There are some 300,000 households that still haven't found housing since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated portions of the Gulf Coast and subsequent flooding damaged 80% of New Orleans, according to NLIHC reports. Under FEMA's current schedule, housing assistance for this group will end in February and March for Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita victims, respectively.
The housing crisis in the Gulf states will not be resolved by these deadlines--or even in the near future, Sheila Crowley, NLIHC president says in her letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and FEMA Director David Paulison in which she requests the transfer.
"Grants for homeowners to begin rebuilding have only begun to trickle out, with just a few hundred checks sent out by the end of September in Mississippi and Louisiana," she wrote. "People who do receive their rebuilding grants face a six-month waiting list for a contractor to begin work on repairing their homes. The situation for renters is even bleaker: only a very small share of affordable rental housing has been repaired in the Gulf Coast."
The proposed solution to this problem may be unusual, a NLIHC spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com, but the damage by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has been unprecedented. "There is a perception by some that this is a local issue or that it is a matter of some people not being able to get acts together," she says. "But that is not the case--it is a national issue." It makes sense to transfer the remaining households to HUD, she adds. "FEMA was set up for short term crisis management. And housing is what HUD does."
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
