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34–791 PDF 2007

POST-KATRINA TEMPORARY

HOUSING: DILEMMAS AND SOLUTIONS

(110–20)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 20, 2007

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD, 

California 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

(II)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS Page

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Dupuy, Ben, Partner, The Cypress Cottage Partners .......................................... 11

Molino, Michael A., President, Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association ............. 11

Paulison, Hon. R. David, Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency ... 11

Ross, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the State of Arkansas ..... 1

Turner, Margery Austin, Director, Metropolitan Housing And Communities 

Policy Center, Urban Institute ............................................................................ 11

Williams, Pamela, Resident, Yorkshire Mobile Home Park, Hammond, Louisiana ..................................................................................................................... 11

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania .................................................................... 39

Cohen, Hon. Steve, of Tennessee ............................................................................ 40

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Dupuy, Ben ............................................................................................................... 41

Molino, Michael A. ................................................................................................... 64

Paulison, R. David ................................................................................................... 69

Ross, Hon. Mike ....................................................................................................... 77

Turner, Margery Austin .......................................................................................... 79

Williams, Pamela ..................................................................................................... 88

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Dupuy, Ben, Partner, The Cypress Cottage Partners, Cypress Cottage Partners: Alternative Housing Pilot Program ........................................................... 46

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34791.002
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34791.003
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34791.004
(1)

POST-KATRINA TEMPORARY HOUSING: 

DILEMMAS AND SOLUTIONS 

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m., in Room 2167, 

Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Eleanor Holmes 

Norton [chair of the committee] presiding. 

Ms. NORTON. The Subcommittee will come to order. 

Even before I do my opening statement, I understand that Congressman Ross, who represents one of the jurisdictions whose 

plight drew our attention to these issues, has to leave shortly. So 

I will defer to him for a few minutes of opening statement. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MIKE ROSS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you, Chairwoman Norton and members of the 

Committee, for holding today’s hearing on post-Katrina temporary 

housing problems. I am grateful for the opportunity and the invitation to discuss these issues before the Subcommittee today, and I 

am eager to work together to find solutions to the temporary housing problem that currently exists. 

Chairwoman Norton, I am good for a while, and I will be glad 

to stay and answer questions and be a part of this for as long as 

I can. I appreciate again the invitation to be asked to be here 

today. 

Let me begin by explaining my recent experience with the temporary housing crisis in my district, due to severe weather and tornadoes that recently struck Arkansas. On February 24th, 2007, severe storms and tornadoes ripped through the town of Dumas and 

Desha County, Arkansas. This small delta community has a population of about 5,000 people. Median household income is $26,628. 

Fifty-three percent of the residents of this county live at or below 

200 percent of poverty. It is what we would consider a very poor 

county. 

When the tornado hit, it completely destroyed 37 homes and 25 

businesses, injured over 30 people and left this community without 

power for five days and 800 people without jobs indefinitely. In 

total, it was estimated that up to 150 homes were deemed uninhabitable. I was back there again Friday, and I can assure you, there 

are still people looking for a place to live and a lot of businesses 

2

that just do not—they simply do not know when they will be able 

to reopen their doors, leaving up to 800 people unemployed. 

In total, it was estimated that up to 150 homes were deemed uninhabitable. This kind of massive damage to a poor delta community is incredible and extremely difficult to recover from. Yet, 

FEMA spokesman John Philbin stated that, ‘‘The damages or need 

for Federal assistance is not readily apparent.’’

On February 27th, three days after the storms hit, the Governor 

of Arkansas requested an emergency declaration from FEMA. 

Later that day, I led conference call from FEMA Director Paulison 

and expressed my support for the Governor’s request, as well as requested that FEMA transfer some of the 8,420 new fully-furnished 

and never used manufactured homes located three hours away at 

a FEMA staging facility in Hope, Arkansas, also in my district, to 

these families in need. These homes were originally purchased for 

Katrina victims, but never made it to them, either. Instead, they 

have been sitting idly by at a FEMA staging facility in Hope, Arkansas, since 2005. 

Finally, 12 days after the tornadoes destroyed parts of my district and 9 days after the Governor’s request, we finally received 

a response from FEMA. FEMA said no. They denied the State’s request for an emergency declaration and as a result, the State, 

county and city are now responsible for 100 percent of the storm 

cleanup expenses, and we are not allowed to receive even one of the 

new, never-used mobile homes FEMA had stored in Hope. 

But after 13 days of working, waiting and prodding to the point 

of our story becoming national news, and I don’t believe it was any 

accident that the conference call with FEMA came two hours after 

the NBC Evening News, where they finally offered to give the 

State of Arkansas 30 used and/or refurbished mobile homes and 

travel trailers from the staging facility in Hope, but only if the 

State would pay to transport them and set them up for victims who 

remained homeless for two weeks. 

The people of Dumas were grateful to receive them. In fact, I 

would like to share part of an e-mail I recently received: ‘‘Dear 

Congressman Ross, I am a tornado survivor in Dumas. While my 

husband and I have the means to take care of our own housing, 

I am fully aware that there are some who cannot. I am a school 

teacher to many of the Hispanic families who received trailers this 

weekend. You have no idea how much this has made an impact on 

these students. They came into school this morning with bright 

smiles on their faces saying, ’I got a new house.’ ’’

This e-mail shows why we do what we do in Washington to make 

a difference in the lives of those we represent. It confirms how important our role is in this debate. But I am frustrated with the 

massive bureaucracy involved in simply helping people in an emergency situation. It is astounding to me that for 13 days, hard-working families in my district had nowhere to live, and yet, 160 miles 

away, 8,420 new, fully-furnished, never-used mobile homes sat untouched. 

Last year, I introduced two bills to give FEMA the authority to 

provide relief to the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and so 

many others in need of temporary housing caused by natural disasters. In March of last year, I introduced H.R. 4784, which would 

3

allow FEMA to distribute some of these manufactured homes to 

victims that are located in flood plains. And in September, I introduced H.R. 6128, which would provide for the distribution of the 

excess manufactured housing units located at the Hope Airport to 

people who are in need of affordable housing. 

However, the Republican leadership would not give us one hearing or a vote on these bills. Now, I want to use this hearing as a 

opportunity to find a way to help the people who are still suffering 

and improve this process for the next town that is forced to deal 

with a natural disaster that might be recognized by FEMA or declared by the President a Federal disaster. 

Ultimately, with the help of Chairwoman Norton, Chairman 

Oberstar and Chairman Thompson of the Homeland Security Committee, I hope to enact legislation to empower FEMA or some other 

Federal agency to distribute these surplus homes in a timely manner to the people who so desperately need them in the direct aftermath of a natural disaster, whether declared a Federal disaster or 

not. As my constituents drive down U.S. Highway 278 from Hope 

to Nashville, they still see 8,420 new mobile homes, sitting there 

untouched and never used, when storm victims remain homeless. 

To them, these homes are a symbol of why our citizens have lost 

faith in FEMA and feel that our Government is failing them. 

I want to allow, once and for all, these 8,420 mobile homes to be 

used for communities in need, like Dumas, when a natural disaster 

hits them. I believe that we owe it to the people of Desha County, 

the victims of Hurricane Katrina and so many other communities 

who are devastated by natural disasters, to change the system. I 

am optimistic that this hearing is a step in the right direction. I 

will be glad to stay and answer questions that anyone on the panel 

might have. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Ross. 

I must say, Representative Ross, that your own work in bringing 

these issues to light is exemplary. What you have raised for Arkansas has brought to the attention of this Subcommittee matters that 

frankly, large parts of the Country, parts that may not qualify 

under existing law to be declared disaster areas. The tsunami was 

not recognized under law, and yet we found a way to be helpful. 

Consistent with the law, we want to find ways to be helpful. 

I really don’t want to detain you. I want to get to the folks who 

have been most involved and get to some solutions. Homeland Security, to its credit, has already heard a hearing. Actually, this is 

the committee of jurisdiction for these disasters. When it comes to 

solutions, it is the job of the Subcommittee to do something about 

it or to help FEMA do something about it. 

So I am going to excuse you, unless another member has any 

questions for Mr. Ross. 

Mr. SHUSTER. No questions. I appreciate the gentleman’s being 

here today. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Cohen has come in and I will be pleased to recognize him if he has any questions. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Just one question. I read something about a law that prohibits 

FEMA from selling these trailers. Did you put in a bill to change 

that law, or should it be put in, in your opinion? 

4

Mr. ROSS. Basically, it is the Stafford Act that tells FEMA that 

they basically can’t help anyone unless they are declared a Federal 

disaster. In Alabama, Georgia, they had loss of lives there, and my 

heart goes out to them. Testimony last week, though, from the Director of the Department of Emergency Management in Alabama 

indicated that no jobs have been lost in Alabama, yet we have had 

800 jobs lost. I know the hearing today is about these mobile 

homes. But I do believe that we also need to rethink how we go 

about figuring out who qualifies as a Federal disaster area and 

who does not. Obviously, FEMA can’t give them to people that are 

not in an area that is not declared a Federal disaster. 

There was an amendment through the Senate last year which allows them, through the GSA, to make homes available to city, 

county and local governments, I believe for the public good. FEMA 

can better answer that. 

Here is what I know, sir. I am convinced that David Paulison is 

a good man. I have been emotional about this in the past and I 

hope he hasn’t taken it personally. I think to a large extent, his 

hands are tied under current law. I think we need to help them figure out—FEMA is in the business to help people. The people that 

work at this so-called FEMA staging area in Hope, Arkansas, they 

are good people. They wanted to go to work for FEMA not to babysit 8,420 mobile homes. They went to work for FEMA because they 

want to help people. 

I think it is our job to try and figure out how we can pass legislation. This should not be complicated. I have 8,420 mobile homes 

sitting here. One hundred sixty miles away, also in my district, I 

have 150 people with no place to live. We had 30 people living in 

a metal building two weeks ago. This shouldn’t be that complicated 

to fix. So I am talking to anybody in Congress who will listen to 

me, until we can come up with what I hope is a bipartisan, common sense, legislative fix to empower him, not to go out and buy 

more mobile homes, but to get these out of the cow pasture and get 

them to people who need them. 

It should not be complicated. Here is the way I think it should 

be. Whether you are declared a Federal disaster or not, if you have 

a home or are renting, wherever you are living, if it gets blown 

away or heavily enough damaged that you can’t live in it, as long 

as we have 8,420 of them sitting in the cow pasture, why don’t we 

let people use them? 

To me, this is not complicated. Unfortunately, it is caught up in 

this bureaucracy, and to the folks in South Arkansas that drive by 

this cow pasture and look at them, it just doesn’t make good sense. 

All told, the Inspector General estimates that FEMA will spend 

$47 million this year, not just in Hope, we have other FEMA staging areas, $47 million of our tax money is going to baby-sit these 

mobile homes. 

If I could, on that, not to confuse the two, a lot of people get confused over the mobile homes and the camper trailers. The camper 

trailers worked. I think 80,000, maybe more, were put out in Hurricane Katrina. People could back them up in their driveway, they 

were easy to hook onto, they were allowed to be put in flood plains. 

The camper trailers worked, and now they are coming back to 

Hope and they are storing them. I have some 15,000, 16,000 of 

5

those. I applaud FEMA for that. That is being good stewards of 

your tax money. They are bringing them back, they are refurbishing them, they are getting them ready to go back out in the 

next disaster. That makes sense. 

My problem is these 8,420 brand new, fully-furnished, neverused mobile homes that never quite made it to anybody, and they 

are just caught up in this bureaucratic maze, if you will. 

Mr. COHEN. I don’t know if that answers my question, but I enjoyed hearing your remarks. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. 

Are there any other questions from members of the Committee? 

Thank you very much, Congressman Ross. 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to make an opening statement, then ask 

Mr. Shuster if he has an opening statement. I want to welcome Mr. 

Shuster, especially since he and I have changed positions. This was 

my chair, and I very much respect the relationship we had. Mr. 

Graves is away today with the President of the United States, so 

I have dutifully excused him and we will proceed. 

I do want to just say that I recognize that we have had two Subcommittee hearings and that this is only our first on FEMA and 

on the Stafford Act. I want to indicate that that is no indication 

of the importance of the two agencies under our jurisdiction. One 

of course is GSA, and the other is FEMA. If I had to rank them, 

and you know I never do, when you have children, and neither of 

these qualify as those, but you never say which is your favorite. I 

do not have any favorites. But I do say this, if you had to rank the 

two agencies, the GSA, important for the Country, for its construction of Federal buildings, its repair of them, the safety of them and 

especially here in the district, with FEMA, there would be no comparison in importance. 

So I want to be clear how important this jurisdiction is to every 

member of this Committee. There is no member of this Committee 

that can afford to believe, well, FEMA must be for them, the Louisianas of this world or the Arkansas. To give you some idea of how 

important FEMA is, I bet you think that the last place that would 

be interested in FEMA, because of a natural disaster, would be the 

District of Columbia. I am here to tell you differently. The District 

of Columbia and Northwest Washington, no less, one of our residential areas, had a flood. I was put in exactly what other more 

risk-prone members are often put to, of trying to make sure we got 

the needed help for them. 

I emphasize, then, that the notion of emergency is in FEMA’s 

name. That can mean and almost surely will mean every jurisdiction in the United States. Jurisdictions like Mr. Ross’ are far more 

vulnerable than in the big cities. Somehow they will get it together. 

But rural areas with the kind of unemployment he described cannot afford to be left without some kind of assistance, somehow, 

some way. 

The other reason that we should have had a hearing before now, 

if I had my druthers on FEMA, is the ongoing problems that keep 

coming up, and trying to decide whether they are FEMA problems 

or Stafford Act problems. I want to say to the members of the ComVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:28 Sep 20, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\34791 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
6

mittee, I regret that the Committee has not yet been briefed about 

our FEMA jurisdiction. We meant to do so at the time that we had 

our briefings with the Committee on jurisdiction, but the person 

with expertise couldn’t be there. So I have instructed staff that before we go on vacation, we have to offer a group briefing to us all 

on what our FEMA jurisdiction is likely to look like this year. 

Again, I stress, if anything, the most important part of our jurisdiction, you are going to see as a number of hearings come forward. 

One is already planned. It was a very good hearing of the kind 

planned and I just want to say I asked the hearing be moved back 

in light of the problems we learned of involving Arkansas and Louisiana. That is how this Subcommittee is going to operate. It is 

going to respond to the public need. If it has to put off something 

that we had planned, we will do it. It is about emergencies and the 

kinds of problems that were described in Arkansas and Louisiana, 

where people were evicted, purportedly, with 48 hours notice. Hey, 

you think that is an emergency for FEMA, that is an emergency 

for the Subcommittee. 

I am pleased to welcome today’s panel. Each of you can be instrumental in helping the Subcommittee think through emerging 

new and unprecedented issues. This Subcommittee’s jurisdiction 

over activities and programs related to the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency’s all-hazards national preparedness system is 

well known and well established. But FEMA, with the help of this 

Subcommittee, must face new and unmet challenges, some of which 

may require language or amendments in the governing Stafford 

Act. The Subcommittee’s jurisdiction over Federal management of 

natural and man-made disasters is comprehensive and broad, including support of the Nation’s risk-based comprehensive emergency management system, of preparedness protection, response 

recovery and mitigation. The Congress has updated the Stafford 

Act as new challenges have come forward. 

Programs authorized by the Stafford Act and the Homeland Security Act of 2002 include the disaster relief programs, individuals 

and household programs, the public assistance program, emergency 

assistance program and hazard mitigation program. The current 

disaster relief program was established by the Disaster Relief Act 

of 1974, amended in 1978 by the Stafford Act, and amended by the 

Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. The Subcommittee conducts oversight hearings to ensure, among other things, that the national 

preparedness goal is consistent with the national incident management system and national response plan. 

Further, through oversight hearings, the Subcommittee, along 

with FEMA, identifies plans and procedures that will promote maximum efficient use of Federal emergency and disaster funds. During today’s hearing, we intend to take a much closer look at certain 

aspects of disaster recovery, specifically the overall Federal housing 

policy and response to a disaster or emergency declaration. 

The response to Katrina reveals significant failures and shortcomings in Federal, State and local response to catastrophic disasters. Because of FEMA’s notoriously poor performance following 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the assumption often is that continuing problems must be attributed to the Agency’s management 

or staff. This may be true. 

7

However, I have looked closely at the nature of some of these 

issues, including those in today’s hearings. Some indicate apparent 

unnecessary rigidity, but others may indicate that FEMA may need 

additional authority to meet new circumstances. 

The Agency falls seriously short, however, when it does not bring 

matters to the Subcommittee that require new or amended authority. At the same time, Congress cannot continue to criticize and 

agency when our own oversight could uncover problems and new 

issues and help to resolve them. 

Recent press accounts regarding use of new and used trailers in 

Arkansas, as well as ongoing treatment of evacuees in Louisiana, 

seem to be the antithesis of good housing and relocation planning. 

Reportedly in Arkansas, thousands of excess trailers owned by 

FEMA sat empty while a short distance away, residents were dealing with the aftermath of a tornado that had destroyed many 

homes. Additional press reports found that in Hammond, Louisiana, FEMA abruptly relocated Katrina evacuees with very short 

notice and perhaps insufficient attention to what relocation would 

do to an already Katrina-weary group of evacuees whose continued 

housing in trailers signaled that they had problems moving on as 

required. 

Today the Subcommittee will use these examples to examine 

FEMA’s housing and relocation policy and attempt to identify the 

components of an effective policies that are necessary to ensure 

that temporary housing does not evolve into something more permanent, where necessary services cannot be provided under the 

Stafford Act. 

What actions are needed to assist the last evacuees who may be 

the lesser skilled, elderly or others who have been unable to find 

work or otherwise have greater difficulty making the transition to 

assume their lives as before must be discovered. In a FEMA-controlled area that has taken on an aspect of a temporary town, what 

must be done to help people move on? For example, can the evacuee community evacuate as intended without transportation to employment, to jobs that will provide the wherewithal to acquire 

housing and resumption of a normal life? The link between housing 

and jobs is basic. But there may be too few remedies available to 

FEMA to help the Agency adopt new approaches within the framework of the Stafford Act. 

Yet even if evacuees have been unemployed or elderly when the 

disaster occurred, they once lived in a permanent community and 

must be assisted in returning to their own or some other jurisdiction to resume at least whatever life they once had. It is unfair to 

evacuees to allow them to remain under FEMA’s jurisdiction where 

only minimal services related to shelter are provided, while the 

statute intends and will continue to require them to leave within 

certain time frames. 

It is unfair to FEMA to expect the Agency to take on increasingly 

permanent functions that are beyond the Agency’s statutory authority. Chairman Jim Oberstar once suggested the need for another round of Stafford Act reform. At the very least, new issues 

need creative rethinking within the Stafford Act parameters of the 

temporary relief that FEMA must provide. A massive disaster such 

as Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi, yes, and smallVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:28 Sep 20, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\34791 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
8

er disasters, like the tornadoes that recently struck in Alabama 

and Arkansas, that are arguably outside of FEMA’s jurisdiction, 

nevertheless are raising issues that must be confronted. 

The Subcommittee thanks and looks forward to hearing from witnesses who have lived with or executed FEMA housing policies to 

help us in today’s results-oriented hearing, whose title contains the 

operative word, solutions. I am pleased to recognize our Ranking 

Member of the full Committee, Mr. Mica of Florida. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. It is so good to be with you this afternoon. 

I want to thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for hosting and chairing 

this important meeting and I also thank Mr. Shuster for his leadership as our Ranking Member. I am excited about having both of 

you, you are both members of action and we will get some things 

done. 

I did not mean to upstage my Ranking Member, but I wanted to 

come for just a minute, I will try not to come back too often. 

Ms. NORTON. You are welcome any time. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you so much. I will try not to abuse my privilege of serving on all the subcommittees as Ranking Member. 

I have a statement that I will ask to be made part of the record. 

Ms. NORTON. So ordered. 

Mr. MICA. Just let me say this. Mr. Ross’ testimony, I have heard 

his public statements and I just finished reading the testimony he 

provided. First I have to thank Director Paulison and FEMA for 

providing assistance. We had three hurricanes in my district in the 

last three years. Then we had two tornadoes. The tornadoes gave 

me quite an education in how FEMA does work and some of the 

challenges that we face with some of these national declarations for 

disaster. Again, I thank them for what they have done to help people in the hurricanes and the tornadoes. 

I think in looking at improving the system, I would also share 

some of the concerns expressed by Representative Ross. Maybe you 

can help on this Mr. Shuster and Madam Chair, on this issue. 

There are two things that we noticed. First, I had the first tornado 

hit Christmas day in a town called Deland. This gentleman I have 

behind me, his name is Justin Dunn, he is from the town of 

Deland, was visiting my office. He is a student here on one of the 

programs. He is fortunate, his family was not hit. 

But the northern part of our community, on Christmas day we 

had a tornado come in. It was not a total catastrophic event. Now, 

if your house was in the way, it was catastrophic for you. It displaced maybe 80 to 100 people. A declaration for disaster was submitted shortly thereafter to FEMA. 

On February 2nd, we had our second tornado. This was a 

gangbuster tornado. There was no question on this. However, the 

week before Friday the 2nd, on that preceding Friday, I was handed a denial of the request for a declaration on the Christmas day 

disaster. To make a long story short, that was appealed. We did 

have a declaration again on the massive strike. We had to wait almost 30 days. It left us sort of in the lurch. Then of course, you 

can appeal. 

I found out very few appeals are ever granted, at least historically, as far back as the staff looked the past three or four years. 

I don’t think any were granted. However, ours was granted. It was 

9

a little bit different circumstances, not that I was the Ranking 

Member or anything. But it so happened that we got two disasters 

that you could say didn’t allow the State and locals to be able to 

handle a situation of that magnitude. 

So my first request would be if we could look at trying to speed 

up that. I found out from talking to other folks that this long period that you wait, sometimes up to 30 days, leaves everybody in 

the lurch. But speeding up that process, if we could, and having a 

declaration resolved in a shorter period of time would make a lot 

of sense. Then everybody knows what to do. And also the appeal. 

So that is the first recommendation. 

Then I thought, well, here I have a small number of people, 

maybe 50 trailers would help me, this is on the December disaster, 

and this is before we had the one that was really the belly-buster 

here. I thought, well, 50 trailers would help, like Mr. Ross. Then 

I found out that FEMA had trailers stored. Then I found out 

FEMA, I guess, is the biggest—I say trailers—mobile home owner 

in the United States, probably a quarter million of them, 60,000 of 

them are sitting vacant, some they are paying rent on and storage 

on, many of them in good conditions, others in various conditions. 

But I want to tell you, Madam Chairman, Mr. Shuster, that I 

spent this whole week in different conversations. At one point I 

think we had six attorneys on the phone trying to figure out how 

the hell to get 50 trailers that were close by in to help these folks 

out, at least on a temporary basis. We did not succeed in that, unfortunately, but again Mother Nature dealt us that second blow 

that made us eligible. 

The second point being that we need a way in smaller disasters 

to get some of this, now, we don’t want to take down our stockpile 

of equipment that we have stored for major disasters. But there 

has to be some reasonable approach and then some reasonable protocol. We tried to get them to the State, but without a declaration 

they can’t go to a private entity, and so on. So if we could speed 

that up and define what could be made available. 

Subsequent to that, I met with the State emergency management 

directors here in Washington when they were here. They felt that 

this proposal had merit, and I think that they would endorse it. So 

if we could work together on that, I think Mr. Ross’ problem, we 

are trying to help people with a smaller disaster get a quicker decision out of the process, and then kind of make it look like Government does work and what the ground rules are for making it work. 

Thank you so much for indulging me. I didn’t mean to come 

down and interject myself in this. But I think we can, working together and with recommendations from Director Paulison, make 

this better and work more effectively. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate the Ranking Member’s intervention 

with your statement. As a matter of fact, Mr. Mica, the Florida tornado gave me what I had been looking for for an opening hearing. 

I did not want to simply go back all over the major disasters and 

what do we do. What the Florida disaster told me, Florida, where 

you expect hurricanes, Florida, where you do not expect tornadoes, 

is that we have to look at disasters that are not typically expected. 

Remember, 99.9 percent of all disasters are going to be natural disasters. 

10

But here come tornadoes in a place where you did not expect 

them. And the hearing that has been planned is going to look as 

well at something we have all been hearing, what would happen 

if in fact those levees that you keep hearing about in California 

burst, and they talk about those levees in exactly the same way as 

Louisiana, except that they probably are less sturdy, at the same 

time, there was an earthquake, which is the other disaster they expect. So I am trying to look forward at the same time that we look 

at the continuing problems that emerge that FEMA mst handle for 

the here and now. 

I would like to ask Mr. Shuster if he has an opening statement 

that he would like to make. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

First I just want to say thanks to the witnesses being here today. 

I will keep my statement brief, I would like to submit it to the 

record in its entirety. 

I do want to say something briefly. I just want to echo your 

statement on the importance of this Subcommittee. As a matter of 

fact, I had the opportunity to be the Ranking Member on Railroads, 

which I took. But everybody assumed I was going to get off this 

Subcommittee, which I didn’t, because I agree with the Chair that 

this Committee is extremely important, especially with the FEMA 

aspect. I look forward to working with you as we move forward. 

Also, one of the pilot projects for housing, we have someone here 

today who is going to testify, and I appreciate them being here, 

look forward to hearing from them, as well as to talk to Director 

Paulison about some of the reform aspects of the FEMA reform 

that we passed last year, some of it concerning to me, some of it 

good. I look forward and welcome him here today. Thank you for 

being here. 

With that, I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Shuster. 

I am going to ask all of the witnesses to come forward and sit 

at the table. I apologize that House business, which we of course 

have to accede to, has delayed this hearing. It is important enough 

for me to go as long as I have to in order to discover what has happened and what can be done about it. 

But in order to save time, we are going to ask all the witnesses 

to come froward at the same time. We are going to proceed as rapidly as we can, with apologies to those of you who came expecting 

the Congress to run on time. Where have you been? 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. NORTON. That is just not how it works here. It is not because 

anyone intends it, it is because there is no way to avoid it. 

I want to thank all of you again for coming and for your indulgence in waiting out the votes. I am going to begin with Mr. 

Paulison of FEMA. You may begin, sir. 

11

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DAVID A. PAULISON, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY; MICHAEL A. MOLINO, PRESIDENT, RECREATION VEHICLE 

DEALERS ASSOCIATION; BEN DUPUY, PARTNER, THE CYPRESS COTTAGE PARTNERS; PAMELA WILLIAMS, RESIDENT, 

YORKSHIRE MOBILE HOME PARK, HAMMOND, LOUISIANA; 

MARGERY AUSTIN TURNER, DIRECTOR, METROPOLITAN 

HOUSING AND COMMUNITIES POLICY CENTER, URBAN INSTITUTE 

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you, Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member Shuster and Ranking Member, Mr. Arcuri. 

Ms. NORTON. Would you speak up? I really can’t hear you at all. 

Mr. PAULISON. We will try again. Thank you, Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member Shuster, Ranking Member, Mr. Arcuri. 

Thank you for being here. I appreciate your time. I know how busy 

Congress is right now, and I think this Committee is going to be 

very important to FEMA. I am looking forward to working with 

you. 

I am here to discuss the post-Katrina housing under the new 

FEMA. I want this, the new FEMA, to be better, I want it to be 

a stronger and more nimble organization than you have seen in the 

past. We have already made substantial progress in improving our 

operations with major reforms in areas of communications, logistics, customer service, our renewed focus on reducing waste, fraud 

and abuse, developing a business approach to internal operations 

and also bringing in new and extremely experienced leadership into 

this organization. The old way of doing business simply does not 

work. We are not going to wait for local and State resources to become overwhelmed before we are prepared to act. 

But there are two areas I would like to focus on today about the 

process by which a Federal disaster is declared and the role of our 

Federal, tribal, State and local responses in aiding response. In 

particular, I want to discus the authorities and resources related 

to post-disaster housing. 

Let me start with the declaration process. When disaster strikes, 

the first step is a joint State-Federal assessment of the damage. 

Based on this assessment, the Governor can ask for specific supplemental aid if they believe the disaster is beyond the effective response capability of the State and the affected local communities. 

My written testimony goes into much greater detail on this process, 

especially the factors we consider when we are making a recommendation. Should the President make a formal declaration, 

FEMA immediately moves to work with our Federal, tribal, State 

and local partners to provide Federal assistance that includes housing assistance. 

Which brings me to the next point: the importance of working 

through and with our State and local partners. Under the Stafford 

Act, FEMA is authorized to provide emergency shelter and housing 

assistance. Sheltering is typically provided by State and local governments, as well as with our partner and non-profit organizations. 

FEMA can provide material and financial support for these operations, following an emergency or disaster declaration. 

FEMA can provide housing assistance in three primary ways. 

One is rental assistance by housing that is available on the ground 

12

in nearby communities. Two is repair or replacement of home assistance. And the last option, used only when the first two are insufficient, is direct housing, such as travel trailers and mobile 

homes in group sites. But these are not designed for long-term solutions. The authorities and programs involved envision temporary 

aid, while individuals work with their insurance companies, State 

and local governments, non-profit organization and other Federal 

agencies to find permanent housing as part of the individual’s road 

to recovery. 

As you can see, FEMA does not respond alone. We must work 

hand in hand with our partners in any response. 

Before I conclude, I would like to touch briefly on FEMA’s management of two recent housing issues. First, the relocation of 54 

families living in Hammond, Louisiana. The owner of that facility 

repeatedly did not respond to health and safety issues and concerns 

raised by FEMA and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. I have detailed that in my written response. So FEMA 

moved in to address the issue. 

In our haste to provide residents with safer housing, some residents were not pleased by the coordination and the consultation 

provided. For that I am sorry. But FEMA made the right decision 

to move people out. We did not evict anyone. We found housing for 

everyone. But we are going to work in the future to improve our 

coordination. 

The second incident I would like to discuss is FEMA’s response 

to the storms and tornadoes that struck Desha County, Arkansas 

in February. Following the process I just discussed, and in discussing the responsibilities with local governments, the resources 

available to the State and the extent of the damage, a request for 

a Federal declaration in this case was denied. But I am pleased to 

say this does not mean we are not finding new ways to help while 

still complying with the law. Let me be very clear: we are going to 

follow the statutory law that we are supposed to do. 

In this case, FEMA worked with our partners at GSA who did 

an outstanding job to help us identify excess housing units that 

could be transferred to Arkansas using existing authority. These 

were not new, but like-new units. I was personally on the phone 

with the Arkansas director of emergency management and made 

sure he had access to the housing units he felt he needed. We have 

also told the State, we will continue to work with them to provide 

them as many units as needed under this program. The Desha 

County incident provided the impetus for us to use this new tool 

to provide aid while still following the confines of the law. 

Madam Chairwoman, what I have described to you is both the 

process by which FEMA implements the Stafford Act to determine 

the eligibility of presidential declaration of an emergency or major 

disaster and FEMA and the States as actors in that process. It is 

a partnership where each actor has specific responsibilities and 

where there are certain expectations. 

Our challenge is to engage that process more openly, more quickly and with a shared focus on best meeting the needs of disaster 

victims who place their faith and confidence in government, whether it is Federal, State or local, to act in their best interests. 

13

I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here today, as I 

said earlier, and I am looking forward to your questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Paulison. 

Mr. Molino. 

Mr. MOLINO. Madam Chairwoman, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here to testify. I am here to 

tell you about the impact that Government sales of RV trailers 

could have on the market and the general public. My organization, 

RVDA, is a not-for-profit national association of RV dealers. It represents more than 2,700 small business people that sell travel trailers and motor homes. 

According to the most recent U.S. business census, 58 percent of 

RV dealers have eight or fewer employees. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, RV dealers began delivering travel trailers to 

FEMA just days after the hurricane ended. This was an unprecedented use of RV travel trailers during a national emergency. RV 

dealers responded and cooperated in a time of great need. 

Now, RV dealers respectfully request that our Government take 

into consideration the impact that Government sales of thousands 

of RV travel trailers will have on dealers, their employees and public safety. Media reports and our own contacts at FEMA tell us the 

Agency, through GSA, is preparing to auction as many as 46,000 

travel trailers to the general public. To put this in perspective, last 

year the industry retailed 154,693 new travel trailers. Forty-six 

thousand trailers approximates 30 percent of the entire 2006 new 

unit sales for the entire United States. 

When you drill down to the local level, the impact is even more 

dramatic. For example, last week, the GSA auction web site listed 

61 trailers for sale in Purvis, Mississippi on March 19th. In 2006, 

a total of 79 new travel trailers were sold in the entire county of 

Lamar, where Purvis is located. In one day, the Government will 

try to sell the equivalent of 77 percent of the travel trailers registered in that county in 2006. The public auction of so many vehicles at one time can ruin that local market for months to come. 

The practice of selling directly to consumers also raises significant public safety concerns. RVs include electrical, plumbing and 

propane gas systems that power sophisticated heating and cooling 

units. They have fire safety equipment and gas leak detectors. Consumers could face many problem unless the vehicles are thoroughly 

checked out, serviced, repaired and reconditioned by qualified technicians. 

We understand that the Government conducts liquidation auctions where it sells items in large quantities. Selling these trailers 

in lots instead of individually seems to make better sense for all 

concerned. Requiring sales in lots would make it more likely that 

the vehicles get back into the stream of commerce through a licensed dealer who is capable or ensuring the safety and serviceability of the unit. 

RVDA is in a unique position to help. We can help solve the Government’s problem of too many travel trailers, while minimizing 

the disruption of a small but growing industry that provides Americans a great way to vacation and travel. We can also help plan for 

the acquisition of trailers for future disasters. We can help inform 

dealers about FEMA’s needs. 

14

In the liquidation phase, we could inform dealers when surplus 

trailers would be available, where the trailers are stored and other 

important information. More dealers may want to bid on the trailers, but the current auction process is not well known among dealers and is difficult to understand. 

By opening the lines of communication with RV dealers, FEMA 

and GSA can get more of these trailers into dealerships where they 

can be serviced and sold in a way that is in everyone’s best interests. America’s RV dealers are looking for solutions that meet the 

needs of the public, the Government and the RV industry. 

Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Molino. 

Like Mr. Paulison, your testimony is much appreciated and very 

helpful. 

Mr. Dupuy. 

Mr. DUPUY. Thank you. I am Ben Dupuy, I am a native New 

Orleanian and I am Executive Director of Cypress Cottage Partners. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

The shortcomings of FEMA’s emergency housing options allowed 

for under current law are well known. The Inspector General of the 

Department of Homeland Security has reported that some of 

FEMA’s group sites on the Gulf Coast could be operating for five 

or more years, and that the living conditions are far from ideal. 

For an 18 month period, the cost of FEMA trailers and manufactured homes are nearly $60,000 and $90,000 respectively. With 

70,000 trailers in use in Louisiana, as of February 2007, that 

amounts to a cost of at least $4.3 billion in that State alone. 

Using $4.3 billion for temporary housing that has no hope of becoming a suitable permanent solution is clearly not in the best interests of displaced citizens, affected communities or taxpayers. 

The combination of the unprecedented demand for disaster recovery housing and the shortcomings of the options available under 

the Stafford Act prompted Congress last year to appropriate $400 

million to FEMA for the alternative housing pilot program to one, 

identify new solutions for disaster recovery housing; and two, transition displaced families into housing more appropriate for longterm use. 

The legislation included a one-time waiver of the Stafford Act so 

as to make it possible for homes built under this program to be occupied longer than 18 months. The selected proposal for Louisiana 

was the Cypress Cottage Partners’ solution, to build homes that 

transition from temporary housing to permanent communities, or 

what we call temp-to-perm. The homes Cypress Cottage Partners 

will build are affordable, permanent, quickly constructed, appropriate for various sizes of families, able to withstand winds of up 

to 140 miles an hour and easily adaptable to local building codes 

and architectural styles. 

We will build five different models of single family homes, ranging in size from two to three bedrooms. We will also build single 

story, multi-family buildings with units ranging from one to four 

bedrooms. 

A significant problem that FEMA encountered on the Gulf Coast 

in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was the placement of 

temporary group sites. Many communities, not wanting to be sadVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:28 Sep 20, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\34791 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
15

dled with trailer parks that they feared could become permanent, 

prohibited the building of group sites. In contrast, our temp-toperm model appeals to local governments in several ways, including aesthetics, size, speed to construct and ability to transition to 

permanent communities. 

Our homes will have a higher initial cost than existing temporary housing options. However, they will generate significant 

savings over their total life cycle in comparison to travel trailers 

and manufactured homes. 

Most importantly, the homes we build will enable displaced citizens to move more quickly into housing appropriate for long-term 

use. If all the trailers in group sites in the New Orleans area were 

instead temp-to-perm homes, the city’s affordable housing crisis 

would certainly not be as severe as it is today. 

We plan to build our homes at four sites in southern Louisiana. 

Two of the sites are in the New Orleans area and were affected by 

Hurricane Katrina, and two of the sites are in southwestern Louisiana and were affected by Hurricane Rita. Two hundred and four 

thousand homes in Louisiana experienced major or severe damage 

from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. There is a much greater demand for permanent homes, like the ones we are building, that can 

be delivered through Louisiana’s $74 million alternative housing 

pilot program grant. 

Several solutions exist. First and most significantly, Congress 

should encourage FEMA and OMB to write the regulations and 

policies necessary to implement Congressman Richard Baker’s important provision in the FEMA reform legislation passed at the end 

of 2006 that amends the Stafford Act to enable the Federal Government to build permanent housing in the wake of large-scale disasters. 

Congressman Baker, a long-time member of the Transportation 

and Infrastructure Committee, has been a real leader in the effort 

to change the Stafford Act to allow for the construction of permanent homes following catastrophic disasters. The legislation you 

worked to enact last year will result in a remarkable improvement 

in the Government’s response to future housing crises. 

Second, Congress could dedicate part of the funds from the proposed GSA affordable housing program to the appropriate agencies 

in Louisiana and Mississippi to build additional permanent homes. 

Third, as Governor Blanco and members of Louisiana’s Congressional delegation have advocated, Congress could appropriate funds 

to a Federal agency for the purpose of creating additional units. 

Finally, the State of Louisiana could use proceeds from the sale 

of homes we build to create a revolving fund that could be used to 

generate additional permanent homes. 

In conclusion, to respond to future disaster situations, the Federal Government should have among its available solutions the 

ability to deploy temp-to-perm housing that enables displaced citizens to return quickly to their communities and that prevents the 

prolonged purgatory of life in temporary group sites. The Cypress 

Cottage Partners Model is that solution. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you again for that very helpful testimony, 

Mr. Dupuy. 

Ms. Williams. 

16

Ms. WILLIAMS. Good evening. I am from Port Selfa, evacuated to 

Washington Parish to Hammond. So I had a long ordeal throughout Katrina. 

Where can I start? I evacuated on a school bus to the shelter in 

Washington Parish. Not being a bus driver, not licensed to drive 

a bus, I evacuated 250 people. From Washington Parish to Hammond we landed. In a shelter in Emmanuel Baptist Church, we 

were in a shelter for two months. From the shelter to Yorkshire 

Trailer Park in October 2005. 

There we became family, the ones that were able to get a fullsize mobile home. So we are now scattered, because of hazards in 

the park. You did the right thing, but it was just too fast. 

I am a little nervous about this situation, first time speaking on 

the issue. 

Ms. NORTON. You are doing just fine, Ms. Williams. 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Thank you. 

Well, I was in a full-size mobile home in the trailer park and now 

we are in camper trailers, me and my family. So what they did for 

us, they relocated us from Yorkshire to Orlean Rogers Park into 

camper trailers, for me and my family, gave us an extra trailer for 

storage, I had to put some of my things in storage. 

My kids go to school, but some people were not as fortunate as 

I was. Some people that were in the park got scattered. Their children are not in school. That is where that problem comes in on that 

issue. 

Everybody wants to go home. We are not from Hammond. I’m 

from Plaquemines Parish. Some people are from New Orleans. 

They all want to go home. They all want the State to help us get 

back home. 

I had a house, some people had mobile homes. I had a five bedroom house Katrina took from me. Now I have nothing, me and my 

kids. So we are still battling, trying to make it home. We would 

like to know what can the State, Congress, FEMA do for us to help 

us get back home. We all don’t want to be scattered all over. Sometimes when we go into different places, we don’t feel welcome in 

that area, because we are not from that area. 

So what can be done to help us get back home, is what I would 

like to know. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Ms. Williams. It is important to hear straight from someone who has lived through this. I 

appreciate your coming all the way up here. I know it has been a 

real sacrifice for you. 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Yes, ma’am, it has. 

Ms. NORTON. I know you work every day and you have to get 

back on a plane tonight. 

Let me go on to Ms. Turner so we can quickly get to questions. 

Ms. TURNER. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here 

today. I direct the Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities at the Urban Institute, where my research focuses for the 

most part on segregation, poverty concentration and its effects on 

families and on communities. 

More than 18 months after the devastation of Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita, too many low-income families are still living in 

FEMA trailer sites. The numbers seem to change day by day, but 

17

I have read recently that thousands of displaced renters are still 

living in over 115 group trailer sites constructed or managed by 

FEMA. 

I visited one of these sites almost a year ago and despite the best 

efforts of the management staff, it really epitomized everything 

that housing policy can do wrong for families. Hundreds of tiny 

trailers were lined up in very efficient rows in a huge, fenced-in 

field, miles from schools, jobs, grocery stores, playgrounds or doctors’ offices. Social science research teaches us that clustering large 

number of vulnerable families in isolated, under-served locations is 

a recipe for disaster. Historically, many federally-subsidized rental 

housing projects have made the same mistake, trapping poor families, especially minorities, in distressed inner-city neighborhoods. 

In these neighborhoods, jobs are scarce, schools are often ineffective, crime and violence are common and young people see few opportunities for success. 

So a growing body of research evidence indicates that living in 

this kind of high poverty community undermines the long-term life 

chances of families and kids, cutting off access from mainstream 

social and economic opportunities and perpetuating inequality. 

Young children, especially like the children who were so badly 

shaken by the trauma and displacement of the storms, are especially vulnerable. 

Public policy should focus on providing meaningful, permanent 

housing choices in decent neighborhoods for the low-income families who are currently living in trailers. Housing vouchers can be 

a part of this solution. They offer a critical tool for supplementing 

what low-income families can afford to pay for rental housing, and 

when they are implemented properly, they let families choose what 

type of housing and location is best for them. 

But vouchers alone won’t do the job. Many families will need 

hands-on help finding homes or apartments where they can use 

vouchers. Based on small scale demonstrations in communities 

across the Country, we have actually learned a lot in recent years 

about how to help families make the most of housing vouchers. 

When families receive hands-on assistance with their housing 

search, along with basic support and counseling to help them find 

jobs, arrange for child care, obtain medical attention, a housing 

voucher can open up opportunities for stability, security and economic advancement. 

In addition to vouchers, Federal policy really must focus on making more affordable housing, both rental and sales, available in 

Gulf Coast communities as quickly as possible. Most new construction is going to take a lot of time. I think the modular solutions 

described by Mr. Dupuy look really promising. But it is also important to take steps to bring the existing stock of rental housing back 

into use. This could be accomplished by offering grants and low interest loans to rental property owners who agree to reopen their 

buildings and keep rent reasonably affordable and by purchasing 

single family homes whose owners do not want to return and transferring them to non-profits that will fix them up and make them 

available for rent. 

In this process, it is really important to focus also on combating 

possible discrimination by housing providers, in order to ensure 

18

that low income and minority families have full and fair access to 

the homes and apartments that are available. 

Finally, as long as some families remain in trailer communities, 

they need on-site services to counteract the damaging effects of isolation and distress. Key services include health and mental health 

care, job training and job search assistance and high quality child 

care and after-school activities. Clustering very large numbers of 

low-income families in isolated trailer sites was a grave mistake in 

the first place. We know how to do better. The Federal Government 

should be drawing on the housing policy experience of the last decade to create opportunities for families to leave the trailer site sand 

choose permanent affordable housing in opportunity-rich communities. 

Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Ms. Turner. You turn us toward solutions, indeed. 

Because Mr. Paulison has to go in connection with his official duties, I am going to focus on a few questions that go to the whole 

basis for this hearing. I think all the testimony has provided a 

basis to talk about solutions and not merely the problem. 

Let me tell you about the assumption of my questions. I am not 

assuming a brave new policy. I am assuming that FEMA can provide only temporary assistance. And you can bet your bottom dollar 

Congress is not going to make it into some new permanent housing 

agency. 

I am assuming much of the status quo, with changes that can be 

made either administratively or by statute if necessary. Let’s clear 

up this horrible number of trailers. Ms. Turner testified as to the 

numbers she hears, the press says the numbers they hear. There 

was other testimony by one of you about 46,000. 

Mr. Paulison, how many trailers are in your inventory at this 

moment, at this time, I should say? 

Mr. PAULISON. Around the Country, we have occupied 88,000 

travel trailers and mobile homes, with families living in those. In 

our inventory, totally, I can tell you at Hope, Arkansas, we have, 

as Congressman Ross said, we have over 8,000 new mobile homes. 

We have about probably less than 2,000 travel trailers. But I have 

about 40,000 travel trailers that have been used that are not usable. These are the ones that we are going to be auctioning off. We 

have 65,000 total nationwide in storage. 

We are getting back in from Katrina, from others around the 

Country, about 800 a week that are coming in. Those are the ones 

that Mr. Molino was talking about that we are considering auctioning off or giving them to volunteer agencies, selling them to the 

people who are actually living in them, those types of areas. That 

is kind of where we are with the amount of trailers we have in 

stock, travel trailers and mobile homes. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Paulison, you used the word auction. I am 

going to quote from Mr. Molino’s testimony, because I will tell you, 

it broke my heart to hear Ms. Williams, it broke my heart to hear 

his testimony, too. He talked about the sale is scheduled for March 

19th. The GSA auction web site listed 61 trailers for sale in Purvis, 

Mississippi. Anybody heard of Purvis, Mississippi? I have not. That 

tells you how small a community it must be. It may even be a hint 

19

as to what kind of an economy it must have. Actually, Mr. Molino 

supplies some testimony in that regard, too. 

He says, Purvis is in Lamar County, 2006 total of 79 new travel 

trailers were sold in the entire county. This means that in one day 

the Government will try to sell 77 percent of all the travel trailers 

registered in that county in 2006. As you can imagine, the public 

auction of so many vehicles at one time can ruin the local market 

for months to come. 

Now, Mr. Molino, if not him, I think it was him, suggested that 

there was another way to go about it, and that is selling by lot as 

opposed to by auction, which in ordinary parlance would be seen 

as dumping. I would like your answer on, is there an alternative 

way to do what you concede has to be done, and that is to get them 

off your hands and give the taxpayer back whatever you can, without in fact destroying the local market in parts of the Country 

where people really live in these things? It is not D.C. A lot of people live in these trailers. So there is a market. 

What about the suggestion that has been offered? 

Mr. PAULISON. We are very sensitive to Mr. Molino’s organization 

as far as the impact it could have on the recreational travel trailer 

business. However, they were not complaining when we were buying millions of dollars worth of these things. However, the ones 

that we are selling are not what we consider mission-ready. 

Ms. NORTON. I am sorry? 

Mr. PAULISON. These are not what we consider mission-ready. 

These have been in the field for a long time. 

Ms. NORTON. Please answer my question, Mr. Paulison. I don’t 

want to hold you here beyond—I asked you about a practical suggestion that was made by Mr. Molino and I told you this was a results-oriented hearing. I need to know whether as an alternative to 

doing this by auction, which destroys the market in parts of the 

Country where these trailers are commonly used, because people 

live in them and therefore there is a market, is there the alternative available to you as he suggested, to sell them by lot? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is an alternative. We do not agree with that. 

We do not think we can get rid of the ones we need to get rid of 

using that method. 

Ms. NORTON. All right. Let me ask you why you believe that you 

could not, in fact, because you do have a duty to sell them. We are 

not trying to say you should not get whatever you can. Why do you 

believe that selling by lot would be impossible? 

Mr. PAULISON. It is not impossible. It is a way to do that. However, the only ones who could purchase those would be RV dealers, 

instead of individuals. We have been very successful in selling 

these to individuals who can take those and spend the time to refurbish them, in mostly the camping trade. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask Mr. Molino. I understand that it would 

be preferable, and we have here a typical situation where you have 

to find an answer between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the 

taxpayers are due back whatever is possible and appropriate. The 

hard place is, we are not going to destroy, or we think it is outrageous to destroy Purvis, Mississippi. 

I am looking for a solution there. Mr. Molino, your response to 

Mr. Paulison? 

20

Mr. MOLINO. We are looking for solutions also. We looked on the 

lot sales as a way of getting it back into the stream of commerce 

and the dealers could fix up the units and sell them back at retail. 

Ms. NORTON. So you believe that dealers would be willing to buy 

by lot on those conditions? 

Mr. MOLINO. I believe so. I don’t think we have tested it. I know 

that in one of the auctions, one of the dealers bought 100 units recently, a dealer up in Alberta, Canada. So there is a market for lot 

sales. I would like to be able to work this out with FEMA and Mr. 

Paulison has offered to have a meeting to talk about this. So that 

is a good start to finding solutions. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Molino, thank you. 

The only problem I had with your answer, Mr. Paulison, is you 

quickly said, that is not the way to do it. 

Mr. PAULISON. I have also offered to meet with him and 

GSA———

Ms. NORTON. You didn’t even say that. 

Mr. PAULISON. I am sorry. I should have said that———

Ms. NORTON. If you had said that, I would not have had the next 

set of questions. So save me some time. Look, if you want to do 

something like this, there is no way to do it without talking with 

the industry. That is why it was my suggestion, minority didn’t 

have to say, why don’t you invite some people from the industry, 

I said, bring the industry in here so we can see if there is some 

way to get to a workable solution. Perfect solutions are not available to the Congress of the United States. I doubt if they are with 

you. 

I would like, without saying what should happen, I have no idea, 

if I were you, Mr. Paulison, I would try some place, somewhere, try 

it out on an experimental basis, before dumping this in some small 

community and wiping out the market instantly. I believe that the 

Congress of the United States wants you recoup the taxpayers’ 

money, but you have a long time doing this, would mind if you indeed had that meeting within the next 30 days and reported to this 

Committee, and I mean within 30 days, because time is ticking. 

What you think is possible, I have suggested that some kind of 

experiment to happen, you can find out pretty quick if you offered 

it. I would like to have that plan within 30 days, or if a plan is 

impossible, to tell me why. 

I know if you have to go, therefore, if you answer my questions 

directly, you will go even quicker. No declaration. We understand 

what the statute says. The problem I had with your decision not 

to do a declaration in Arkansas had to do with a reason that was 

given in the press. I will give you an opportunity to tell me that 

perhaps that was not the reason. That the community involve din 

Arkansas was told that somehow the State, I guess it was, had a 

surplus, when in fact in the same general area, where there had 

been tornadoes, there had been declarations and those States also 

had surpluses. We all have them for the moment, they will disappear quickly. 

But why is surplus the operative standard as opposed to need, 

and is that in the statute? 

Mr. PAULISON. No, ma’am, we did not consider the surplus in the 

State. It had nothing to do———

21

Ms. NORTON. Sorry? 

Mr. PAULISON. We did not consider the surplus in the State. It 

had nothing to do with the decision. 

Ms. NORTON. Where did they get that from? 

Mr. PAULISON. The Governor made a comment that they had a 

surplus, and I am assuming that is where they picked that up. The 

decision was made because there were only 37 homes destroyed 

and 25 homes heavily damaged, total, that were unoccupied, that 

it did not meet the level of a disaster declaration for the President 

to sign. I made the recommendation that we not approve that. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to ask one more question before I go on 

to the Ranking Member. I just want to get some of this on the 

record. 

Surplus. There are surplus trailers. Let’s assume for the moment 

there is nothing we can do or would want to do, I don’t know, we 

will have to look there, at the fact that no surplus was held. We 

are going to look into the other communities that had tornadoes in 

the same surrounding area. That notwithstanding, you apparently 

believed that you could not sell excess trailers to the Governor or 

the local community and told them that until the matter was exposed in the press. 

Then as the Post said in an editorial, FEMA is congratulating 

itself in finding 15 trailers or so that it could sell after telling 

them, sorry, that is not within their authority. Would you explain, 

please? 

Mr. PAULISON. What you read in the press is not accurate. They 

were asking for the new trailers that Congressman Ross talked 

about. The Post-Katrina Reform Act does not allow us to do that. 

It makes us go through a GSA process and offer them to normal, 

to Federal agencies first, primarily focusing on the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to get them to the Indian tribes. 

Had I gone through that process, the State would not have seen 

one travel trailer or one mobile home. I got with the State emergency manager, I said, what do you need, and they said, I need 30, 

I need 23 mobile homes and 7 travel trailers. I said, I can access 

good, almost like-new used ones to you through GSA, we can expedite that and you can have them the next day. He said, I will need 

to talk to the Governor. The next morning he called back and said, 

that is exactly what I need. We worked with the GSA and over that 

weekend, that was a Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, the State 

came and picked those trailers up. 

These were like-new but used, so I didn’t have to use the process 

that is laid out in the Post-Katrina Reform Act. 

Ms. NORTON. That is typical of what I meant in my opening 

statement, when I said if there is a problem, if you notify us then 

at least it won’t arise again. 

Mr. PAULISON. And this is the first time we have used this process, and that is why we were pleased to be able to work it out with 

general counsel. 

Ms. NORTON. What I am not pleased at is that obviously it did 

not work out right away. Somebody did not step up and say, okay, 

here is the alternative. Because it all made the newspaper, everybody came down on FEMA again. It seems to me that somebody 

has to say, look, do you think the Governor would have insisted on 

22

new trailers if somebody from FEMA had said, here is something 

in the alternative? And indeed, that might have been the appropriate thing to do in the first place, rather than offer your new 

stock, which you may be saving for the next disaster. 

Anyway, we will look at it again. I am complaining about inflexibility on the part of FEMA and where you don’t need a change in 

statute, but you need somebody sitting there thinking about the 

disaster and thinking about what is possible, what are my options. 

I am going to ask Mr. Shuster to ask any questions he may have. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. 

My question, I am a former automobile dealer, so when we are 

talking about selling things in lots, used cars, I understand exactly 

where Mr. Molino is coming from. But I also, Mr. Paulison, understand where you are coming from, I think, and tell me if I am 

wrong, if we sell them in lots, it has been my experience, when I 

used to sell used cars in lots to people, we would tend to get less 

money, because they take some of the good, they take some of the 

bad, and so we lose out on the money we get back. I think that is 

where we are coming at. I know that in the small community that 

I live in in Pennsylvania, along the river, I have seen some of these 

FEMA trailers, people buy them and refurbish them, I think that 

is what you are talking about, you get a better, you can get more 

money selling them to individuals than you can selling them in 

lots. 

But on the other hand, you sell them in lots, you may be able 

to move them out faster. So it becomes a question of, do I want, 

and I do not know that this is a question, is it a better return if 

you are selling them individually, and that is more important in 

getting them out in mass quantity? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is why I want to sit down with the industry 

and with GSA to work this out. There maybe a compromise here 

where we can do both. In the past, we have had better luck selling 

them individually. They have sold faster and we have gotten more 

money. We have been averaging 40 cents on the dollar, which is 

not bad for a trailer that has been out there in use for a long period of time. 

However, I am very sensitive to the organization’s concern and 

the industry’s concerns. We will sit down and work with them. 

Madam Chair, I will have something back to you within 30 days. 

Mr. SHUSTER. The second question is, under the FEMA Reform 

Act that we passed in the last year, there was a provision in there 

actually offered by Senator Pryor from Arkansas that forces us to 

go through the GSA process. I think that is correct. 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Again, I think it is important that, and you can 

comment on it in a minute, but as the Chair has said, it is important that people at FEMA are thinking outside the box. I think, 

and you can talk about it a little bit more if you would, the situation in Arkansas, you did come, you found a creative way to use 

those trailers and get them out there, is that accurate? 

Mr. PAULISON. That is correct. I felt that we were very flexible 

in forward leaning and trying to find some way to say yes as opposed to saying no. I challenged staff to do that, and they went 

back and found a legal method to do this, where we were able to 

23

get those trailers outside of a declaration, something we have never 

done before, to get those to the people who needed it, without violating statute and still getting the job done. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I think that is exactly the kind of thing we want 

to see from FEMA. I think part of the problem is creative solutions 

are not coming out of FEMA because there are folks up here on the 

Hill and in the media that the first time they see something at 

FEMA that does not look quite right they are all of a sudden jumping all over you and they want to have investigations or the media 

is doing a witch hunt. It is important in an emergency I think for 

you folks at FEMA to be a little creative and try everything you 

can. Because in the end, that is what we are trying to do, is help 

people. Sometimes we make mistakes, whether it is us up on the 

Hill or you at FEMA. We can’t hang people for trying to go out 

there and try something creative and unfortunately sometimes 

stumbling and falling. 

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you. I appreciate that. I know, Madam 

Chair, we are trying to move quickly. But I do need to say, what 

we did in Florida and Georgia and Alabama, we moved even before 

the State even asked for declaration. Arkansas, I delayed that decision because I did not want to say no. I could have said no the first 

day, because we simply did not have the amount of devastation. I 

kept going back to the State, going back to our staff, is there more 

damage, is there more damage, give me more information. Maybe 

I should have said no sooner. But I really wanted to say yes, and 

I just couldn’t get there. So that was part of the delay, and I won’t 

make that mistake again. We will make a decision quickly so the 

Governors can make the decisions they have to make. You are absolutely right and thank you for that comment. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I have no other questions. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to go to Mr. Arcuri. 

I do want to say, look, you have not seen me say, let’s change 

the declaration. I do not have enough information to know. I think 

that was set for a reason. I am looking for solutions that leave us 

with a status quo but are able to use our out of the box thinking, 

rather than say, okay, here come 500 more communities that we 

are supposed to pay for and we have no money. So I don’t want 

to raise those kinds of expectations. I juste want you to think harder. 

Mr. Arcuri. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all very much 

for being here, especially Ms. Williams, thank you for taking the 

time to share your story with us. I appreciate it very much. 

Just a short question, Mr. Paulison, Mr. Molino. Is there any 

consideration given to which way of selling, whether by lot or individually, is more advantageous or more conducive to the needy or 

the lower income being able to purchase a trailer? Secondly, is that 

a consideration for FEMA? 

Mr. PAULISON. I think that is. Most of what we are selling, quite 

frankly, are travel trailers. They are not something you would live 

in. The people who purchase these are using them mostly for camping and those types of things. So I don’t know that that would meet 

a low income type of thing. 

24

We do also have the ability to donate these to volunteer organizations. We can donate them to States and other areas that can be 

used for people of low income, use for volunteers who are providing 

services and things like that. So there is a method. We do have the 

authority to do that, and we are going to push very much to do a 

lot of that. 

But like I said, we already have 40,000 of these in stock that are 

used and we have to get rid of, and I am getting 800 a week back 

in. We are out of space as to where we are going to store them. 

So we have to do something to dispose of them and we need to do 

it quickly before hurricane season, which is coming up very soon. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Arcuri. 

We are going to let you go. I want to ask, on the GSA process, 

we of course have jurisdiction over GSA, I will tell you, I am inclined, the fault that one would lay at FEMA is that you did not 

immediately suggest that these used trailers would have probably 

been more appropriate, if anything, and didn’t send them to that 

process. You know what? At the moment, I don’t want to disturb 

the fact that GSA has the process. I just want you to send people 

through the GSA process. I don’t want to put, what is that old spiritual, he will not put on your shoulders any more than he will give 

you strength to bear? I am not sure about that, if we give FEMA 

yet a new process, the GSA process. 

So I think what I would prefer at the moment with respect to 

people who have needs, we are not talking about the State now, 

who have needs where the GSA process could click in, or we could 

by statute say, give that process to you, I would only ask you to 

send out something to say, the first thing you should do is go to 

the GSA process if somebody from an area where no disaster has 

been or could be declared. That just might solve that problem. 

I need to know, Ms. Williams is going to have to go shortly, too, 

because she has come all the way from Louisiana and has to go all 

the way back. I heard her say she had a five bedroom house. You 

owned that house? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. She owned a five bedroom house. Ms. Williams, you 

are employed by whom? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Plaquemines Parish government. 

Ms. NORTON. How far is that from, I have a question to ask Mr. 

Paulison of whether he can help people like you, how far is that 

from—is your place of employment—from———

Ms. WILLIAMS. Hammond. 

Ms. NORTON. The one now, the FEMA area before. 

Ms. WILLIAMS. An hour and a half to two hour ride. 

Ms. NORTON. How do you get there every day? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Drive. 

Ms. NORTON. We are very fortunate. Ms. Williams had a very 

good job, I don’t know how many people like that might be spread 

around in trailers, everything was gone. She had a car, because she 

had a good enough job to get there on her own transportation. Suppose Ms. Williams was exactly as she is now, except that her car 

had been wiped out too, except that the parish said, Ms. Williams, 

you can get back here you can have your job. But we can’t get you 

back here. And she didn’t have any way to get back here. 

25

Do you think, I am not asking if FEMA could do it, do you think 

that we would all be better off if there were a way to get people 

who have jobs to their jobs, so that they could perhaps relocate 

quicker and fulfill statutory mandate of keeping people in trailers 

on a temporary basis? 

Mr. PAULISON. Do you want me to answer that? 

Ms. NORTON. I am asking you the question. 

Mr. PAULISON. I am sorry, I thought you were talking to Ms. Williams. 

Ms. NORTON. I certainly was not. She has a car. I recognize what 

would happen if she didn’t have a car and had been wiped out but 

has a job. I just want to know, I am using her as a hypothetical, 

somebody, forget Ms. Williams for the moment, somebody who has 

a job but no way to get there and has been wiped out, is there anything that FEMA could do now, or for that matter in your view 

should be able to do to get such a person closer to employment? 

Mr. PAULISON. The difficulty—the answer is yes in one sense. 

The difficulty was finding places to put our group sites, to put them 

in place where people were before. In Plaquemines Parish, that is 

extremely difficult, because that whole area was wiped out. 

Ms. NORTON. Is there housing anywhere in Plaquemines Parish 

where you could move now? I am talking about Ms. Williams. 

Mr. PAULISON. I don’t think we have any group sites in 

Plaquemines. 

Ms. NORTON. Look, she has a job. I am trying to get her out of 

a trailer altogether. 

Ms. Williams, is there housing closer to Plaquemines Parish or 

there which is rental housing, for example? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. I understand you even had some benefits that came 

to you as a result of your insurance or the like. 

Ms. WILLIAMS. In the Bellechase area, that is the only area that 

maintains housing in that area. But as far as the rest of the parish, it was wiped out. So they do have camper trailers on one side 

of the parish and mobile homes on the east bank of the parish. 

That is a question that some of the parish people would like to 

know, why one side of the parish can get full-size mobile homes 

and the other side gets travel trailers. 

Ms. NORTON. What is the answer to that, Mr. Paulison? 

Mr. PAULISON. It depends on the size of the lot and what stock 

we had available at the time. Eighty percent of our mobile home 

stock or travel trailer stock is in people’s driveways, on their personal property. Most of the group sites were travel trailers. We are 

probably not going to do that again, because we did not recognize 

they were going to be there that long. So in the future, if we do 

group sites where we use mobile homes and not the travel trailers, 

we will use the travel trailers to back up in people’s driveways. 

That is another lesson learned. This is another housing piece for 

FEMA that we did not have the experience in, we did not have the 

expertise in. We didn’t, quite frankly, have the ability to do it, it 

got dumped in our lap. We normally house 3,000 to 5,000 families 

a year. We ended up housing over a million people after Katrina 

and Rita, far beyond the capacity of this organization. 

26

So we are learning as we go along. We would not use travel trailers again at group sites, if we have the choice. 

Ms. NORTON. Just two more questions. Mr. Dupuy, of course, is 

doing something very interesting and new. Congress itself has authorized this. Is this a pilot, the first of its kind? 

Mr. DUPUY. Yes, ma’am. Congress in June of last year included 

$400 million in supplemental appropriation for FEMA to conduct 

a pilot program. 

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask whether or not, when these houses are 

built again, these were still under FEMA’s jurisdiction, although 

this is permanent housing in the sense that it could remain standing. What is envisioned, that FEMA will sell the housing to these 

or other people, Mr. Dupuy? 

Mr. DUPUY. Each of the four States that are receiving grants 

from this pilot program get to make the decisions on how the housing will be displaced at the end of the pilot program. In Louisiana, 

Governor Blanco has tapped the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency to administer the program. That agency promotes home ownership, and the LHFA has committed to make as many of the units 

available for home purchase as possible. 

Ms. NORTON. So they will be owned by people afterwards? And 

this will become permanent housing in the community? 

Mr. PAULISON. They are owned by the State, and each State will 

decide how they are going to be dissipated. They belong to the 

State. They don’t belong to FEMA. 

Ms. NORTON. This alternative housing is very promising. I don’t 

know how promising it is for large numbers of people, but obviously 

Katrina is unusual. We don’t have many disasters that have such 

huge numbers of people. So this may be more practical than we 

think. 

Before you leave, finally, Mr. Paulison, again with my apologies, 

and I appreciate that you have been able to stay, I would like to 

ask you this question. Given what Mr. Shuster and I have said 

about new thinking that can be done within the agency, bearing 

that in mind, do you believe that any statutory change is necessary 

to meet the kind of problems that arose in Arkansas, in Mississippi 

and in Alabama with respect to housing relation planning and the 

proximity to either services or other housing? 

Mr. PAULISON. No, ma’am, I don’t. I think we have the authorities we need to do the job. I think that what you are going to see 

and what you see now is you are going to see a different FEMA, 

looking at things differently, looking outside the box. But the authorities that I have at my disposal I feel are adequate for me, not 

only adequate, are more than adequate for me to do the job that 

you want us to do. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask you one more question. Are there people living in some of the Louisiana, there are so many people there, 

people like Ms. Williams who have jobs and can’t get to them, she 

has gotten to her and I congratulate her. But are there people living in some of these trailer areas who are disproportionately elderly, had been on welfare, had been disabled, in these trailer units? 

Mr. PAULISON. I don’t know about disproportionately, but the answer is yes, the group sites that we have are a mix, a cross of LouVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:28 Sep 20, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\34791 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
27

isiana. We have elderly, we have families, we have people who are 

disabled. 

Ms. NORTON. What is going to happen to those people? 

Mr. PAULISON. It is a major social issue. I don’t know what the 

final answer is. We have tens of thousands still in Houston that 

have been displaced from Louisiana, who have not been able to go 

back home yet. 

This is a major social issue that I would love to work with this 

Committee on, maybe outside the purview of FEMA. But I think 

that this Committee definitely would be able to look at some of 

these issues and how we are going to resolve them long-term. 

Ms. NORTON. I don’t know what the answer is. But I know this 

much: people who are elderly, people who were previously on welfare, people who are disabled, are not going to buy themselves and 

make their way out of temporary housing. And here the courts are 

faced with a situation they don’t even know what to do with, because they don’t want to do something inhuman, you don’t want to 

do something inhumane. 

Recognizing that many of the communities have been destroyed, 

that is, however, let me put that aside for a moment, that would, 

in most States there still are communities. If people have been on 

welfare or are elderly or have been on aid to disabled or any of the 

like, is there anything that would keep FEMA from saying, you 

had a life in a permanent community. It might not have been the 

life you loved, but it was a life involving each of these things. Could 

FEMA help these people get to a community and to the local service where at least they could resume living the life they lived, as 

opposed to, understand what a FEMA trailer is, people are accepting food by charity. You have no obligation to render many of the 

services you are rendering. You are setting time limits that themselves would be regarded as something close to displacement camps 

some place. 

What is to keep you from saying, some community must be 

found, and we will aid you to find a community, whatever was your 

prior circumstance, because this community has to evaporate? 

What is to keep you from doing this, and do you have the authority 

to do this now? 

Mr. PAULISON. Yes, we do. We are working very closely with 

HUD, trying to make our relationship with HUD and other Federal 

agencies much more robust than it has been in the past. HUD is 

the expert in housing, it is not FEMA. So we have been working 

with them to find out what do we do. We have people in apartments, particularly in Houston, and to transition those people over 

into HUD programs and then the people in the travel trailers and 

mobile homes, to do something similar to that. The travel trailer 

and the mobile home sites we set up are not conducive to a good 

family life. We need to find some way, like you just said, to find 

a better type of environment for them to live in. It is not where 

they are right now. 

Ms. NORTON. Like we don’t dump trailers, we don’t dump people 

on communities who are in need of community services. We have 

got to find a way, though, this is catastrophe waiting to happen. 

You are going to have some of the last evacuees left and something 

terrible happens to them, fire, something terrible happens to them. 

28

And I’m telling you, the simple thing I am suggesting is not Houston. Houston has done more than its share. Moreover, Louisiana 

doesn’t look like there are many communities either. 

But it does seem to me that somehow the decision has to be 

made that of the communities in the larger area, with perhaps 

some assistance from the Federal Government, at least to begin 

with, people can find their way back to the life they had. FEMA 

doesn’t promise, the United States doesn’t promise the life you 

should have. But if the life you had was less than any of us would 

have wanted, at least you must find that life, or else FEMA is left 

with 48 hour cutoff notices, although that had to do apparently 

with the State of the particular area. 

You have said that relocating was the right thing, but you regret 

the 48 hours. We know there was no emergency there. It had a 

stench to it, we know that the light had been cut off. It was a pretty inhuman situation. Why 48 hours? 

Mr. PAULISON. Staff wanted to move people over the weekend, so 

they didn’t lose day work, come in Monday and the kids would not 

miss school. They thought they could move everybody over the 

weekend. 

Ms. NORTON. Did you have a meeting and call people like Ms. 

Williams together and tell them that? 

Mr. PAULISON. They did not. And that was my concern, I fixed 

that, that is not going to happen again. There should have been 

better communication. There should have been better consideration 

for people who maybe wanted to stay another week to get out of 

there. However, the conditions, and I am sure Ms. Williams will 

testify to that, in that particular area, was not good. They were not 

being treated with respect. Some people were on oxygen, so when 

the power went out, they would have problems. The sewer would 

back up consistently. This particular person had two other trailer 

parks that we closed down also, we moved out of. 

The decision, again, was a good one. I will stand by that. However, my staff should have been a little more sensitive, and I have 

made that extremely clear to them. That is not going to happen 

again. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Paulison. Let me ask you this. 

Whether you are going to give people two months, or the notion of 

calling people together, so that they understand. Most people, if 

they understand what is happening, can accept it, particularly 

under the circumstances that they are living. I tell you, that was 

the part of it that most got to my gut. Here are people who have, 

for reasons having nothing to do with themselves, because it was 

a natural disaster, have bene left out there longer than any of us 

would know what to do with. If you are down there, you can get 

to treating people like cattle, or some kind of displaced somebodies 

who we just have to find room for. That is outrageous. 

And I understand that you bring a very good and humanitarian 

view to your work. I don’t mean to criticize it. I do mean to say 

that that has to down from the top, all the way down. And I wish 

you would send out a notice about what has to be done. All people 

must be called together somewhere if you intend to move them. So 

that the same kind of town meeting that I have in my district, you 

29

all would have, call it what you want to, so that people could ask 

questions. 

If the old people heard you say, but you know, there are young 

people here and children here and we don’t want them to miss 

school, do you think they would have said, well, I don’t want to be 

moved on 48 hours’ notice? But if you are a cripple in a trailer and 

you think somebody wants to move you, you think, this is the third 

time maybe that you have moved, you have every reason to be outraged. 

Thank you for your work. I want to work closely with you. If you 

are willing to work with me and if you are willing to do what Mr. 

Shuster said, let’s think about how to do it another way, not cite 

a regulation, do what you finally did with the GSA trailers, only 

do it right away, and tell your people that we are expecting that 

kind of thinking about alternatives before ever saying no, then I 

think we are going to get on fine as long as I am Chair of this Subcommittee. You may be excused. 

Mr. PAULISON. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. I would like to have the other members ask questions of our other witnesses at this time, if they desire. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. First question, to Mr. Dupuy, it appears as though the Katrina cottages are superior to the travel 

trailers. Can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Mr. DUPUY. Sure. They are certainly larger. Travel trailers are 

very small inside. They are intended for recreational use, as we 

heard today, they are not intended for long-term living. 

Mr. SHUSTER. They can be long-term living? The look like they 

are stout enough that you could live there. 

Mr. DUPUY. The homes that we are building are on a foundation, 

they are stick-built, they are not modular. They are meant to last 

forever. They used advanced material, we will be using steel framing that is designed to withstand hurricane force winds, cement 

fiber paneling. 

Ms. NORTON. Just a moment. We are excusing Ms. Williams to 

get to the airport. The last thing we want to do is compound the 

problem by having her miss her plane. Thank you so much for coming, Ms. Williams. 

Excuse me, Mr. Dupuy. 

Mr. DUPUY. Sure. Also, aesthetically, they are an improvement 

over travel trailers and mobile homes. New Orleans is a very aesthetically sensitive place. Mobile home or travel trailers do not fit 

into the neighborhood fabric there. The homes that we have designed speak very much to New Orleans architecture, over in the 

southwestern part of the State, the architecture over there. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And you looked at different sections of the Country 

to try to make it aesthetically pleasing? 

Mr. DUPUY. One of the benefits of this model is that the exteriors 

can be adapted to any architecture around the Country. 

Mr. SHUSTER. It is Cypress Cottage Partners, what groups are 

those, investors? 

Mr. DUPUY. No, it is a collection of companies that came together 

to respond to FEMA’s pilot program and to deliver on it, now that 

we have been selected. It consists of Cypress Realty Partners as 

the developer, the Shaw Group out of Louisiana, which is a large 

30

engineering construction company, Lowe’s Home Improvement, 

which is providing the materials, Andres Duany, who is an internationally respected town planner and architect, Marianne Cusato, 

who was the designer of the first Katrina cottage. That is our team. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. Mr. Molino, is your concern about the 

travel trailers, is the used trailers or the new trailers that are of 

greater concern to you and your industry? 

Mr. MOLINO. I don’t think they are getting rid of the new trailers. I think it is the used trailers that they are putting into the 

market. But our concern would be anything, because we are a 

small industry and dumping or selling to the consumer has two 

issues. The first is the market issue, the second is the safety and, 

if they are not fit, mission-ready, selling them to a consumer, a 

consumer thinks he is buying an RV from watching our commercials and stuff, and they are not getting a safe RV, they are going 

to have a bad experience. That is going to give our industry a bad 

name, too. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Is it your concern, as Director Paulison said, they 

are trying to maximize what they get out of these trailers, because 

it is the taxpayer dollars. Are you comfortable with the amount of 

money they are getting for them? I understand your concern about 

what condition they are in, but as I mentioned, I live in a small 

community and there are farmers that have along the river frontage a lot of folks that have purchased these types of trailers. They 

buy them inexpensively, because they can afford them, then they 

spend the money to fix them up. 

So the amount of money you are getting for them, do you consider that dumping? 

Mr. MOLINO. It could be. I am really not competent to comment 

on that, because I do not have the data on how much exactly they 

are getting. Forty cents on the dollar does not seem like that is a 

tremendous discount, really. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And the new ones, they are not selling the new 

ones, based upon, I think, because of the law we put in place. 

Mr. MOLINO. Right. I don’t think they are selling new ones. 

Mr. SHUSTER. They aren’t, because it is against the law at this 

point. They have to go about it in a long way to make sure that 

it doesn’t affect your industry in an adverse way. 

Are you concerned over donations? Is that a concern to you? 

Mr. MOLINO. No, I don’t think so. That doesn’t get them—if they 

are donated, I am sure they will be donated to people who have the 

ability to refurbish them and make sure they are safe. In fact, the 

dealers might even want to participate in that on a voluntary 

basis, on a community service basis. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I have no further questions. I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Molino, can I ask you, do members of your association have 

a standing contract or some kind with FEMA to provide trailers? 

Mr. MOLINO. No, ma’am. That is another part of the issue. When 

Katrina happened, it was very chaotic and people were out trying 

to buy trailers. It was very difficult to try to bring any order to it, 

to tell our people where to go, to send their specifications because 

it was happening so fast. And that is one of the things I would like 

to talk to the Director about and be able maybe to work something 

31

out in the future so that there is an alert system. We don’t really 

want a contract with them, but we would like to be able to inform 

all the dealers, especially the dealers in the disaster area, that 

there is a need for trailers, so that they can offer them, they can 

bid on them. 

What happened, manufacturers sold direct. They didn’t sell 

through dealers in all cases. And some dealers from out of the area 

actually benefitted more greatly than the dealers in the area. It is 

a definite fairness issue. So I appreciate your asking me that. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Madam Chair, I have to depart shortly, I just want 

to make sure the record will remain open and we can submit question to our witnesses. 

Ms. NORTON. Very much so. We certainly are learning a lot. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. I wonder if it would make sense, Katrina brought 

up all these huge, you say they ran around looking for trailers and 

I am sure people were willing to sell them. Would it make sense 

for FEMA to have a contingency contract with the owners so that 

they could quickly transport trailers, rather than to store them and 

then be left as we are now finding them? 

Mr. MOLINO. I would like to pursue that. We offered that actually before Katrina and I think what FEMA was looking for at that 

time in their planning, and this ma have even been prior to the 

current Administration, but it was in that area between Mr. Witt 

and the first FEMA director under the current Administration. 

There were some issues about trying to find a company that could 

actually take over the contract and actually put the vehicles into 

sites and get the sites prepared and do all of that. We weren’t capable of all that enormous task. 

Ms. NORTON. Of course not. So you had to have two or three 

things going for you in order to be able to do that. This is the kind 

of contingency planning that we hope FEMA learned from Katrina, 

and that is something that we will want to submit as a question 

to them. 

Mr. Dupuy and Ms. Turner, you are here because of what I indicated at the start of the hearing, that we were interested in solutions and too often hearings are not solution-oriented or they are 

oriented toward, oh, why don’t we do what Mr. Dupuy says, all 

over the Country quickly. The Congress did it the right way by seeing what happens, making sure that some contracts could be let, 

learning from them. That is one way to do it, very attractive. Because I see it as fulfilling two possible needs, obviously the need 

for short-term housing. But since, as I understand it, this housing 

is built so that it could be permanent, given the shortage of affordable housing, there goes a double bang for the buck. So I am very 

interested in this solution. 

Meanwhile, Ms. Turner, we have asked you to come, and may I 

thank you again for coming on such short notice. Because the problem is just that hard. We are not going to be able to do enough of 

what Mr. Dupuy apparently is already showing can be done, we are 

not going to be able to do it, even though it looks like we will sell 

these. So the cost doesn’t even become the kind of problem it is for 

FEMA and others to deal with this situation. 

32

But we know that FEMA deals with emergencies. What we are 

trying to do, as I said in my opening statement, is to assume the 

state of affairs we have with Katrina. We have it in Mr. Mica’s district. We have some trailer areas that have never dispersed. Perhaps some of you have seen some in the press, it was either Mr. 

Mica’s district or somewhere in Florida. You may have seen that 

in some of these areas where the last people to leave are the ones 

who have the least means to leave, or for whatever reason can’t get 

out, aren’t getting out. 

In those places, we have reports of serious crime, FEMA is not 

a place force. We have had reports of fires and the local fire people 

sometimes saying we are not coming the next time, but of course 

they do. They submit a bill to FEMA and FEMA says, we have 

your bill, we are going to try to do what we can. And FEMA doesn’t 

know whether it should pay or not for this vital service. We have 

the transportation issue. Ms. Williams was an excellent witness, 

because all we have to do is take away her car and we have someone that we are making dependent on the State, because you then 

take away her job and yet, FEMA is not supposed to help you get 

there. My question to you is, we can’t do what Mr. Dupuy wants 

us to do for, remember, not just Katrina victims, but for victims of 

natural disasters all over the Country. What would be the component parts of the town or community, I won’t call it a town or community, because it is not meant to be that. It is really meant to 

be a temporary place. 

What would be the component parts to make it work while people are there and to help it, I use the word evaporate, because I 

mean that, what is minimally necessary to keep that from becoming a crime, disaster area, so that you will never put another trailer park there as far as that local community is concerned? What 

is necessary given a fact that you may have a disproportionate 

number of people who have problems, like the elderly have, or people who didn’t have any work in the first place? What is necessary, 

one, to sustain them in some kind of decency? The statute says 

shelter. Nobody is going to provide long-term food and services. 

Sustain them in humane conditions while at the same time moving 

them on and out as quickly as possible rather than allowing them 

to take root, as some are quickly taking root in Louisiana and already have in Florida from past hurricanes. 

Ms. TURNER. I want to start by saying that I am not an expert 

on FEMA or the Stafford Act. So I am going to talk about, in principle———

Ms. NORTON. Talk about in principle, because none of us are on 

what to do here. That is why we are really talking off the top of 

our heads. But talk about this. We are not going to set up a new 

social services agency within FEMA. 

Ms. TURNER. I agree. First, we should be putting as few people 

in trailer sites like this as possible. I think it is inevitable in a disasters of the magnitude of Katrina that there was going to have 

to be some people put in group trailer sites. But FEMA, this Administration went to that solution way too fast. They didn’t use 

HUD and HUD-type solutions to help as many people get back into 

regular communities with some housing assistance quickly. 

33

Ms. NORTON. I take your point but I really wonder where the 

whole darned Gulf Coast had been wiped out and people are piled 

into Houston and Baton Rouge, whether there was room to do 

much more piling in of people than was done. 

Ms. TURNER. I think they could have served a significant number 

of families with vouchers. 

Ms. NORTON. Where? 

Ms. TURNER. In the outlying parishes of the New Orleans metropolitan area, outlying areas of Baton Rouge. It wouldn’t have taken 

people back exactly where they wanted to be. And it wouldn’t have 

taken care of everybody. I am not suggesting this is a silver bullet. 

But we could have done more, both in the Gulf and in the diaspora. 

Ms. NORTON. How do you know that? 

Ms. TURNER. Because actually, vacancy rates in that whole part 

of the Country, rental vacancy rates were quite high at the time 

of Katrina. 

Ms. NORTON. Why do you think, if there are vacancy rates, people usually come themselves to the Government agency and say, 

me, me, me. Mr. Paulison is not here, so I have to ask these questions. 

Ms. TURNER. Because our conventional housing subsidy programs 

are under-funded and have huge waiting lists, essentially the 

Katrina families were either getting at the end of a very long waiting list if they went to the conventional programs, or they were 

bumping equally needy people from those communities. 

Ms. NORTON. These were temporary, they weren’t bumped for 

long, because FEMA can only provide temporary assistance. So if 

you provide somebody with a house, you might be bumping somebody who is already living in a dilapidated house. You are not in 

fact displacing people for very long on FEMA funds. 

Ms. TURNER. I think that is part of the problem here. I understand that there is a line between what FEMA can do and what 

other parts of Government can do. But in a disaster like Katrina, 

the temporary for the families, like Ms. Williams, temporary is not 

18 months. Temporary is a couple of years until their communities 

can be rebuilt. She has not been able to rebuilt her house on her 

land yet. 

So we need a way to think about solutions that last longer than 

FEMA’s 18 months. 

Ms. NORTON. I’m trying to make this as hard as it is. You heard 

Ms. Williams say that in the areas closest to her house, she obviously would rather not have a two hour drive, there wasn’t housing. So that is why she is wiling to drive. The woman has children, 

and five people living in a trailer. 

Ms. TURNER. I think Mr. Dupuy’s solution would work great for 

Ms. Williams. She owns land. Her insurance settlement has paid 

off her mortgage. She doesn’t earn enough to have a new house 

built on her land. This temp-to-permanent solution would work 

perfectly. 

Ms. NORTON. She may be a buyer for these houses. 

Ms. TURNER. Yes, she was writing down the information on her 

pad. 

Ms. NORTON. I want you to go on, but I tell you, without more 

information from FEMA, I do not accept the notion that there was 

34

all kinds of rental housing that they overlooked or didn’t use. I just 

don’t believe that the market system works this way. 

I realize that Katrina is a bad model for what we expect in the 

natural disaster. But it is very hard to believe. Although I accept 

that the first thing you ought to do is try to find existing rental 

housing. Of course, Baton Rouge, that was done, Houston, that was 

done. I don’t know about other places. But go ahead. But assuming 

you get there, which is a problem we have now. 

Ms. TURNER. Assuming that we end up with these trailer communities, I would say the keys are health and mental health care 

for adults, elderly, disabled, but also children. The children who 

were traumatized in this storm are suffering terribly emotionally. 

The consequences for them long-term could be devastating. There 

should be job training and job search assistance. And if the trailer 

community isn’t near jobs, there needs to be help with transportation. Ms. Williams is really an incredibly resourceful person. A 

lot of the families left stuck in these trailer parks, as you have suggested, don’t have her strength, resilience, resources. 

Ms. NORTON. So even if FEMA, which obviously is not equipped 

to provide job training, and I assure you, we do not intend to have 

a job training agency, are you suggesting that the Department of 

Labor, for example, which does provide, it might provide a trailer 

nearby or some place nearby to help place people, already existing, 

funded services? 

Ms. TURNER. And coordination between FEMA and its trailer 

park managers to get those services that are available in the communities on site. 

The Renaissance Village trailer community outside Baton Rouge 

that I visited was just getting a Head Start facility up and running 

when I was there. And the woman running that facility, not using 

any FEMA money, had had to fight tremendous battles to be allowed access to that fenced-in trailer encampment, where there 

were hundreds of little kids in need of the kind of successful program that Head Start offers. 

Ms. NORTON. I’m sorry, what was the service that she wanted in? 

Ms. TURNER. She was putting a Head Start, an excellent Head 

Start program into that. So health and———

Ms. NORTON. And you are saying she was funded by the county 

to do Head Start? 

Ms. TURNER. I think she was funded by HHS to do this Head 

Start program. But it was a long battle to get her program into the 

FEMA trailer camp. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to go back to transportation. I don’t 

think anybody wants to make the FEMA village look like it is a 

village with services. If you didn’t have Head Start where you came 

from and more than half of the families who are entitled don’t, 

then set up Head Start in the FEMA village and of course you send 

a message about the FEMA village that wouldn’t be necessary. 

It seems to me, though, that if she is funded to do Head Start, 

she can help get them out, if in fact people can, here I go back to 

travel, if FEMA can provide a shuttle to the Head Start. To the extent that a FEMA place looks like a place where there are services, 

I don’t understand why you should leave the FEMA place. I hate 

to be just that hard-headed. But that is what the statute conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:28 Sep 20, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\34791 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
35

templates. If it didn’t you can imagine how permanent these particular trailer parks would be. 

We are getting to the point where nobody decent who owns a 

piece of land wants a FEMA trailer park there. So you get people 

like the Hammond, Louisiana trailer park, who took the money 

from FEMA, let the lights go of, didn’t take care of his land. I am 

trying to make it as hard as I think it is out there. I don’t think 

that lots of on-site services, as opposed to what your writing has 

suggested, that transportation may be the key to people being able 

to move on with their lives. You didn’t have in mind a FEMA park. 

But again, being able to get some place and seeing what life was—

I hate to use this word—but what life is like on the outside can 

give you a taste for the outside. 

Ms. TURNER. I agree that making these FEMA trailer park villages super rich in services has a potential downside and that the 

primary goal should be getting families out of them. 

Ms. NORTON. You realize FEMA doesn’t provide any food? 

Ms. TURNER. Yes. Getting people to jobs would be a critical element. But again, you have talked about a rock and a hard place. 

I agree with you that there is a concern about making these too 

village-like, too permanent-like. But if you have thousands of vulnerable families living in a place with no services, that is also a 

recipe for disaster, for the families and for the surrounding community. 

So I think it is actually a really tough call. As long as you have 

significant numbers of families who you have put in a FEMA village, really making that the most unpleasant place possible is 

counterproductive. So I would argue for delivery key services at the 

same time you work family by family, with good case management 

services, on getting them out and back into home communities, if 

not their original home. 

I appreciate your point that they may go back to their previous 

circumstances, which might not have been perfect, that perfect can 

be the enemy of the good here. 

Ms. NORTON. That is very helpful. Listening to you, this is what 

I take away from what you said. At the very least, these people are 

under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, I will call it humanitarian services. Charities are doing things like providing food. 

FEMA has provided food well beyond the authority it should be 

able to do so. So I am not even willing to say that food has been 

included, because I don’t know enough. 

But I do know that what FEMA faced with something that looks 

outside of its statutory mandate is not to say, okay, here is the propane gas for you to cook, except we are not supposed to provide 

propane gas, so all the propane is gone after this or you have a certain amount per X or what. I am saying, relieving it to ad hoc circumstances and that becomes per se inhumane, because it is not 

being thought out either by FEMA or by this Subcommittee. 

Secondly, the crime that has become a part of some trailer parks, 

the ones I know about are in Florida, where they were so notorious 

that they were on television. It does seem to me that minimally, 

wherever you are, you are entitled to protection against crime. I 

know nothing about it. I intend to find out about whether there are 

peace officers, to say to a county, by the way, tell your cops to come 

36

in here. An unfunded mandate, as we say here, is obviously not the 

solution. On the other hand, if you say, here is a guard that is at 

the gate of the FEMA village and that is it, then of course you are 

creating an intolerable and inhumane circumstance of your own 

kind. 

For services other than humanitarian services, seems to me that, 

I am going back again to transportation, shuttles, for example, 

probably could be provided today to jobs, certainly. To services, but 

where does that lead us? Some people need only services and will 

never get, did not a have a job before, or perhaps had one but were 

unemployed. That has to be faced. What is the obligation of the 

Federal Government with respect to those people? 

I believe the obligation is to resettle them somewhere. And there 

is the dilemma, where. My own sense is that if they are dependent 

that they must not all be settled, they have to be spread out. I am 

literally thinking off the top of my head, before it all happens and 

one day you find out you are left with a FEMA village of elderly 

people, disabled people and unemployed people. Whoever they are, 

they have to be spread out. They are not entitled to anything more 

than they had when the disaster occurred. And to get any community to accept any but the kind who would automatically go, we 

have freedom of transportation as a constitutional right in this 

Country. If there are any number, it does seem to me that the Federal Government for a period, a very limited period, might provide 

some transition costs to the local community. 

Ms. TURNER. It may require some transition costs to the family 

to get them back to the less than perfect circumstances they had. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, that goes with, the reason, now watch out, 

this may be too clever by half. You want them to get to the community that provides the services. And every community of the United 

States, whether it is in that particular part of the community or 

not, the same services are available. We give people aid, unemployment insurance when they have lost a job. We give people aid to 

dependent children. We give people, you don’t have to live in your 

community to get the aid that you are entitled to as a 70 year old 

person who can no longer work, even if you were at the time entitled to. 

Ms. TURNER. But those are all entitlements. But———

Ms. NORTON. The whole notion of giving it on-site is not necessary, if we can take that person to some place where those services are provided, it is everywhere in the United States of America. 

But not in a FEMA park. 

Ms. TURNER. For all those services, but there may need to be 

some long-term, not FEMA, Government help for some of those 

families with their housing costs. Because many of the people from 

New Orleans, which I know the most about, they lived in very expensive, possibly run-down but affordable housing before the storm, 

the elderly, disabled, unemployed. That housing is not there any 

more. 

Ms. TURNER. You are so right, Ms. Turner. When I said transition costs, you have to have a place to live. And I am assuming the 

worst now. You have to have a place to live, you do not have a job. 

Maybe you didn’t have one at all. But you have to, the point of the 

transition costs is that you ‘‘deliver the family to the services.’’ 

37

Now, you know, you could do that anyway, because we do have, as 

I said, freedom of movement. But that would be a terribly unfair 

thing to do. We have already done it to Houston. 

So you put them on notice, there are X number of families coming in, large numbers of families would just be stupid, so X number 

of families coming in. They will need these services. If there 

weren’t Section 8 housing there, that is one of the services they 

would need. This family, like Ms. Williams, has a job. She needs 

affordable housing, she needs Mr. Dupuy to give her this housing, 

which isn’t available yet. 

In other words, the point is, to get the people to the services as 

opposed to saying to FEMA, you now are a service providing agency, which will never happen in this Congress and should never 

happen, should never happen, as long as we are providing services 

anywhere in the United States of America, unless we want to have 

colonies of people who are displaced from disasters, and then they 

become displaced people in the United States of America. 

Ms. TURNER. I very much appreciate this argument that you are 

making. I would just suggest that in addition to thinking about giving the receiving communities time to prepare that the families 

who are going to be relocated get time to prepare. 

Ms. NORTON. Not 48 hours. 

Ms. TURNER. Not 48 hours. And that their choices and wishes are 

respected. 

Ms. NORTON. This is America. That is how you would have to do 

it. Here are a set of communities where there is Section 8 housing, 

where there is a market for jobs. You choose. But you can’t stay 

here forever. 

Ms. TURNER. And some of those families, as you have recognized, 

are going to have a really tough time with that choice. Some of the 

families, certainly not Ms. Williams, but some of the families who 

remain in those trailer parks are like some of the families remaining in the distressed public housing of Chicago or the District. The 

families who are the last to leave are the most troubled. And they 

really need a lot of help, if we are going to be compassionate. They 

need a lot of help figuring out what their options are and taking 

advantage of them. 

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Turner, that is the—go ahead. 

Ms. TURNER. Even Ms. Williams, who is tremendously resourceful, the little conversation I had with her, she does not fully understand what is going on with the insurance, her mortgage, the road 

home. She could really use somebody helping her figure out what 

her options are and how she can best take advantage of them. 

Ms. NORTON. Meanwhile, the United States of America is providing a trailer at what is the cost, Mr. Molino, of a typical trailer? 

Mr. MOLINO. It is $60,000 to $90,000 installed. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. It is a question of looking to where the 

money is and tapping it for the right purpose. Nobody is going to 

dump people who can’t take care of themselves in a community or 

you will hear from their Congressman. They will be right in here 

telling you about it before the first family is there. Nobody is going 

to fail to take the trailer experience that now makes it hard to find 

any place to take a trailer. Your point is really the point I tried 

38

to make in my opening statement, who are the last evacuees? They 

are the people who are least able to help themselves. 

Therefore we have to say compared to what now is. You may be in a $60,000 trailer, but your family is eating via, not even welfare. 

Via charity. Why, because you don’t qualify for welfare, so via charity. 

Yes, the children are going to school. God knows how far the 

school is, since the important point is to get a trailer some place. 

In other words, it is untenable for these trailer parks to continue 

to house people without moving them on. If I were to put any 

marker on FEMA, it would be, are they doing what we have provided them with in order to help people move on. And I am in a 

position now where we haven’t provided them with anything except 

with their own creativity, which we need to give them suggestions 

about how to use. Because I think that they probably could be providing the trailers right now. I think probably, and I don’t even 

know what I am talking about, because I haven’t looked at the 

statute, but I think probably if there was a Ms. Williams, could be 

providing her some basis to get there and giving her a limit to find 

closer housing. So that $60,000 or $90,000 could be freed up for 

those in greater need. 

I want to thank all of you for coming, particularly for waiting us 

out. I go on for so long, because we could easily hear your testimony. Thank you for it. We try to leave these hearings with, what 

are we going to do. You have given us not only a lot of food for 

thought, but frankly, each of you some very practical suggestions. 

The Subcommittee is very grateful to you for the time and attention you have given. 

Thank you and the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:16 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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