December 13, 2006

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), ACORN, the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness, and 89 other housing and poverty advocacy groups are bracing for February 28. That’s when the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s temporary housing assistance for those left homeless by Hurricane Katrina is scheduled to end.

Almost 300,000 households in the Gulf region are at risk of homelessness, the groups claim. This includes almost 110,000 families living in FEMA trailers and mobile homes, and nearly 180,000 families who are receiving FEMA-funded rental assistance. Families receive up to $26,200 for rents, repairs, and other costs through the program, for a limit of 18 months.

On October 17 the organizations sent a letter to the directors of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and FEMA, urging them to transfer families depending on FEMA housing assistance into HUD’s $390 million Disaster Voucher Program. That program, created last winter, was modeled on HUD’s Section 8 voucher system. For now it is only available to families who were getting public assistance before Katrina, but would require additional funding to encompass the proposed expansion, says Sheila Crowley, director of the NLIHC. On December 4 the letter had still not been answered.

Crowley says the HUD plan would be far preferable to FEMA’s assistance, which she calls “a nightmare of a program,” citing ad-hoc development, inconsistent rules, little implementation, and much confusion among recipients. Nonetheless, while any transfer to the HUD program is pending, the housing groups are asking FEMA to extend its 18-month deadline through February 2008, and to increase the assistance limit above $26,000.

“The 18-month rule is based on much smaller-scale disasters. It has no bearing in a situation like this,” Crowley says. For now, she adds, FEMA is waiting until the last minute to extend the deadline, probably to shrink the program’s roles by forcing many families to leave the area in panic: “Everything they do seems to make it hard for people to understand the process, and hard to get help. This is standard when you have a program where you want people to give up and go away.”

FEMA officials told RECORD that they could not comment directly on the program. But in a written statement sent December 4, the agency said, “FEMA is sensitive to the ongoing housing concerns of disaster victims in Mississippi and across all Gulf Coast states affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We have been exploring contingency plans with local officials regarding possible housing options beyond the standard 18-month timeframe for temporary housing assistance under FEMA’s Individual and Household Program. Although no decision has been made to extend the program beyond the Feb. 28, 2007, end date, we will continue to work with disaster victims and others concerned with helping them meet their temporary housing needs.”

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled on November 29 that FEMA must resume making assistance payments to Gulf Coast residents who had transferred from state and local assistance to FEMA assistance. This ruling, however, did not address the termination of the agency’s assistance program. 

Sam Lubell

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