'You scratch your head and wonder'

FEMA has stockpiled thousands of mobile homes for use by people displaced by Katrina. They're sitting unoccupied in Hope, Ark.

BY JOHN RILEY | STAFF WRITER

February 20, 2006

The mobile homes started arriving sometime in October, pulling into a 282-acre site at the Hope, Ark., airport, one after another, row upon row. They kept on coming, week after week and month after month, convoys of sometimes 100 at a time lugged by trucks that clogged the roads into town, queuing up on a runway and on the adjacent gumbo-like soil, side to side, front to back.

They were supposed to be shelters for the thousands of victims left homeless by Hurricane Katrina, waiting here to be shipped out, reflections of the goodwill of a nation. But they never left. Instead, they kept on coming, kept on piling up, like logs at a dam. Today, 10,777 of the units sit stockpiled in Hope, $300 million in taxpayer money gridlocked in bureaucracy, 450 miles from New Orleans with no place to go.

And more than five months after Katrina hit, the scene has become a symbol to locals almost on a par with the Superdome of the federal government's ineptitude in dealing with the most serious natural disaster in recent U.S. history. Part of the problem, it turns out, is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency spent millions on mobile homes to house hurricane victims, but its own regulations say they can't be installed in the floodplain zones where the hurricane hit.

"You scratch your head and wonder," says Dennis Ramsey, mayor of the city of 11,000. "They're obviously not doing anybody any good sitting out here at the airport. ... Knowing the conditions people are living in and the need for these houses, seeing them sitting up here in red tape is disconcerting, to say the least, and a total waste of the taxpayers' money."

Last week, as FEMA enforced a deadline to stop paying hotel bills for 12,000 households left homeless by Katrina despite complaints that many had no good alternatives, the ironic counterpoint at Hope's airport jumped into the national spotlight. One official warned Congress that Hope's mobile homes might never get used and might even suffer damage as they sit in limbo.

"They've been sitting exposed to the elements for months," said Richard Skinner, inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security. "Some of the trailers that we inspected are actually warping, have lost wheels. And some have been cannibalized, parts taken out, and we don't even know where the parts are right now. So their value is going to decrease tremendously."

Altogether, according to Skinner, FEMA purchased 114,341 travel trailers - small units that can be hauled by a car, and are permitted in floodplains - at a cost of $1.7 billion. It acquired 24,967 mobile homes of the sort stockpiled in Hope - larger multi-bedroom units that have to be hauled by a truck - at a cost of $857 million, according to Skinner. To date, only about 75,000 of the travel trailers have been put into service. Skinner said only about 100 of the larger, more expensive mobile homes have been occupied, while FEMA puts the number at 6,000.

FEMA director David Paulison disputes the claim that any units are at risk of damage, but the agency acknowledges that a lot of its housing hasn't been put to any good use yet. The primary reason, says spokeswoman Nicol Andrews, is that many localities in Louisiana and elsewhere have refused to allow FEMA to set up multi-unit sites.

Despite the floodplain restrictions, Andrews said, FEMA ordered the mobile homes because it anticipated needing more Katrina housing than the available supply of travel trailers, and thought it would be able to use mobile homes in areas distant from floodplain zones. "The vast majority of communities have said, 'Thanks but no thanks,'" Andrews said. "It is frustrating. We're frankly shocked by the resistance we've encountered."

Louisiana officials say they're desperate for units like the ones in Hope. Housing coordinator Bill Croft said the state has asked to waive the floodplain restriction, which appears to be based on the notion that a travel trailer could be moved quickly, but a mobile home would be a sitting duck in a storm. So far, FEMA has not agreed. "Let's talk about finding adequate housing solutions for the people who need it," Croft said. "I would think a mobile home is expendable, not someone's life."

Back in Hope, Ramsey says the vacant homes have had some benefits. FEMA is paying $25,000 a month to lease space at the airport. Truckers have boosted restaurant and motel revenues. And about 25 locals are employed at the site, and that could grow because FEMA is about to spend $6 million to spread gravel to make sure its homes don't get stuck in the gumbo if it rains.

But it still seems like a waste. "You buy 20,000 mobile homes to put on the coast," Ramsey said. "The coast is on the floodplain. And FEMA has a regulation saying you can't put a mobile home in a floodplain. If this was the private sector, someone would be history."

24,967 Mobile homes bought by FEMA

$857M Cost of the mobile homes

6,000 Mobile homes in use

SOURCE: FEMA