Yet all we hear is how little help they got

Much of the $2.6 million the Agriculture Department gave to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita was unnecessary, a federal audit said.

The department won praise for quickly placing victims through its Rural Housing Service, the department's inspector general said in an audit.

But officials overlooked some basic controls to make sure that the right amount of rental assistance went to disaster victims, and that only victims got the assistance, the report said.

"Based on discussions with disaster victims, we concluded that much of the $2.6 million in emergency rental assistance that RHS provided to disaster victims was unnecessary," auditors said.

Most housing costs were already covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, auditors said, and several people obtained the aid fraudulently, the report said.