A Year After Harvey, Poorest Houston Neighborhoods Slowest to Recover

"Texas has made progress recuperating from Hurricane Harvey, but low-income and minority residents have had a much harder time."

"HOUSTON — Hurricane Harvey ruined the little house on Lufkin Street. And ruined it remains, one year later.

Vertical wooden beams for walls. Hard concrete for floors. Lawn mowers where furniture used to be. Holes where the ceiling used to be. Light from a lamp on a stool, and a barricaded window to keep out thieves. Even the twig-and-string angel decoration on the front door — “Home is where you rest your wings” — was askew.

Monika Houston walked around her family’s home and said nothing for a long time. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She and her relatives have been unable, in the wake of the powerful storm that drenched Texas last summer, to completely restore both their house and their lives. Ms. Houston, 43, has been living alternately in a trailer on the front lawn, at her family’s other Harvey-damaged house down the block, with friends and elsewhere. Outside the trailer were barrels for campfires, set not to stay warm but to keep the mosquitoes away."

Manny Fernandez reports for the New York Times September 3, 2018, with photographs by Ilana Panich-Linsman.

Source: NY Times, 09/05/2018