Business & Labor
FEMA Providing Temporary Housing to Hurricane Victims
(archrecord.construction.com - 09/15/2005)
By Tony
Illia
The Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) is undertaking an ambitious effort to provide transitional
housing to hundreds of thousands of displaced Hurricane Katrina
victims. It's relying heavily on manufactured homes and mobile
trailers, but has also rented three vessels from Miami-based
Carnival Cruise Lines for six months to house primarily elderly
and health-risk victims. Two Carnival ships, docked in Galveston,
Tx., can hold a combined 5,200 refugees. The other 1,800-person
capacity ship is stationed in Mobile Bay, Ala.
The government has ordered about
100,000 two-bedroom mobile homes and recreational vehicles
from manufacturers nationwide to help fill housing needs for
300,000 people, says James McIntyre, a FEMA spokesman in Baton
Rouge, La. They are hoping to purchase 200,000 more, opening
30,000 homes every two weeks until they reach 300,000. The
government has taken delivery of about 12,000 units so far,
receiving about 500 residences a day, McIntyre says. Roughly
44.7% of the $51.8-billion in federal Hurricane relief aid
is being earmarked for temporary housing.
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Clayton Homes Inc., a Maryville, Tenn.-based
unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., received an order for 1,800
units to be delivered to Texarkana, Tex., one of four FEMA
emergency housing staging areas. The other centers include
Selma, Ala., Purvis, Miss., and Baton Rouge, La. Two hundred
single-section homes, ranging from 900-sq-ft. to 1,100-sq-ft.
in size, have already been delivered, says Chris Nicely, a
Clayton spokesman. Although he declined to comment on the
contract amount, Clayton's two-and-three bedroom homes retail
for around $25,000 to $35,000 each.
The firm is attempting to deliver 100
homes a day over the next two to three weeks. And it's in
discussions to provide another 600 pre-entitlement homes through
the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. On Sept.
9, FEMA announced a newly formed Housing Area Command with
the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the
Army Corps of Engineers and the American Red Cross to coordinate
housing operations across the Hurricane Katrina-impacted areas.
Hurricane victims could be housed in mobile home and trailers
communities of 5,000 to 25,000 people for three to five years
as cities and towns are rebuilt, said Brad Gair, FEMA's Housing
Area Commander, during a Sept. 12 press briefing.
Meanwhile, the furious pace of deployment
has prompted firms like Star Fleet Inc., a Middlebury, Ind.-based
transporter of recreational vehicles, to hire up to 100 more
drivers in order to deliver 50 units a week to Selma, Ala.
U.S.R.V. Transport, Wakarusa, Ind., is seeking another 500
drivers to ship up to 50 units a day to Gulf-stricken areas.
The United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) Forest Service has temporarily rescinded campground
fees, which range from $4 to $25-a-day, as well as 14-day
stay limits at its Southern Region lands, which total 106
campgrounds in Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma and
Texas. It's also making 30,000 housing units from its Rural
Development program available to Hurricane victims.
FEMA is clearing-out dealer inventories
nationwide at a record pace with Al's Motor Home & Trailer
Sales, Rockford , Ill., reporting 200 trailer sales to FEMA,
Burnside RV Gaylord, Mich., is delivering 350 trailers, and
Meyer's RV Superstore, Hamburg, N.Y., is sending a combined
300 travel trailers and motorhomes from its four upstate N.Y.
locations.
"FEMA is in the process of securing
40,000 to 70,000 travel trailers from 30-ft. to 35-ft-long
with A/C and furniture in a cost range of $20,000 or less
from dealers across the country," says Clark McEwen,
executive director of the Austin-based Texas Recreational
Vehicle Association. "Most of the dealers in Texas and
across the country are just about cleaned-out of that particular
trailer. But there are number of manufacturers now ramping
up production."
Dutchmen Manufacturing, in Goshen, Ind.,
for instance, plans to accelerate the opening of a new production
facility in Goshen. The company's wholesale inventory has
been depleted and dealers in the Southeast are reordering
barebones FEMA-type units to be distributed to the homeless,
says Richard Florea, Dutchmen president. Dutchmen intends
to ramp-up production by 20% by the end of September while
hiring between 200 and 250 new employees by the first of the
year.
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