As school starts across the country and children displaced by hurricane Katrina crowd back into the hallways, many state and local officials are getting the first real indication of how many evacuees will be permanent residents of their communities.

An estimated 84,000 people who fled Katrina's path remain in the Atlanta area, increasing demand for long-term housing and city services such as mental-health services.

In Baton Rouge, La., some 50,000 evacuees are believed to remain – a number that's hard to pin down because many of those people are also trying to rebuild in New Orleans.

It's Houston, however, that has received the lion's share of Katrina evacuees: 150,000 are still there. And while Texas has warmly welcomed this group, the stress over increased unemployment and crime is starting to be felt.

Indeed, in Houston and other cities affected by the relocation, some officials are beginning to reassess the financial implications of their generosity over the past year. Their conclusion: The federal government should continue to support the state and municipalities where evacuee numbers remain high because many are still not on their feet almost a year after the storm.

To get a better sense of the numbers, Texas recently commissioned a survey to figure out who is still here and how much progress they've made integrating into communities.

While the report is not yet final, Kathy Walt of Gov. Rick Perry's office says the initial numbers show that 220,000 evacuees are still in Texas.

"That's significant," she says, "because the vast majority of the people who fled Louisiana in the wake of Katrina were lower-income individuals. And if they are going to remain here, we need to know what kind of services they are going to need" – and, more important, be able to pass that data on to Washington for reimbursement.

The Gallup survey, due out in early September, will also show that a large percentage of the evacuees still in Texas don't have jobs (59 percent) and live in households with incomes of less than $500 a month (41 percent).

"People realize that Katrina was an extraordinary event. And because we are also a Gulf Coast state and could have been in the same position, there is a good deal of empathy for this group," says Don Baylor, policy analyst of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin. "But Texas also does not have a lot of patience with able-bodied individuals who chose not to work."

At a job fair in Houston last week, for instance, Mayor Bill White encouraged unemployed evacuees to get to work, pointing out that there are 5,000 positions open in the city.

"We don't believe in dependency in Houston. We're a working city. It may not be the perfect job, but there are jobs available and people should take them," said Mr. White, who has been a strong advocate for the evacuees.

In the city, a disproportionate number of Katrina evacuees needed special care, such as health and social services.

The Harris County Hospital District's cost of treating the evacuees, for instance, is currently more than $7 million – only 33 percent of which had been reimbursed by the federal government as of mid-July.

In addition, the federal Medicaid waivers were taken away at the end of June – so many evacuees are now without medical insurance altogether, leaving the county to cover the cost.

"It's just another one of those straws laid on the stressed camel's back. And how long that camel is going to stay up, there is no telling," says R. King Hillier, the hospital district's director of government relations.

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