Austin designer Michael McDaniel has developed an alternative temporary housing solution to the FEMA trailer. He calls it the Reaction Housing System, a temporary shelter that can be stacked up and loaded onto a flatbed 20 at a time. It is an interesting option to provide extremely short-term shelter. In real world applications however the [...]
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Tag Archives: FEMA
Federal court orders FEMA to reconsider denial of home repairs to Hurricane Dolly survivors
August 10, 2009
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Good news for the low income Hurricane Dolly survivors who were denied home repairs by FEMA! The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Brownsville Division issued a ruling on August 6 in the case of La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Plaintiffs brought suit in [...]
Read morePhotos and costs of FEMA’s temporary housing units released
July 9, 2009
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At yesterday’s hearing on the future of FEMA disaster housing before the House Homeland Security Committee the committee staff produced an interesting exhibit. It shows the various models of housing that FEMA has either purchased of is testing through the Katrina Cottage demonstration program. It is reproduced in part below. As I blogged about a [...]
Read moreGetting closer to finding out why so many Texas hurricane survivors were denied housing assistance
June 17, 2009
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The pieces are slowly coming together to answer the question, why were so many applications for FEMA housing assistance in the wake of Hurricane Ike denied by FEMA? While more than 82,000 households affected by Ike have received almost $371 million in FEMA funds for repairs, more than 730,000 families requested help from FEMA, meaning [...]
Read moreAn encouraging sign of understanding by new FEMA administrator
June 16, 2009
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I liked what I heard from new FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate in his June 9 testimony before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response. In response to a question from Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) regarding evidence that FEMA trailers cost upwards of $75,000 each, Administrator Fugate responded… Mr. Chairman, [...]
Read moreKatrina Cottage pilot program woes due to failure at all levels
June 15, 2009
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How many times do we have to hear the story before it sinks in? Let’s sum up the government response to the plight of impoverished hurricane survivors… The federal government is slow and bungling. The state government is slow and would rather spend money on economic development rather than helping poor disaster victims get back [...]
Read moreTxLIHIS Karen Paup and NLIHC Sheila Crowley testify on housing disaster recovery
March 18, 2009
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. Texas Low Income Housing Information Service co-director Karen Paup and National Low Income Housing Coalition president Sheila Crowley were among those who testified today before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee investigating the failures of the federal response to the provision of affordable housing in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and [...]
Read moreIs federal disaster assistance an entitlement?
December 1, 2008
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The back-and-forth between the Texas governor and the US Secretary of Homeland Security over who will pay for the removal of disaster debris from Hurricane Ike raises the question, “Is federal disaster assistance an entitlement?” Governor Perry has blasted the federal government for paying to bail out Wall Street banks but refusing to bear 100 [...]
Read moreReforming FEMA alone won’t fix the problem
November 26, 2008
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There are hopes that a structural reform and management reorganization of FEMA under the Obama Administration will solve the problems that emerged in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Dolly and Ike. There is a lot of important work to be done with reforming FEMA but even a perfect emergency management agency won’t provide the [...]
Read moreStories of eleven Texas families document FEMA’s illegal and systemic discrimination against the poor
November 20, 2008
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It has become abundantly clear that FEMA does not treat low-income disaster survivors right. Consider the stories included in a lawsuit filed against FEMA in Federal District Court in Brownsville today by attorneys with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid (TRLA). The lawsuit cites the tragic stories of eleven low-income hurricane survivor households denied assistance by [...]
Read moreWhat’s with FEMA’s high denial rate of Galveston area requests for help?
November 16, 2008
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Anger is widespread over the fact that people are still living in tents in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Data just obtained from FEMA shows the agency is approving less than 10 % of the applications for help from hurricane survivors in Galveston. Hurricane Ike was a huge storm that destroyed homes across the Southeast [...]
Read moreFEMA and HUD: not who you would want to depend on to throw you a life preserver
June 4, 2008
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The House Financial Services Committee called HUD and FEMA to testify about when the lead federal agencies for hurricane relief are going to get the 2005 Hurricane survivors out of temporary and into permanent housing. The result: lots of agency mumbling and stammering. Listen to excerpts from the hearing in this NPR story. Also appalling is the failure of [...]
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