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Student Can't Get FEMA Off His Back

By Ashley R. Harris
Black College Wire

Family photo Jesse Parkhurst, right, said, "No one thought that this would escalate to the situation so many of us are facing now." The FEMA issue extended beyond black colleges.

Katrina victims who lived in off-campus housing are still being tossed and turned by FEMA's whirlwind. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is still pursuing them to repay the emergency money it sent them.

The recent change in FEMA eligibility rules applies only to students who lived in on-campus dormitories.

Among those still being pursued is Jesse Parkhurst, 23, a native of St. Augustine, Fla., who enrolled in 2005 at the University of New Orleans, one of the few schools in the nation to offer a program in his major, naval architecture and marine engineering.

UNO does not have student dormitories, so the school's housing office referred him to Privateer Place, a nearby apartment complex where both students and UNO faculty members lived.

Like many other structures in New Orleans, Privateer Place was severely damaged by the powerful winds and high water, which made landfall in August 2005.

Parkhurst returned to St. Augustine, and like the hundreds of students who had nowhere else to turn to pay for their education, food, housing and clothing, he applied for help from FEMA.

He got $5,000 from the agency, which he used to enroll at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. But he hoped to return to UNO as soon as possible. He applied for space in one of the FEMA trailers that would be used as temporary housing at UNO, and was put on a waiting list.

By November 2005, however, it became painfully clear that UNO had been too damaged by the storm to reopen immediately. The university gave students the option of either returning to campus and retrieving what was salvageable, or taking a total loss on everything.

Parkhurst chose the former, and returned in November with his parents to gather his remaining belongings from Privateer Place. Although batteries, a paintball gun and vodka had been looted from his apartment, most of his things were still there.

But the complex itself was a disaster area – condemned and uninhabitable because of severe wind and water damage.

Realizing that he could not return to UNO, Parkhurst transferred permanently to the University of North Florida. It was a painful decision, not only because UNF does not offer the courses in naval architecture and marine engineering that Jesse wanted. He had also planned to make a life for himself in New Orleans after graduating.

"Jesse wasn't just moving to New Orleans to go to school," Kate Parkhurst, his mother, said. "He was going there to begin a life."

Months went by after Jesse Parkhurst received his first two checks from FEMA and a phone call from the agency seeking assurance that the money was being spent properly. He had begun establishing a life for himself at UNF.

Then one day late last year, Parkhurst received a letter from FEMA at his parents' address. When he opened it a few weeks later while visiting his family, his mother says he was visibly shocked. "They want the money back," he said.

Like so many other students, Jesse Parkhurst believed that the checks were being sent to him in good faith, and spent them in good faith. Unlike many other students, Parkhurst and his parents kept extremely detailed notes of their dealings with FEMA, and held on to receipts for nearly every expense he incurred since he moved to UNO two years ago.

"We have receipts and have kept them since the entire ordeal began," his mother said.

"We have more time on our hands than most," Jesse Parkhurst added. "I feel for everybody who didn't keep records, not because they didn't know how to, but no one thought that this would escalate to the situation so many of us are facing now."

Despite the massive amount of evidence they have amassed, the Parkhursts were frustrated in their efforts to get FEMA off their backs. They sent 30 to 50 pages of documentation containing receipts and copies of their correspondence with FEMA to their congressman, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., and to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in the hope that the lawmakers could assist them. So far, the lawmakers' efforts have been largely unavailing.

They obtained a copy of Parkhurst's file at FEMA and discovered that it did not contain many key documents.

"They said they had not received forms that we sent certified mail and had signed upon receipt," Kate Parkhurst said. "We kept seeing error after error in his file."

To Jesse Parkhurst, it smacks of "rampant incompetence."

While he hopes that his case will eventually be reviewed by FEMA and dismissed, the interest on the sum FEMA wants back just keeps adding up.

Ashley R. Harris, who was evacuated from Dillard University after Hurricane Katrina, is a student at the University of Houston. To comment, e-mail .

Posted May 28, 2007