Legislative Update by Congressman Mike Ross

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Hope, AR - $430 Million of Taxpayer Money
 
February 17, 2006
 
Last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) facilitated a tour of FEMA’s storage site for manufactured homes at the Hope Municipal Airport.  This tour, in response to three letters to FEMA’s Acting Director R. David Paulison, was an effort by FEMA to clarify why 10,777 fully furnished, unoccupied manufactured homes are being housed in Hope while thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees continue to live in tents and temporary housing arrangements more than five months after Hurricane Katrina devastated our nation’s Gulf Coast.

I am extremely appreciative that FEMA has opened the line of communication and has been forthcoming with their self imposed guidelines for placement of temporary housing units.  Of the many problems with delivering manufactured homes, one of the most daunting issues that FEMA must overcome is that current regulations state the manufactured homes cannot be placed on a flood plain even though these units are only temporary housing for eighteen months from the date of the disaster declaration.  However, our Gulf Coast just experienced a natural disaster where most of the homes destroyed were built on a flood plain.  Written long before Hurricane Katrina roared onto our Gulf Coast, FEMA needs to review and adapt the self imposed guidelines for placement of manufactured homes with a good dose of common sense so these homes can be delivered to the people who need them.  

During the site tour, in an effort to safeguard the hundreds of millions of dollars of government investment from damage, FEMA indicated that jacks have been ordered to hoist many of the manufactured homes to prevent them from sinking in the gumbo-like soil in Hope.  Additionally, FEMA is currently accepting bids to gravel 293 acres at the Hope Municipal Airport at an estimated cost of $6 - $8 million to American taxpayers.  Instead of wasting even more taxpayer money on jacks and gravel, FEMA should act now to relocate these manufactured homes to the American citizens who lost their homes and everything they own.  

Unfortunately, we now realize FEMA grossly overestimated the number of manufactured homes that could be utilized in housing victims of Hurricane Katrina.  However, this does not change the reality that there are 10,777 manufactured homes that remain unoccupied, and just this week, thousands of Katrina victims have been evicted from hotel rooms while these fully furnished homes sit empty merely 450 miles from the disaster area.  Now that I have an in depth understanding of the guidelines that continue to hinder FEMA from delivering these manufactured homes, I will continue to ask the tough questions of FEMA and work with my colleagues in Louisiana and Mississippi who represent thousands of people who lost their homes last August to ensure these temporary housing units are delivered to those who so desperately need them.  


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