UPDATE!

From Rachel Rivera, the mom who started the petition to keep Sandy families from being evicted"

"My family and other families displaced by Sandy will sleep tight tonight knowing that, at least for the time being, we won’t be evicted from our hotels. This evening, just before the city’s arbitrary deadline to evict us, a Manhattan Supreme Court Judge ordered the city to extend the hotel program for families like mine for 15 days as a result of a lawsuit filed by Legal Aid. NYCC members will continue to fight to secure long term affordable housing for all families displaced by Sandy."

Read more about this great victory in the Wall Street Journal, click here.

Thanks to all who signed the petition!
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Six-months after Superstorm Sandy, shore towns are rebuilding, but recovery is slow. Remnants of Sandy's destruction are clearly visible. Towns are working hard to complete boardwalk projects to draw tourists back in time for summer, notes the Associated Press. But while the media wonders where tourists will spend the vacations, 600 families who fell victim to Sandy are wondering if the only place left for them to call "home" is the streets.

The following message is from Rachel Rivera and her petition pleading for the NYC Department of Homeless services not to throw her and her 7-year-old daughter out on the street.

Via CREDO, and New York Communities for Change:

Families who were displaced by Sandy and are living in hotels need long-term affordable housing, not to be thrown out into the streets for the second time since the storm. Extend the April 30th deadline until all displaced families are placed into apartments that they can afford.

Why is this important?

My seven year old daughter Marisol and I have called our room in the Holiday Inn Express on 29th Street home for the past six months since the roof in our apartment collapsed during Hurricane Sandy. But in a few days, we are going to lose our home again—this time because of an arbitrary deadline set by the Department of Homeless Services. No one wants to call a hotel home, but the only other option we’ve been given by the city is the streets.

My daughter and I are not alone. Hundreds of Sandy victims, living in hotels throughout New York City will be evicted from our rooms on Tuesday April 30th. Like Marisol and I, many of those families have nowhere else to go. The number of New Yorkers sleeping in homeless shelters is at an all-time high and families like mine are about to join them. We are victims of natural disaster and deserve to be treated with dignity.

Sign my petition demanding that DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond postpones the April 30th deadline to evict Sandy families living in hotels until there is a plan to find us all housing that we can afford for the long term.

Please sign Rachel's petition to the Department of Homeless services commissioner, Seth Diamond.

For more information about the impending eviction of 600 Sandy families, click here.

From Superstorm Sandy to soaring temperatures in Australia, ongoing drought that has parched more than 60% of the U.S., and flooding from hurricanes around the world, we are experiencing the consequences of our carbon pollution now. We are paying the cost of these dirty weather disasters and other climate impacts through taxes, medical bills, and insurance rates (to name just a few). It’s past time to talk about the real cost of carbon pollution and to take action so that the polluters are paying their fair share.

Carbon pollution is not only disrupting our lives, it’s hitting our wallets. Comedian and musician Reggie Watts shows how, laying out the billion-dollar connection between fossil-fuel energy and dirty weather events like Superstorm Sandy caused by carbon pollution.

In the spirit of moving forward to solve the climate crisis, it’s time to jump-start a real carbon conversation.

For more information, visit The Climate Reality Project.

Hurricane Sandy Aftermath: Staten Island Angry Over Delayed Storm Recovery...and this was in November 2012.

Here are the 36 votes against Sandy relief, a $50.5 billion emergency spending bill to aid victims of super storm Sandy. It passed in a 62-36 vote in the Senate Monday evening:

Steve Benen notes:

But before we move on, it's worth pausing to note the partisan split on Sandy relief -- in the Senate, 36 Senate Republicans, including members representing coastal states like Florida, Texas, Alabama, and the Carolinas, voted against the federal aid. Or put another way, 80% of Senate Republicans opposed post-Sandy relief.

In the House, we saw roughly the same outcome -- 78% of House Republicans voted against the emergency assistance.

What we're seeing, in other words, is a fundamental shift in how GOP policymakers respond to communities struggling after a natural disaster.

For generations, these votes were not politicized or considered particularly controversial -- Americans could count on their elected representatives to step up if a natural disaster struck. It wasn't partisan and it wasn't ideological; this is just what the country did. It was a reflection of who we are.

Indeed, those days are over. The majority of Republicans now approach natural disasters as political fodder, another opportunity to push for massive cuts to other domestic spending. Tax cuts to the wealthy? Why, those pay for themselves. Rebuilding destroyed communities populated by millions of Americans? Only if you cut other government programs.

And the worst of these Republicans who voted no for Sandy relief, is Missouri Senator Roy Blunt. Flashback to May 2011:

Missouri Senator Roy Blunt says he’s asking the federal government to reimburse 100 percent of the cost to local governments dealing with the Joplin tornado aftermath.
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“I’m asking for 100 percent federal reimbursement to local governments,” Blunt said, “They’ve agreed to 75. I think they have to come to a better number than that, and the right number, I think, would be 100 percent.”

Now look at that close. See any offsets in those demands?

Devon Lawrence hasn't had heat since Hurricane Sandy three months ago. His elderly mother wears gloves to bed and Lawrence wakes up early to turn the heat on so she doesn't wake up cold. Despite all of the challenges, he isn't giving up:

Via:

Devon Lawrence neatly stacked bricks on the gas burner of his kitchen stove and turned up the blue flame, creating a sort of radiator that warmed the ice-cold room.

His two-story house in the Far Rockaway section of Queens hasn't had working heat since Superstorm Sandy's floodwaters destroyed the oil burner in the basement. Now mold is growing upstairs because the house has been cold and damp for so long.

Lawrence wakes early every morning to heat the bricks and light a kerosene space heater while his 75-year-old mother sits in bed in a hat and gloves.

"That way she doesn't freeze," said Lawrence, a former Army medic who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Even the dog is cold."

The Associated Press also interviewed Norma Mancia, a Salvadoran immigrant, for this report. Mancia's home is also located in the Far Rockaways, and she lost many preciouos documents in the flooding.

"We lost all the receipts and papers we could need in case we have the opportunity of solving our legal status here," said Mancia, who has received only $500 in aid from a local church. "I have cried a lot."

Because she is in the U.S. illegally, Mancia has not received any funds from FEMA.

President Obama today called upon Congress to finally fix what he called a "broken" immigration system. While there seems to be rare bipartisan cooperation in crafting a plan that includes a clear path to citizenship, it seems unlikely that any new legislation could be put into effect soon enough to be of assistance to Mancia, or others in similar situations.