Thousands Affected By FEMA Deadline

Today marks the end of what has become the largest temporary housing program in the history of this country. 44 months ago the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided housing for thousands of people who were left homeless in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports on what that program has accomplished and where it leaves the thousands of people still searching for a permanent place to live.

Michelle Seals is standing in the middle of her FEMA travel trailer in Waveland, and after today she is going to have to find a new place to live,

“Well I was going to get some tents to put out here in the yard. That’s kind of hard because they have to go back and forth to school, and they have to get a good night sleep.

Michelle lives in the FEMA travel trailer with her five son’s ages 18-8. She says she doesn’t know how big the trailer is, and asks her ten year old sitting in front of her to measure it out,

“Count it out Gurtis, step by step from the bathroom. It’s about thirty feet or less.”

It is a tiny space, with mattresses on the floor and duct tape holding up some of the windows to keep out the rain. Michelle says even though this living situation is difficult, it’s the best option she has,

“Yes, they said four years by now people should have homes to live in, but how do we have that option to be in something better when there is nothing here to provide for them. There is no affordable housing anymore.”

Michelle and her family are living in one of more than 43,000 temporary housing units provided by FEMA after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. While a great number of the households living in those units have moved on to more permanent situations, just under 2000 have not.

“The storm came in from the east, it came in that way, and then circled back around, so we caught it this way and this way.”

About half an hour north of Waveland sits Pearl River County, an area that was devastated by the tornados that accompanied Katrina. Deanna, who asked that her last name not be used, is disabled and is sitting with her teenage daughter in the yard next to her FEMA mobile home and the new mobile home which was donated to her and set up by 30 volunteers just a few days ago.

“This is a little bit of new beginnings, that’s a hard thing after the storm to get out of the despair and depression of what you lose. Of things you work for all your life and start new.”

Deanna says that without the help of volunteers she doesn’t know how she would have handled today’s deadline. Volunteers, many from around the country, have been an integral part of the recovery after Katrina. Kathleen Johnson, is director of Katrina Relief a volunteer agency in Waveland,

“This is a crisis, and May 1st is a crisis. Because we have so far to go, we have had no recovery money on the table since May 2008. It doesn’t look like any recovery money is coming down at all. The bureaucracy has wound us into a convoluted mess.”

Johnson is referring to the burecratic issues which may have slowed some of the dispersal of the $5.4 billion dollars given to the state for hurricane recovery through Community Development Block Grants. While the Homeowner Grant programs have already been completed, others like Workforce Housing and Rental Assistance programs have just started to be rolled out in the last year. That’s a result of having to move past hurdles with federal and environmental regulations says Lee Youngblood with the Mississippi Development Authority,

“The deadline is certainly something of a concern to us, but we think it is something that can be overcome.”

For the 61 families along the Gulf Coast living in FEMA paid hotels, today’s deadline means those payments will stop. For the 1100 residents still living in travel trailers, they will have to be vacated. But Mike Miller Chief of Individual Assistance for FEMA’s Transitional Recovery Office in Biloxi says no one is going to be thrown out on the streets,

“This is not going to be something that one May, that FEMA is going to be out there moving occupants and their belongings out on the street and leaving them without a place to live that is not going to happen.”

As for Michelle Seals, she says even though she’s been told she’ll receive Section Eight Housing vouchers she is still worried,

“There are a lot of owners that don’t even want to rent out to Section Eight so it’s kind of hard. What you’re up against, where you are going to live with your kids. It’s just hard. Sometimes it is unexplainable even in words and even what you’re thinking.”