people living in hotel rooms, and we want to help them get into longer-term homes before the holidays," FEMA Acting Director R. David Paulison said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. "Across the country, there are readily available, longer-term housing solutions for these victims that can give greater privacy and stability than hotel and motel rooms."

"Those affected by these storms should have the opportunity to become self-reliant again and reclaim some normalcy in their lives," Paulison said.

After Dec. 1, most hurricane evacuees who aren't ready to leave hotels will have to pay the costs out-of-pocket _ either with FEMA rental housing aid they receive or from their own funds.

The federal government has paid for enough. People need to be responsible for their own lives and living arrangements, not rely on the government for months and months (though how many Welfare people do?). People have had plenty of time to begin working on getting their lives back together. If they haven't done their own work, then it is no one else's responsibility or problem.

What a lazy society we have.