Poll: 43 Pct. of Evacuees Want to Go Home

HOUSTON - Less than half of the evacuees who fled Hurricane Katrina for Houston plan to return to their homes in the New Orleans area, according to a survey of shelter residents released Friday — an early sign that the storm may scatter the city's population permanently.

The survey, conducted for The Washington Post and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, found that 43 percent of evacuees intend to go back, while 44 percent say they expect to settle somewhere else. The rest are undecided.

Of those planning to relocate, the largest share — about half — said they want to stay in Houston, where the city has moved quickly to enroll children in school and convert shelter residents to apartments and rental assistance.

"There's nothing to go back to," said a former New Orleans East resident who lost her house to eight feet of water. "My job is gone, my street is gone. My kids started school here Monday."

The poll also underscored the storm's racial and economic divide. Nearly all of the surveyed evacuees are black, most had household incomes under $20,000 a year, and more than half reported having no health insurance before the storm.

Two-thirds said they had received no evacuation order before Katrina struck, and a majority said they did not have a car or the money to leave on their own.

President Bush addressed the displacement in his speech Thursday night, promising the rebuilt Gulf Coast would confront "the deep, persistent poverty" the storm exposed.

Demographers say the Houston results echo a pattern seen after past disasters: when the displaced find work and schools quickly, many never return. "Three weeks becomes three months becomes a life," one researcher said.

The telephone and in-person survey of several hundred shelter residents was conducted this week; similar surveys are planned for evacuees in Baton Rouge, Atlanta and other hub cities.