Florida FEMA Trailer update..

[Aquawind]

FEMA's Florida trailers still full

Charlotte patching up from 2004 as Katrina weighs in

By Melanie Payne
mpayne@news-press.com
Published by news-press.com on September 18, 2005

During the past week, 40 mobile homes that have housed victims of Hurricane Charley for the best part of a year have been pulled out of Charlotte County.

They're being taken north to provide temporary homes for survivors of an even more widespread disaster — Hurricane Katrina.

While the trailers are gone, the Federal Emergency Management Agency that brought them will not be leaving any time soon.

There's still work to be done in Florida.

More than 7,500 travel trailers and mobile homes FEMA provided to those left homeless by hurricanes Charley, Frances, Jeanne and Ivan still are occupied across the state.

They are scattered among 14 group trailer sites in six counties, and the task of getting people out of them and into their own homes is proving increasingly difficult.

"Lots of people are still here," said FEMA spokeswoman Mildred Acevedo as she looked out at a legion of white, nearly identical mobile homes.

They line the dirt roads in a piece of Charlotte County about 10 miles from Punta Gorda. Residents call it "FEMA City"

At one time, 1,700 people called the 92-acre site home. The number has since dropped to 1,525, and the number of trailers has gone from 550 to 480.

RUMORS OF EVICTIONS

Residents of FEMA City had heard people would be kicked out so the trailers could be given to Hurricane Katrina victims.

That's not true, Acevedo said.

"FEMA is not telling people you have to leave, we want your unit," Acevedo said.

Based in Puerto Rico, Acevedo has worked for the agency for 16 years, traveling from flood to hurricane to earthquake to fire.

And even though the numbers in New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama are staggering, she won't rank Katrina against other disasters.

On a personal level, she said, each one is just as bad.

"No matter what type of disaster or losses," she said, "for the person who suffered, it's all the same."

Many of the people left in FEMA's group sites will have a difficult time finding homes, she said, because affordable housing that was ripped apart in 2004 hasn't been replaced.

That leaves few places for people of limited means to live.

Still, the pace of exits has quickened in the past two weeks, said Roger Larson, site manager for FEMA City in Charlotte County.

That's not FEMA's doing, he said. Things are just beginning to fall in place for people.

"If we kicked people out, it would ruin the good we did," Larson said. "We put in too much work to make it a sad ending."

MAKING THE MOVE

There are two great days for people living in FEMA trailers, Larson said: the day they move in and the day they turn in the trailer keys and leave.

After 10 months in FEMA City, Aida Florid is ready to go.

She gets a far-off look when she describes the manufactured home where she and her husband lived before Charley blew it away. It was a double-wide with three bedrooms, a den, full dining room and an island kitchen.

The insurance check was enough to pay off the mortgage but not enough to replace her home.

She took the $4,000 that was left over and gave it to her daughter with instructions to "take this money and put it in an account so I never touch it," she said.

Then Florid went back to work as a contractor at the company from which she retired and is supplementing the account with each paycheck.

She expects a new mobile home to be on her land in Punta Gorda by the end of October. Then she will leave FEMA City with its dusty roads and her front-stoop view of the dry moat that separates it from the county jail.

"I'll miss some of the people," Florid said. But not others, who sit outside all day, smoke dope and play music so loud it vibrates the trailer walls.

DEPUTIES ON DUTY

Charlotte County sheriff's deputies are a constant presence in FEMA City. They responded to 257 calls for service between November 2004 and last August.

Sheriff's spokesman Bob Carpenter said FEMA City is not similar to a traditional mobile home park. Plus, it's bigger than sites FEMA set up in DeSoto, Hardee, Escambia, Santa Rosa and Martin counties.

FEMA will terminate leases with people who engage in criminal behavior or don't follow the rules and wants people to work toward getting their own housing, Acevedo said.

Each month, someone from FEMA knocks on their doors to fill out the necessary "recertification," which includes an update on their plans to move.

Some people living in FEMA trailers don't view recertification as benign.

Over and over, even those who give FEMA high marks say the agency is "putting out" someone or "wanting to get rid" of a family.

Judith Taylor compared FEMA's recertification process to that of a bill collector. They keep hounding you until you give up, she said.

Taylor was in a FEMA trailer at a private mobile home park in Estero.

"I heard they wanted the trailers back," said Taylor, 60, who is disabled and lives on a $590 per month income. "I got tired of the harassment."

She found a room for rent in a private home in San Carlos Park and moved last month, she said.

A PERMANENT HOME

The trailers are a rent-free place to stay for up to 18 months and for some people may be a step up from their pre-hurricane homes.

Many of the people who live in the group trailer site were residents of public housing, said Wayne Sallade, the Charlotte County emergency management director.

Charley destroyed about 95 percent of the public housing in the county, he said.

He predicted massive public housing projects and multi-family units will be built "to replace where those folks lived."

It may not come soon enough for people such as the Reyes family.

Tears swell in Maria Reyes' dark brown eyes when she speaks about losing her home and when she talks about dreams for her next one.

She moved slowly while living in FEMA City with her five young children and husband as she recovered from surgery for a heart condition.

Reyes and her husband aren't legal immigrants, which would have disqualified them for FEMA aid if their children had not been U.S. citizens.

Their undocumented status, however, stops the couple from getting good jobs, buying a house or even renting an apartment.

She and her husband want to start a landscaping business, but they can't get a license without valid U.S. identification, she said, speaking in Spanish.

"I understand that if I had an ID and not bad credit they would give me a loan," she said. "If I had an ID, everything would be different. I could get a (business) license. I imagine how it would be, me putting my name in the paper and people calling me to do landscaping work."

For now, she and her husband pick up landscaping jobs where they can. They saved some money and bought an edger, but it was stolen.

To supplement her income, she makes chocolates on lollipop sticks and sells them for $1.

"We are willing to work. It's not like we don't want to work," she said.

The deadline to move out of FEMA City looms over Reyes like a black cloud.

"I don't know what I'll do in February," she said, referring to the date when FEMA plans to close the city.

"We don't want to wait until February to get a house. Seriously, I want something better for my kids."

She looked around the small trailer at her little girls playing on the carpeted floor and tears filled her eyes again.

"You might see me emotional," she apologized. "My husband, he says I dream too much, but I don't want to be a millionaire with everything fancy. I just want a home."

She's convinced she'll get out of FEMA City.

"One day I'll have a home and land," Reyes said. "Instead of people helping us, we'll be helping other people."

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 80465/1075


Not a pretty picture for the Katrina refugees....

Paul

[ladygatorslayer]

I did read an article recently about all the FEMA trailers that are empty in Polk County. People wondering why FEMA hasn't picked them up yet to bring to Katrina victims.