Poverty and Disaster

There is a lot of talk currently about poor people being disproportionately hit by hurricane Katrina. It makes me think - hasn’t this been the story forever and ever? “<insert disaster here> plows through <insert region here> - poor people hardest hit!” It happened with the tsunami, every single earthquake I can think of and must be an yearly occurrence in Bangladesh every time the monsoon hits.

It reminds me of something that happened back home in India. We lived very close to the beach in the Vishakhapatnam and we were a port/fishing city. All the fishermen lived on the beach, where the huts were not only eyesores for those trying to get tourism dollars, but a general indefensible line of housing should a hurrican hit. The city went ahead built an entire colony of low-incom housing with solid walls and indoor-toilets and tried to mmove all the fishermen into those homes. Two months later, all the huts were back again on the beach and their homes had been rented out to other poor people. The fishermen simply didn’t want to lose their close access to the beach and their livelihood (their homes were about 15 minutes away by walk) and their convenience. Suppose a major hurrican hit Vizag and these people got affected - the city would have been blamed for not taking good care of its poor.

This is not an attempt to say that poor people are to be blamed for their misfortune - this is just to say there is also a sizable contingent of the poor people who won’t let you help them. What do we do about people like that? How do we solve the issue without infringing on their right to make a living in a decent and convenient manner?