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 WASHINGTON (AP) - Only $114 a month stands between Shawn Williams, a Hurricane Katrina evacuee, and eviction from her temporary apartment in suburban Houston. Williams can afford to pay out of her own pocket and is willing to do so to make up the difference between the $633 voucher she gets in federal housing aid and the apartment's $747 rent. But a bureaucratic snag prevents her from closing the gap on her own.
Now, after paying the entire rent herself for months because the landlord cannot accept the voucher, Williams says she is running out of money and fears losing the two-bedroom apartment where she has lived with her disabled husband and teenage son since fleeing New Orleans more than two months ago.
The government's disaster relief agency says help is on the way for Williams and other evacuees caught in the frustrating tangle that prevents landlords from accepting more rent money than what Washington is willing to cover.
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