Nearly half of the 85,000 elderly people displaced by Hurricane Katrina have returned to New Orleans, many finding only squalor and rubble.

Public and private sectors designed to aid the elderly report being overwhelmed by need, the Los Angeles Times said Tuesday.

Space is available at nursing homes but is limited at assisted living centers that cater to the moderately infirm, the Times reported.

"A nursing home is a slaughterhouse," said Joyce Simms Wood, 77, who can barely walk and lives alone in a trailer in front of her damaged house.

Others, such as former handyman Charles Taylor, 81, are looking to the future and what they have to leave behind. Taylor, who has stomach and liver cancer, has been restoring his duplex for family members who will survive him, the Times reported. Taylor estimates he has about six months to live.

"But I ain't going to stop though," he said. "I might die, but I ain't going to give up."  // Copyright 2007 by United Press International


Publication date: 19 September 2007   

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