A FEMA Camp Timeline - Polly Auyeung

The article sourced outlines the timeline of the Renaissance Village FEMA Camp from its creation in Sept. 2005 to March 2008, when the article was researched.

Key dates to be noted:
Sept. 2005: construction begins
Oct. 2005: the camp finally opens, almost two months after the hurricane
Dec. 2005: the fire department declares it will no longer service the site
Feb. 2006: FEMA starts charging for propane
April 2006: federal contractor stops delivering meals; it is also the official deadline for closing the camp
Aug. 2007: almost 500 trailers still remain occupied
Feb. 2008: high levels of formaldehyde are found in some trailers
Mar. 2008: trailer park occupancy drops below 200 for the first time

Information Sources
1. Barrow, Bill. "FEMA to close Renaissance Village trailer site May 31". The Times-Picayune. April 8, 2008.
http://blog.nola.com/news_impact/2008/04/RENAISSANCETL040908.pdf (Accessed January 18, 2010)

Formaldehyde problem in FEMA trailers - Milda Miskinyte

The levels of formaldehyde are so high in FEMA trailers that even employees aren't allowed to enter for long periods of time.

Information Sources:
Project Katrina. "FEMA's Formaldehyde Trailer Emails Exposed." Youtube. 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4lTNVlld-k (Accessed January 12, 2010)

Fema residents forced to evict - Felix Cheong

An article in the New York Times talks about the trouble that many Hurricane Katrina victims are going through since FEMA is forcing them to evacuate their trailers. Most victims are using the trailers as a stop gap in order to raise enough money to fix the homes that they have lost, or buy new ones, but due to the poor economy and lack of work most are finding it hard to leave the trailer camps. FEMA had promised to build permanent residences or "Katrina Cottages" for the people that can't support themselves or allow them to buy the trailers at around $300, but according to this article the permanent housing plan hasn't been finished yet, and when people inquire about buying off the trailers FEMA says that it is no longer an option. This leaves most of the people stranded. Even though most people were supposed to evict by May of 2009 there were still 3000 people living in trailers at that time.

One of the people that was interviewed is trying to pay off renovations to his damaged home by collecting cans, but if FEMA kicks him out now he's scared that he will not be able to pay off the renovations. “I need the trailer,” said Mr. Hammond, 70. “I ain’t got nowhere to go if they take the trailer.”

This article fits into what we were discussing about how people that most need the camps are the ones that FEMA wants to kick out, since they don't have the money to support themselves. Most people that have the money to leave would have left already due to the poor conditions of the trailers. If FEMA does force the rest of the victims out, they are the ones with nowhere to go. This article emphasizes again how FEMA wants these camps to be temporary.“All I can say is that this is a temporary program, it was always intended as a temporary program, and at a certain point all temporary programs must end,” said Brent Colburn, the agency’s director of external affairs. The idea of temporary and immobile trailers of FEMA versus the airstreams mobile but permanent iconic mindset is interesting.

Information Sources
Dewan, Shaila. "Fema residents forced to evict". New York Times. May 7, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/us/08trailer.html?_r=2 (Accessed January 10, 2010)

FEMA: permanence vs. temporary - Juan Pablo Uribe

The following text will briefly discuss FEMA camps, conditions, and how it relates to its transient nature as a form of housing.

Travel trailors can be used in emergency situations as temporary housing. They are not meant to be perminant, but rather a means to house those in need while their living situation is repaired. Another option in emergency situations is manufactured housing. The problem with this is that they have a tendency to turn into perminant housing. FEMA wants to help those in need get eventual perminant housing, however, the transitional phase between disaster and new placement needs to be something temprorary that is not so comfortable that residence will want to stay.

(...)As noted above, emergency shelters funded under Section 403 authority are intended to be temporary housing solutions.

Traditional Manufactured Housing
FEMA traditionally uses mobile homes and travel trailers to meet the needs of disaster victims when needs cannot be met through home repair or available rental units. Mobile homes are larger and are generally used to house applicants who are unable to obtain rental housing in the area. Additionally, they are intended to meet longer-term disaster housing needs. Travel trailers are smaller units that are usually parked adjacent to the home so that the individual or family can continue repairs while the home itself cannot be occupied and not have to pay for the space to park the trailer. The units are also placed on existing commercial lots and in parks created by FEMA for that purpose. The travel trailers “have been used principally for shorter-term housing needs” following disaster events. Travel trailers, unlike mobile homes, are not classified as housing or dwellings. Instead they are considered transportation since they are often moved from site to site for recreational purposes. HUD has not established standards for trailers as it has for mobile homes which are considered housing and are “designed to be used as a dwelling.”49 The distinction between housing and transportation also becomes important when considering FEMA’s own regulations which do not permit the placement of mobile homes within flood plains as temporary housing unless they are elevated above the base flood elevation.50 This allows trailers to be placed in flood plain areas on a temporary basis, particularly in group sites, while mobile homes may not. While manufactured housing is a form of temporary housing, it sometimes gains permanence for the households occupying these units. This is based on a part of the Stafford Act which provides that a unit “may be sold directly to the individual or household who is occupying the unit if the individual or household lacks permanent housing.”51 This is usually the case for applicants without other housing options.52

The Katrina Experience
Congressional testimony by a FEMA official noted that approximately 80% of manufactured dwellings were situated on private lots on the Gulf Coast.53 This points to the large number of homes with major damage following the hurricanes of 2005. During the post-Katrina recovery phase, these trailers and mobile homes were the center of controversy for several reasons. While manufactured housing is occasionally used, FEMA considers it the last housing option to be employed, and then only if home repairs are impractical or if here are no available units for rental assistance. But a catastrophic disaster such as Katrina removes many options. It not only spreads disaster victims across the nation but also makes home repair work difficult and slow at best. Additionally, a disaster of this magnitude wipes out most available rental housing in the affected area. With all of those factors considered, manufactured housing became the primary means of providing temporary housing in Gulf Coast communities for an extended period of time. This form of housing also drew the media’s attention due to a large number of units awaiting occupancy that have been stored in Hope, Arkansas.54 Some of the reasons for the purchase of the excess units and the slow pace of their issuance are discussed in the Issues section below.

Information Sources
1. Congressional Research Services. "FEMA Disaster Housing and Hurricane Katrina: Overview, Analysis, and Congressional Issues". CRS Report for Congres. 2008
http://ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/08July/RL34087.pdf (Accessed January 7, 2010)