With thousands still in shelters, FEMA’s caution about temporary housing hinders hurricane recovery

By Kimberly Kindy and Aaron C. Davis October 28 at 6:33 PM

As Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston in late August, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director William “Brock” Long said he wanted to avoid a repeat of Katrina-style temporary housing that shattered New Orleans communities.

“The last resort is to bring in manufactured homes and travel trailers,” Long said.

But less than a week later, FEMA went on a mobile home-buying binge, spending nearly $300 million on 4,500 units, the largest purchase of the homes since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, federal contracting records show. Another 1,700 mobile homes in FEMA’s inventory were also readied.

Yet most of those homes remain warehoused. FEMA has made the hunt for permanent rental housing its top priority and is reluctant to deploy the notorious homes and trailers. The structures were sharply criticized after Katrina for emitting toxic fumes, displacing residents far from their communities and later becoming eyesores while stored in massive outdoor facilities.

That decision is crippling recovery efforts in states where thousands of people remain in shelters and hotels more than six weeks after massive hurricanes destroyed their homes. Now in Texas and Florida — where rental stock is inadequate — state officials are cranking up the pressure on FEMA to release the mobile units.

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