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FEMA Tells 150,000 in Hotels to Exit In 15 Days
No More Free Rooms For Katrina Evacuees
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
11/16/05 "Washington
Post" -- -- The Federal Emergency Management
Agency yesterday warned an estimated 150,000 Hurricane Katrina
evacuees living in government-subsidized hotels that they have until
Dec. 1 to find other housing before it stops paying for their rooms.
The announcement effectively starts the clock ticking toward a new
exodus of Gulf Coast storm victims who have been living rent-free in
5,700 hotels in 51 states and U.S. territories under the $273
million program.
Under FEMA's decision, the evacuees will have 15 days to lease
apartments, make other arrangements or begin paying their own bills.
Many families will be eligible for as much as $2,358 for three
months' rental assistance from FEMA, payments that may be extended
for as long as 18 months.
Families in 12,338 hotel rooms in Louisiana and Mississippi --
nearly one-fourth of the 53,894 total subsidized by FEMA -- may get
a reprieve. Because of those states' devastated housing stocks,
officials may seek extensions of hotel aid two weeks at a time until
Jan. 7, at the discretion of the top FEMA official in each state,
officials said.
The deadline will fall hardest in Texas, where 19,734 hotel rooms
are occupied by Katrina evacuees, and Georgia, where they are housed
in about 8,900 rooms.
Coming three months after Katrina's Aug. 29 landfall, the phaseout
of the hotel program marks the latest effort by FEMA to manage the
largest national housing crisis since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. It
follows criticism of the cost and management of efforts to place
people in cruise ships, mobile homes and trailers.
FEMA had set the deadline four weeks ago and discussed it publicly
with the media. Yesterday was the first time that the agency
formally released its plan to move evacuees out of hotels and
emphasized the looming deadline to them.
David Garratt, acting director of FEMA's recovery division, said the
agency has begun to notify displaced families. He said FEMA issued a
news release, released a public service announcement, directed a
contractor to slip fliers under the hotel room doors of evacuees and
yesterday began to contact people by phone or in person.
"As of the close of business on Nov. 30, 2005, FEMA will no longer
be subsidizing hotel and motel leases or rents for individuals,"
Garratt said. "We'll be working hard in our case management program
. . . with those individuals and helping them establish the ability
to manage their lives in a temporary housing environment on their
own, with or without assistance."
FEMA has awarded $66 million to two organizations to use 3,000 case
managers to help move families into apartments if they sign leases
by Dec. 1. The agency set up a nationwide housing referral service,
open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST daily, at 1-800-762-8740 (TTY
1-800-462-7585).
Housing advocates criticized the announcement, saying that FEMA
failed to spell out long-term housing plans, ignored existing
federal housing programs and will push some poor evacuees into
shelters for the homeless because of lack of planning.
"Unless they have some serious plan for helping move people from
hotels into apartments, other than putting up fliers . . . as of
December 1, there's going to be a lot of homeless people," said
Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing
Coalition.
Apartment industry officials called the long-awaited action positive
but worried that the agency is dumping the crisis into their hands.
They predicted chaos if families do not receive counseling about
federal assistance programs.
"To date, the information provided to both the evacuee and the
apartment owners about housing assistance has been inadequate and
has led to significant confusion," said Jim Arbury, senior vice
president for the National Multi Housing Council. "It will be
difficult, if not impossible, to secure executed leases for all the
eligible families in slightly over two weeks -- including a long
holiday weekend."
"It's a hell of a time to be telling people that they're kicked out,
a week after the [Thanksgiving] holiday," said Doug Culkin,
executive vice president of the National Apartment Association.
Several Texas cities, including Houston and Dallas, have set up
city-funded apartment programs for storm victims, anticipating FEMA
reimbursement. Under FEMA's new policy, dated Monday, the agency
will not pay for any leases signed after Dec. 1, and existing leases
must be phased out by March 1.
Housing experts said FEMA is opening itself to legal challenges. On
Thursday, 14 people filed a class-action lawsuit in the Eastern
District of Louisiana, claiming that FEMA has failed to live up to
its responsibility to provide relief to Katrina victims fairly and
quickly.
"It appears that FEMA is working very hard to make itself so
unreliable that state and local governments will say, 'We can't
depend on FEMA in the future,' " Crowley said. "I can't imagine what
other explanation there can be for this level of incompetence."
Nationwide, the number of Katrina evacuees living in shelters has
fallen to 2,491, down from a high of 321,000 shortly after the
storm, FEMA said. The agency said 1.4 million families have
registered as storm victims and 500,000 families have received
housing assistance.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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