Guess Who's Coming ...

By Amanda Ripley / Attleboro

Forrest King, a rotund man who does not surrender very easily, was told by the American Red Cross and FEMA that they would not help him find Hurricane Katrina victims who needed a place to stay. If he wanted to help, he should give cash, he was told. Otherwise, who knows whom he might let into his home? They might be murderers. They might smoke. In any case, there would be great strain on everyone.

But King's house in Attleboro, Mass., southwest of Boston, had rooms to spare. And after days spent watching wrenching hurricane coverage on Fox News, he and his family decided that bureaucrats might not be the best judges of the situation. "The government failed," says King. "The citizens have to stand up and say, 'Get out of the way. We'll take care of our own.'" And so, for the past week, King, a self-described "dyed-in-the-wool conservative," has been sharing his home with the Meehan-Hoo family, a lesbian couple with three children, ages 5, 7 and 9. "The adults are same sex, and I don't care," he says. "I don't care if they're purple and got horns coming out of their faces. They're Americans first."

Hurricane Katrina has forced some 1 million people to leave their homes. Their 14-day Red Cross hotel vouchers are starting to expire, and their bank accounts are dwindling. Still, relief workers insist that the displaced masses need stable housing of their own, where they can exert some control over their destinies; they don't need to share a bathroom with your children. "Bringing people into your home doesn't give them a sense of independence or dignity," says Daniel Webster, an Episcopal reverend who has been working with the Red Cross relief operation in Utah.

Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of Americans are circumventing the large organizations, ignoring expert advice and offering up their own private refuge. On the basis of conservative estimates from websites that have been making matches, more than 20,000 evacuees are staying in the homes of strangers. In some cases, the results have been predictably disastrous. A Minnesota woman unwittingly took in a woman who turned out to be wanted in Florida on suspicion of organized fraud, grand theft and probation violation, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

In other cases, though, the collision of strangers and good intentions proves once again that the bureaucracy lacks imagination. After King struck out with the relief organizations, he began looking online. He found openyourhome.com started by Serena Howard, a mother of five in Fayetteville, Ark. (So far, Howard says, she has registered almost 30,000 would-be hosts and placed 2,000 evacuees.) That's where King found the Meehan-Hoo family.

Yolanda and Jan Meehan-Hoo evacuated Slidell, La., with their children and Yolanda's mother, who has Alzheimer's and diabetes, one day before the hurricane hit. They drove away from the storm for more than 28 hours, averaging 10 m.p.h. most of the way. The brakes of their gray Suzuki Esteem hatchback eventually gave out, so they rode the emergency brake. "I said, 'C'mon, baby, you gotta get us out of here,'" says Yolanda. "She names her cars. This one was Betsy," explains Jan, laughing and holding Yolanda's hand in the Attleboro kitchen.

Finally, they reached Yolanda's father's house in Port St. John, Fla., where they rested for a few days. But they were having trouble getting a wheelchair and other assistance for Yolanda's mother. Jan convinced Yolanda that their best bet was to return to Boston, where they had met and married before moving to Louisiana only two months before Katrina's landfall. "I've been a Bostonian all my life. They'll help us there," she said. Jan and Sonny, 5, went to Boston to look for options. Meanwhile, Yolanda signed up on openyourhome.com The next day, she got a call from King.

Suspicious about why a conservative retiree would want to play host to a lesbian couple and their family, Yolanda instructed Jan to poke around for clues. But, says Jan, "I felt at ease almost instantly." King and his wife Marie Hancock-King offered a tour of the house and pointed out where the Meehan-Hoo kids could sleep. "Marie asked how she should refer to us," says Jan. "She said, 'You gotta educate me.' I said, 'I call Yolanda my wife, and she calls me her wife.'"

The next day a California woman who learned about the family online donated frequent-flyer miles so that the rest of the family could fly to Boston. The local fire department brought an ambulance for Yolanda's mother, who has since been placed in a nursing home nearby. "The firemen were arguing over who got to volunteer," says King. A day later, the fire fighters came back with brand-new bunk beds for the kids.

The town of Attleboro has aggressively adopted the Meehan-Hoos. Locals have given them $600 in Old Navy gift cards and $60 in Borders certificates. A nearby inn has donated a romantic dinner for two for the couple. A coffee shop will deliver a pastry tray every week, "from now until whenever," according to Kim Allard, a city councilor who has helped arrange donations. "It's unbelievable," says Yolanda. "I told Jan, 'There's no way we can ever move out of this town.'"

Last Thursday evening the three Meehan-Hoo kids sat around the kitchen table and painted pictures of their house in Louisiana, which is now under three feet of water. Then the boys played video games with Marie's daughter Sabrina, while Taylor, 9, climbed the tree out front. The population in the Attleboro household has almost doubled. "This hectic situation has got to calm down," admits King. They plan to hold weekly family meetings and vent freely all the time. To Jan's relief, Marie has started to chastise the Meehan-Hoo kids. "She jumped in and said, 'Don't do that.' I was so glad. I felt like I didn't have to hold my breath," says Jan.

Howard, the woman who runs open your home.com recommends that people sign a written agreement before living together. She checks local records to verify that housing seekers are truly evacuees. "We've had a few people who weren't victims. They were just looking for housing," she says. The FBI, through local police departments, is temporarily offering free background checks to people with children considering a post-hurricane share.

Forrest and Marie have offered their home to the Meehan-Hoos indefinitely. Jan, who had a job at a nursing home in Louisiana, and Yolanda, a paramedic, hope to find new jobs nearby. Until they get settled, communal living provides learning experiences for everyone, even Forrest. "The other day I heard them arguing with each other in the stairway. It proves to me that same-sex couples are just as miserable as the rest of us," says King, laughing, as his wife and the Meehan-Hoos shake their heads in exasperation, like family. --With reporting by Amanda Bower / San Francisco

With reporting by Amanda Bower / San Francisco