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FEMA Trailer Foreclosures

Posted by: Tim Halbur

10 May 2009 - 9:00am

FEMA has sent eviction notices to thousands of people in emergency trailers in New Orleans. The temporary shelter was designed to house homeowners while their homes were repaired, but many remain unfinished.

"Though more than 4,000 Louisiana homeowners have received rebuilding money only in the last six months, or are struggling with inadequate grants or no money at all, FEMA is intent on taking away their trailers by the end of May. The deadline, which ends temporary housing before permanent housing has replaced it, has become a stark example of recovery programs that seem almost to be working against one another.

Thousands of rental units have yet to be restored, and not a single one of 500 planned 'Katrina cottages' has been completed and occupied. The Road Home program for single-family homeowners, which has cost federal taxpayers $7.9 billion, has a new contractor who is struggling to review a host of appeals, and workers who assist the homeless are finding more elderly people squatting in abandoned buildings.

Nonetheless, FEMA wants its trailers back, even though it plans to scrap or sell them for a fraction of what it paid for them."

Full Story: Ready or Not, Katrina Victims Lose Temporary Housing
Source: The New York Times, May 8, 2009
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