Mentally disabled hurricane victims find a refuge in East Texas

PALESTINE, Texas -- Down a winding lane from their dorms to the cafeteria, they hobble along, clutching their caregivers' steady hands or walking just within arm's reach.

"It's lunchtime! It's lunchtime!" exclaims one man, grinning and clapping. One woman pauses to look up at the canopy of trees above her. "We're in Texas. We're at camp," she says.

For the past month, the 1,300-acre Lakeview Methodist Conference Center in the piney woods of East Texas has been home to nearly 70 mentally retarded adults and children who were evacuated from Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina.

The setting is serene, but it has not entirely insulated the residents from the stress of Katrina, then Hurricane Rita.

A change of routine

Their routine in group homes in Louisiana was comforting: They ate in the kitchen, watched television in their bedrooms. Some went to the grocery store or church with staff members, and some spent weekends with their families.

Now, most -- ages 6 to 63 -- eat meals in a large cafeteria, sometimes riding there in vans when it is too hot to walk. Six to 12 people sleep in a room on cots, and the occasional snoring makes it hard for some to get a good night's sleep.

During the day, many play games, draw in coloring books and do puzzles in a small auditorium. But every once in a while, the tension born of all the changes erupts: Someone yells; someone else throws a stuffed animal or a crayon.

Keeping busy

"Their life has been altered, and the little things you can do will kind of distract them," said Denise Smith, a Tampa, Fla., former health-care worker who flew to Texas to help out.

The group's 12 disabled children spend the day at a school near Palestine, and two dozen of the refugees with mild mental disabilities attend a county work program. Recently the staff took some of them on outings, to a bowling alley and to an equestrian center.

But then Hurricane Rita began brewing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some of the residents cried or asked nervous questions when they overheard the staff's whispered conversations.

The camp lost power briefly during the storm but was not damaged. Rita did, however, damage some of the group homes in Louisiana to which they hoped to return.

"I can't believe this is happening to these folks again," said Angela King, a program director with Volunteers of America, the nonprofit organization operating the group homes. "But people are a lot more resilient than we give them credit for."

The dozen group homes were evacuated relatively easily two days before Katrina hit last month. The residents stayed in Houston-area hotels for a week, then rented what turned out to be rundown and roach-infested apartments. They spent one night in the crowded Astrodome.

Then the group found out about Lakeview Methodist Conference Center, about 150 miles north of Houston. Lakeview charges $27 per person per day for four dormitory buildings and an auditorium, as well as three hot meals a day.

King said Volunteers of America hopes to pay the camp costs from reimbursements from the state of Louisiana, but the payments have been delayed and in any case will not be enough. The organization is trying to get money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But the Rev. Von Dawson, Lakeview's director, said: "This is a faith agreement. ... They're welcome to stay here as long as they need to."

More than half of the 50 or so group-home staff members have quit since the move to Texas, deciding instead to start rebuilding their lives. So Volunteers of America sent more staffers.

But Betty Young, the manager of a group home in Slidell, La., said she never considered leaving the people in her care.

"I feel like if I leave, I'm letting them down," said Young, 67. She said she stays in daily contact with the parents of two of the residents, "and they're concerned about me leaving. They trust me."

The Texas town of 18,000 also has helped, donating linens, clothes and toiletries. Locals have stopped by to offer to do residents' hair or nails.

Their exile is almost over. This past Saturday, 20 of the disabled left for two Louisiana group homes that were undamaged. Over the next two weekends, two more groups plan to return to homes in Slidell. Other residents will go to two New Orleans homes once city services are fully restored.

A few residents will be moved to group homes closer to their families who have moved to other states.

"We could stay here indefinitely, because the people have been so good to us, but we are feeling a sense of urgency to get them to a permanent home," King said. "They miss home. They may not understand the connotations of that, but they miss home."