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41–455 PDF 2009

S. Hrg. 110–681 

IS HOUSING TOO MUCH TO HOPE FOR?: FEMA’S 

DISASTER HOUSING STRATEGY 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY 

AND 

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, LOCAL, 

AND PRIVATE SECTOR PREPAREDNESS 

AND INTEGRATION 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 4, 2008 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana, Chairman 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

DONNY WILLIAMS, Staff Director 

APRILLE RAABE, Minority Staff Director 

AMANDA FOX, Chief Clerk 

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, LOCAL, AND PRIVATE SECTOR 

PREPAREDNESS AND INTEGRATION 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas, Chairman 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

KRISTIN SHARP, Staff Director 

MICHAEL MCBRIDE, Minority Staff Director 

AMANDA FOX, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 1 

Senator Landrieu .............................................................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2008 

Harvey E. Johnson, Jr., Acting Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating 

Officer, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of 

Homeland Security ............................................................................................... 7 

Milan Ozdinec, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Public Housing and 

Voucher Programs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ... 10 

Howard Frumkin, M.D., DrPH, Director, National Center for Environmental 

Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ......................................................................................................................... 19 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Frumkin, Howard, M.D., DrPH: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 19 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53 

Johnson, Harvey E., Jr.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31 

Ozdinec, Milan: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42 

APPENDIX 

Chart referred to by Senator Landrieu .................................................................. 66 

E-mail submitted for the Record by Senator Landrieu ........................................ 67 

Questions and responses submitted for the Record from: 

Mr. Johnson ...................................................................................................... 69 

Dr. Frumkin ...................................................................................................... 75 

(1) 

IS HOUSING TOO MUCH TO HOPE FOR?: 

FEMA’S DISASTER HOUSING STRATEGY 

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2008 

U.S. SENATE,

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY, AND

THE AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, LOCAL, AND

PRIVATE SECTOR PREPAREDNESS AND INTEGRATION,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in 

room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mary Landrieu 

and Hon. Mark L. Pryor, Chairmen of the Subcommittees, presiding. 

Present: Senators Landrieu and Pryor. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR 

Senator PRYOR. I would like to thank everyone for being here 

today, and especially thank all the witnesses. Senator Landrieu 

will be coming in momentarily. 

I would like to welcome our witnesses, fellow Senators, and 

guests to the first joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Disaster 

Recovery, chaired by Senator Landrieu, and my own Subcommittee 

on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration. 

We look forward to your testimony. 

Just as an administrative note, I have to slip out in a few minutes. Things are notoriously slow here in the Senate sometimes, 

but things can also change quickly on you if you are not careful. 

And Thursday we got the word that the consumer product safety 

bill will be on the floor this week. So I have to race over to the floor 

in just a few minutes to manage that on the floor. I apologize for 

having to duck out. 

Our two Subcommittees have much in common. Both are concerned with preventing and mitigating national catastrophes of any 

kind. Both work to ensure that disaster victims are well provided 

for, either through advance planning or recovery programs. And 

both engage in frequent oversight of the Department of Homeland 

Security and FEMA. 

Today, our two Subcommittees share the goal of investigating the 

preparedness and implementation efforts of our country’s disaster 

housing programs. We are particularly interested in progress towards the completion of the National Disaster Housing Strategy, 

which was required by the Post-Katrina Emergency Management 

2 

and Reform Act. It was due to Congress in July 2007, but it seems 

to be part of a DHS-wide habit of delay. 

The importance of the report cannot be understated. It provides 

the big-picture plan to ensure that disaster victims are not traumatized twice—first by the event and second by a chaotic response. 

The finished product, we hope, will lay out the temporary housing 

options FEMA can offer to disaster victims. It will also address factors such as efficiency, cost-effectiveness, logistics, and dispersal of 

responsibilities between relevant Federal, State, and local agencies. 

In addition to the Disaster Housing Strategy, we hope that this 

hearing can shed light on the disastrous issue of formaldehyde in 

the so-called toxic trailers. These travel trailers, purchased in 2005 

in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, reportedly caused wheezing and 

nosebleeds in residents beginning in January 2006. Yet FEMA and 

the CDC were unable to agree on a system for testing the trailers 

and moving out residents until nearly 2 years later. This time 

frame is unacceptable. We are eager to probe the circumstances 

surrounding the delays and also eager to learn more about the 

FEMA and CDC plan to use the results of the testing. 

Finally, we look forward to hearing about the progress your three 

agencies are making toward the development and implementation 

of a successful housing strategy. We appreciate that your goal is to 

administer a safe, efficient program to help people in the wake of 

the disasters. We want to know how Congress can help you get 

there. 

I will now turn the hearing over to Senator Landrieu, who will 

Chair for the remainder of the day. Again, I apologize for my early 

departure today, but thank you for being here. And, Senator 

Landrieu, thank you for your great leadership. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANDRIEU 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Senator Pryor, and I appreciate 

you starting the hearing because your time is very limited. But 

thank you for making it a priority to be here and for joining me 

in this Joint Subcommittee hearing to look into the housing situation, not only in the Gulf of Mexico but around the country. 

Let me ask you, Senator, I have an opening statement, but would 

you like to go forward—— 

Senator PRYOR. Go ahead. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Let me open with my statement, and 

then we will take the Senators questions. Let me begin by saying 

I want to inform the panelists and all of those here today that we 

will, unfortunately, not be able to accept the oral testimony of the 

representatives from HUD or CDC. Because of your failure to meet 

the deadline of this Subcommittee, we had very little time, if any, 

to review your testimony. We will receive Mr. Johnson’s oral testimony because FEMA submitted it on time. The rules that the Subcommittee sets are here for a reason. Unfortunately, it seems like 

the agencies before our Subcommittee today have not been able to 

meet many of their deadlines regarding this issue. So your testimony will be received as part of the record, but your oral testimony 

3 

1The prepared statements of Mr. Ozdinec and Dr. Frumkin appear in the Appendix on pages 

41 and 53 respectively. 

will not be accepted this morning.1 And as soon as I finish my oral 

statement, we will move to you, Mr. Johnson. 

In the words of Richard Griffin, who is the State Coordinating 

Officer at the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, as 

reported by the Arkansas Democratic Gazette in Little Rock on February 15, he is quoted as saying, ‘‘The bad thing is that right now 

we are really trying to help residents impacted by this tornado 

without having to backtrack and do other stuff. It is just a mess.’’ 

The title of this hearing could be, ‘‘It is just a mess.’’ There could 

not be a more appropriate title. 

Senator Pryor and I have combined the efforts of our Subcommittees for this hearing in order to highlight and examine the many 

problems with FEMA’s Disaster Housing Program and HUD’s either lack of cooperation, unwillingness, or lack of response as well. 

Our effort will not stop here. This Subcommittee has also been 

granted a special reserve budget by the Rules Committee to investigate the situation, and we are in the process of hiring additional 

staff to look into it. 

There are both fundamental and specific problems with our National Disaster Housing Program. On the fundamental side, FEMA 

and HUD operate disaster housing policies that rely on temporary 

housing to house disaster victims. Yet, with the lip service given 

to housing advocates, nothing or little has been done to actually rebuild permanent housing stock, whether public or private, for individuals who are receiving temporary assistance, especially for individuals who are in the low-income, high-risk population. That 

would be lower-income families, working families, seniors, people 

with disabilities, etc. 

Fair market rents in the New Orleans area alone—and that is 

just not New Orleans but the area—have increased 45 percent 

since the storms. Families looking for two-bedroom apartments now 

must pay $990 when before it was something around $700. 

Of the 200,000 housing units in Louisiana with major or severe 

damage, 40 percent were rental units. Over half of these 82,000 

rental units were affordable to residents making less than $40,000 

a year. The Road Home and the GO Zone program is only scheduled to rebuild 23,000 rental units, and our last check, I am not 

sure any one of them has yet been built, planning to be built but 

yet to be built. And in New Orleans alone, not counting St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Jefferson, Washington Parish, Cameron, or 

Calcasieu, 42,000 affordable rental units were lost in the storm. 

Pre-Hurricane Katrina, we had an estimated 6,000 homeless in 

Orleans Parish alone, not counting the other parishes. Now we 

think, according to the Unity of New Orleans that is advocating on 

behalf of homeless, there may be 12,000 homeless people. 

Just a few weeks ago, we had the deadliest tornado outbreak in 

the United States in more than 20 years. That situation provides 

an amazing illustration of more specific programmatic problems 

with the Federal disaster housing mechanism. On February 5 of 

this year, more than 100 tornadoes devastated communities in AlaVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:13 Jan 23, 2009 Jkt 041455 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\41455.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
4 

bama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee, and more 

than 50 lives were lost. 

In response to 500 homes destroyed in Arkansas, FEMA planned 

to transport 300 mobile trailers from the Hope storage site where 

they have been sitting for the last 2 years or more, in the hot sun, 

uncovered, to provide people housing. On February 14, FEMA was 

forced to cancel that order of mobile homes because the result of 

the formaldehyde testing by the CDC found that the fumes from 

519 trailer and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi were, 

on average, five times what people are exposed to in most modern 

homes. This prompted FEMA to call for all occupants of trailers to 

be moved out of them because of the potential health impacts. 

Upon canceling the orders, FEMA said the agency would try to 

place Arkansas tornado victims in rental units before they used 

other options. The agency said it would only use mobile homes from 

Hope, Arkansas, after they were aired out and tested, a process 

taking 10 days. These announcements were made on February 14. 

The only thing we can say is thank goodness it is not that cold in 

Arkansas because had this been in Minnesota or Maine, we would 

be in serious trouble. 

On the same day, Julie Gerberding, the CDC Director, said families in mobile homes and travel trailers should spend as much time 

outside as possible, ventilate the units by opening windows, running fans, and keep the thermostats low. High temperature leads 

to greater release of formaldehyde. 

As a result of the February 5, 2008 tornadoes, 938 families were 

displaced nationwide. Imagine the type of confused response in a 

catastrophic situation with 260,000 homes destroyed, which was 

the situation in Louisiana—and as I recall, 100,000 or so in Mississippi. 

You will find that the confusion of the February 5, 2008 tornadoes was a result, a direct result of FEMA and HUD’s lack of coherent Disaster Strategy Plan, despite the fact that the larger 

Committee that we sit on mandated such a plan to be developed 

and submitted to the Subcommittee in July, which we still have 

not received, and the number of hearings that have been held, both 

in the House and the Senate, asking for answers and for a coherent 

strategy. 

Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have hit, the Federal Government has spent over $7.7 billion on individual and household programs. The question that needs to be answered through this series 

of hearings is: Where is the $7.7 billion? How was it spent? Homeless have doubled, rental units have not been built. Where is the 

$7.7 billion? 

The Government Accounting Office report released in November 

found that in Mississippi, the ineffective FEMA oversight of trailer 

maintenance resulted in $30 million in wasteful and improper 

fraudulent payments. The report cites that FEMA in one case wasted $15 million on maintenance inspections where there was no evidence that these inspections ever occurred. 

Mr. Johnson, that is just one incident. There are several that 

have been reported. 

As this story shows, FEMA’s indecision to utilize the 144,000 

trailers as the backbone of the disaster—or decision to utilize the 

5 

trailers is the genesis of a series of these problems. So this hearing 

is going to get into why are we using trailers, why are we paying 

up to $70,000 per trailer to place them, what are the standards 

that we are going to be using for temporary safety for these trailers. 

The idea is to have a document that would provide counter-contingencies, different sets of options for different scenarios, and distinct efforts for departments and agencies involved. Congress 

passed that directive in the Post-Katrina Emergency Management 

Reform Act that called for FEMA and HUD to work on this plan. 

It is, as I said, not submitted to this date. 

Additionally, unforeseen problems with the Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP) have arisen because landlord housing 

disaster victims must sign, it seems like, a new contract with local 

public housing authorities and undergo an inspection before they 

are paid. This has scared a number of landlords off and forced tenants to find new apartments. So once they move from the trailer 

to try to find an apartment, the landlords say they do not want to 

comply with the program. So it increases the homeless population. 

This has happened to us in the Gulf Coast. It very well could happen in the tornado-affected areas as well. 

Today, over 35,000 Gulf Coast residents and Hurricane Katrina 

survivors remain in trailers that may potentially expose them to 

dangerous levels of formaldehyde. The notice came on Valentine’s 

day in a press release that said it would take steps to expedite the 

relocation of residents from temporary housing to apartments. This 

is a little too late. One woman called our office and said, ‘‘I have 

been living in a trailer with seven children. It has been difficult. 

I have managed, but I actually have a stove to cook on. They want 

me, Senator, to move to an apartment’’—I mean—‘‘to a hotel. The 

problem is not only can we not fit in the room, but there is no stove 

for me to cook on for my children. What would you suggest?’’ 

From the confusion and inefficiency of providing housing for 

these tornado victims to all the other examples, it is clear that the 

failure to complete the National Disaster Housing Strategy and the 

absences of leadership in this area have left thousands and thousands of hard-working, tax-paying American citizens at risk, those 

that are fighting to rebuild their lives and their communities. So 

these agencies before me are responsible, both FEMA, HUD, and 

the CDC. 

Now, before I conclude this statement, let me say that I am not 

unaware that the States in question—Louisiana, Mississippi, and 

Alabama—have obligations to use the resources that we have sent 

to them to help fix and address this problem. I most certainly intend to continue to have a series of hearings with State elected officials that will come up and talk about how the GO Zones were allocated, what percent was allocated to housing, and why not more of 

it was allocated to housing. And we are going to have a series of 

hearings because this is not just about what happened to the people that I represent, even though that is clearly the catastrophe of 

the century. But it is also about what is going to happen in America if tornadoes continue to strike, which they will, if an earthquake hits Memphis, if a tsunami hits Seattle, if a Hurricane V 

hits Long Island like it did in 1938. We do not have a plan. And 

6 

anybody that testifies to the contrary is going to be held to a serious line of questioning because nothing that I observed indicates to 

me—and I am in a pretty good position to see it, being on this Subcommittee and on Appropriations—that there is a comprehensive, 

coordinated plan between the Federal agencies and their State 

counterparts to respond appropriately for housing after a catastrophic disaster. 

So I am going to turn it over to Senator Pryor. I am very thrilled 

to have his support. He is a former prosecutor. His skills are going 

to come in very handy. And I would like to ask him for his questions first, and then I would like to have the opening statement 

from Assistant FEMA Director Harvey Johnson. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and, again, thank 

you for your leadership on this. 

I do not think the people of Louisiana and these victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have a better friend in Washington than 

Mary Landrieu. She has been a tireless advocate on all levels for 

her home State and for the region. Thank you for your leadership. 

I only have one question right now. I do have some questions for 

the record I would like to submit. But if I may turn to you, Mr. 

Johnson, Senator Landrieu and I both referenced this National Disaster Housing Strategy that was due to Congress in July 2007, so 

now it is about 7 or 8 months late. When do you anticipate that 

the National Disaster Housing Strategy will be released? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your question on the 

strategy. Let me say first that we do appreciate the tasking from 

Congress to prepare the National Disaster Housing Strategy, and 

I will address it in a little bit more detail in my opening statement. 

But it really causes us and brings us to confront a number of key 

issues, many of which you have mentioned in your comments, and 

Chairman Landrieu has as well. What is our strategy to learn lessons from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita? How do we assess responsibilities at the Federal level and the State level? How do we recognize and acknowledge the differences between a catastrophic event 

and a lesser event? And how do we recognize among the Federal 

agencies our respective roles and competencies to address the challenge that we are faced with? 

These issues are very significant and cause a lot of debate inside 

the Administration. We are working this intently, and my guess is 

that we would like to get you the report probably at the end of another month from now. But it is not, again, due to lack of recognition for the significance or due to lack of attentiveness to Congress. 

I think it really is an acknowledgment of the challenge that we all 

face and that there are very few simple answers. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Senator Pryor. 

Let me start with your statement, Mr. Johnson, and let me begin 

by thanking you for taking several trips down to Louisiana lately 

at my request—and others—to visit with the local parish officials 

and State leaders. And as I have told you privately—and I would 

like to say it publicly—we have gotten very positive feedback from 

your visits, and we are very grateful for your efforts. 

So, with that, please begin. 

7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 31. 

TESTIMONY OF HARVEY E. JOHNSON, JR.,1 ACTING DEPUTY 

ADMINISTRATOR AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. JOHNSON. Good morning, Chairman Landrieu and Chairman 

Pryor, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Harvey Johnson, 

the Acting Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer for 

the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency, and I am pleased to be here this morning to discuss our continued efforts and progress in providing emergency 

temporary housing, both currently and in future disasters. 

Part of the title of this hearing, ‘‘Is Housing Too Much to Hope 

For?’’ is a provocative title in view of our experience in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when the fact is that efficient and timely access to safe emergency temporary housing 

should be an expectation easily met for all disasters. Yet as is the 

case with the delivery of other emergency-related capabilities, the 

answer is more complex than is the desire for a straightforward 

yes. And the latter part of the title, ‘‘FEMA’s Disaster Housing 

Strategy,’’ there are two salient aspects: First, that FEMA should 

develop and initiate the overall management and the direction of 

a National Disaster Housing Strategy; and that, second—this is 

clearly a role of FEMA leading the implementation of such a strategy is a challenge that requires the cooperative participation of 

other Federal partners, States, local communities, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, individual citizens, and 

disaster victims. This is a role that FEMA should share with those 

others. 

Over the last 3 years, FEMA has learned a great deal as we have 

wrestled with this challenge. It has illuminated the need for such 

a strategy. It has made us a stronger agency. It has highlighted a 

requirement for clarity in the roles and responsibilities at the Federal level, between the Federal level and the State, and provided 

lessons that will lead us to affirm, yes, we can and we will provide 

efficient and timely access to safe emergency temporary housing. 

That, Madam Chairman and Mr. Chairman, is not too much to 

hope for. 

The National Disaster Housing Strategy must consider the types 

of housing to be used, the differences between interim housing 

versus long-term housing, the responsibilities of the Federal Government versus States and localities, and other challenges that 

exist in implementing solutions. 

Importantly, the strategy will convey the national guidance and 

a vision for providing disaster housing assistance. It will ensure 

proper attention to serve all populations and uniformly address access issues for special needs and those with disabilities. 

While FEMA is beyond the deadline established by Congress for 

submission of this strategy, I offer that our frame of reference in 

time has been somewhat affected by the rise of safety issues related to formaldehyde and the imperative that we must debate 

these issues and get them right. 

8 

Let me shift focus for a minute to the Disaster Housing Assistance Program. DHAP represents the first time the Federal Government has ever sought to transfer responsibility for housing, rental 

assistance, and case management for such a large population. As 

you would imagine, there have been many challenges as FEMA and 

HUD have clarified authorities, ensured the right mix of skills and 

expertise to manage the caseload, exchanged a large amount of 

complex data. Expecting that my colleague from HUD will address 

the program in greater detail, I would like to simply observe that 

HUD and FEMA have been working purposefully each day to ensure that the transition from one agency to another is as smooth 

as possible. As we continue to make progress in relocating families 

along the Gulf Coast, this program provides a necessary safety net 

to ensure that eligible individuals have a safe and secure place to 

live and that they receive the benefits of compassionate case management intended to lead to greater self-sufficiency. We expect to 

engage specifically with representatives from the Louisiana Department of Social Services and their counterparts in other States to 

discuss and address the seams between the Federal and State programs. 

Finally, I would like to update the Subcommittee on the actions 

that FEMA has taken in the last several weeks in response to the 

formaldehyde in our travel trailers and mobile homes. 

I wish to reiterate that FEMA takes very seriously our responsibility to provide for the safety and security of disaster victims who 

reside in FEMA-provided emergency housing. This is a population 

that, though it once exceeded 143,000 households, is now just over 

34,000 households. Our primary focus is to help those households 

relocate from temporary housing to more permanent solutions as 

quickly as possible, with a goal to focus on the at-risk households 

who may be more susceptible to formaldehyde-related health concerns, with the goal to close all of our group sites along the Gulf 

Coast by June 1. 

We believe this task is challenging but achievable. It will require 

that we communicate often and effectively with resident households, that we work in partnership with other Federal agencies, 

such as DHAP through HUD, and with State agencies in Louisiana 

and Mississippi, and that we engage the cooperation of landlords 

and apartment owners across the Gulf Coast. 

We have instituted a range of new policies aimed at maximizing 

access to rental units, we have expanded our 1–800 help line, and 

we are currently in the process of establishing a Joint Relocation 

Task Force comprised of State and Federal officials expressly to 

identify and work together to address the many issues that accompany the relocation of this magnitude and the quest for permanent 

housing and self-sufficiency. We will keep the Subcommittee updated as we continue to make progress in this endeavor. 

In closing, Madam Chairman, Mr. Chairman, FEMA remains 

committed to providing efficient and timely access to safe emergency temporary housing. We intend to complete the National Disaster Housing Strategy, offer a broader range of housing solutions, 

and partner more effectively at the Federal and State level. Our 

focus is to better serve communities and disaster victims, and we 

will work purposefully to do so. 

9 

I thank you and I am ready to answer your questions. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. 

I want to pursue this report for a minute that was due in July, 

and even according to your testimony and the questions of Senator 

Pryor, we still have not gotten a firm date as to when this plan will 

be submitted to Congress. Do either you or the representative from 

HUD want to address that? And I am also going to ask you who 

is specifically on this task force, by name, and who is actually the 

person accountable to either the President or to Congress for providing this report. Which one of you is actually? And I do not know 

who wants to take the question. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I will take the question to begin. I think clearly 

the law in PKEMRA, which was a very valuable piece of legislation, designated—it redefined the role of FEMA and the responsibilities of the Administrator of FEMA. In large part, Administrator Paulison as the director, as the Administrator of FEMA, is 

directly responsible to the President for all matters related to 

emergency management. And so we acknowledge inside that report 

the responsibility to prepare the National Disaster Housing Strategy as a FEMA responsibility. And we are working with our partners in HUD primarily and with other agencies, we are working 

through the Department of Homeland Security, which has a vested 

interest, and with OMB and other elements of the administration 

to really wrestle with these issues and to provide the report. 

Senator LANDRIEU. But, Mr. Johnson, you can appreciate the 

anxiety on the part of those of us that are trying to provide resources to you to help the situation, the difficulty in us doing that 

without some guidance from your agencies. And then when we in 

Congress attempt to provide our own suggestions as to how it 

might be done, we are thwarted by the Administration, which says 

they basically oppose what we suggest, yet will not submit what 

they suggest for us to review and fund. 

So I have got to press you for a tighter answer. When do you believe we are going to get the report? And are you saying that Director Paulison is the person responsible for submitting it by that 

deadline? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am, it is always nice to tie my boss to a 

responsibility. But Administrator Paulison, as the Administrator of 

FEMA, owns the responsibility to prepare this document. We own 

the responsibility to coordinate with other Federal agencies and 

drive this through to a final conclusion and decision. 

I would indicate to you that I believe we can try to get this report to you by April 1, another month from now. But, again, as I 

think you appreciate, more so than perhaps others, these are very 

difficult issues, and they do require a lot of discussion and debate 

inside the Administration. 

Senator LANDRIEU. I realize that, but let me just say also—and 

I know that you understand this. I know it is very difficult for 

these Federal agencies. But it could not be possibly as difficult as 

it has been for some of these victims of these disasters and what 

they have had to live through the last 21⁄2 years. 

So I understand it is difficult, but this is not 6 months after the 

storm. This is not a year after the storm. This is 21⁄2 years after 

the storms and the levee breaks, with another hurricane season 

10 

starting in June, with people between trailers and apartments and 

hotels, homeless on the street, and a hurricane season starting in 

June throughout the Gulf Coast. And I am not sure what the situation is on the ground in Memphis and Arkansas, but I am sure it 

is not much better, other than being not as—the scope of it is not 

as great. 

So with all due respect—and I started by trying to be complimentary of your work with the local parish officials, and I do appreciate 

that and do not take those statements back—this is a housing crisis. 

I would like to ask HUD: What can you do to expedite, to make 

sure that we meet this goal, to at least get this report for a plan 

to go forward by April? 

TESTIMONY OF MILAN OZDINEC, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, OFFICE OF PUBLIC HOUSING AND VOUCHER PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. OZDINEC. First of all, Madam Chairman, I want to thank you 

for inviting me here today. It is an honor to be before you, and 

hopefully answers to my questions will help inform your decisions 

and your staff as we move forward to make adjustments to DHAP 

and any other involvement HUD—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, we hope so. 

Mr. OZDINEC. Let me just say that the contact person that I have 

at HUD—and I know there are several folks involved in this housing strategy on the Subcommittees and working on these various 

issues that the Admiral had mentioned. But my go-to person is Jan 

Opper, by name, and my specific effort as it relates to the housing 

strategy is to define for the folks on the Subcommittee what specific role HUD would play as it relates to rental assistance, which 

is really our main focus in what we do at HUD. We have been 

working with the DHS attorneys to develop statutory legislation 

that would outline very clearly for you and for the public how that 

transition would actually occur in the case of a major disaster. 

FEMA would take care of the mass care. That is what they are 

good at; that is what they do. The question then becomes the transition of families from mass care to more permanent housing. And 

we believe that through our development of the KDHAP program, 

followed on by the DVP program, which you were kind enough to 

provide $390 million to HUD based on our experience with our first 

experiment and demonstrate, followed on by DHAP, which still 

does have problems and kinks to work out, which we do as we 

move forward, those are the basis for which we could run a longterm rental assistance program where we can get the referrals 

from FEMA to HUD down in such a way that HUD can do what 

it does best with its housing authorities, which is inspect units, 

place families, do contracts with landlords, and provide case management. And that is my part of the National Housing Strategy, 

and I know there are other parts of it, Admiral. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. I have a chart here of your organizational chart with HUD, which looks confusing, and it seems like it 

is. Who is Jan Opper? Is he the Assistant Secretary for Public and 

Indian Housing? 

11 

1The chart referred to by Senator Landrieu appears in the Appendix on page 66. 

Mr. OZDINEC. No. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Who is the Assistant Secretary? Is it 

Paula Blunt? 

Mr. OZDINEC. It is Paula Blunt. She is Acting Assistant Secretary. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And who is Jan Opper? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Jan Opper works for Nelson Bregon in the Community Planning and Development Division. 

Senator LANDRIEU. That is this person up here? 

Mr. OZDINEC. I cannot see that. 

Senator LANDRIEU. You cannot see it, OK. But there is Assistant 

Secretary for Community Planning and Development. 

Mr. OZDINEC. OK. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And that is the Assistant Secretary, and he 

works for him? 

Mr. OZDINEC. No. Jan Opper works for Nelson Bregon, I believe. 

I work for Paula Blunt in the Office of Public and Indian Housing. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Well, let me tell you what we are going 

to need. This Subcommittee is going to start with who is on the 

Subcommittee and who is responsible in HUD and who is reporting 

to whom about who is going to be working with FEMA because we 

just cannot even get off of first base without this. 

Now, we have studied this. Our Subcommittee has looked at it, 

and if we cannot figure it out, I am sure that there are very few 

others that could. And so we are going to get those answers. So I 

would like you to submit who is on this task force, who is ultimately responsible, and what your timeline is with FEMA to provide this for the Subcommittee. And could you also tell us how 

many vacant positions there are? Because every time we look at 

this chart, we see an acting person or a vacant position.1

Mr. OZDINEC. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And once we can identify who is on the Subcommittee between HUD and FEMA and who is responsible, then 

we can start—hopefully with your cooperation, but we will do it 

without your cooperation—driving some deadlines to get this report 

done and trying to figure out what is holding it up. 

And you can understand what our frustration is because a year 

and a half ago, this Subcommittee, thinking that it was going to 

be helpful, seeing that these trailers were not happening, moving 

in the right direction, provided, as I recall $435 million—or Congress did, for alternative housing. And that was basically given out 

to one State, 80 percent of it, for a program that they claimed 

might work—and it is Mississippi’s Choice—but to me it looks like 

basically a fancy trailer. And we had provided $435 million to your 

agencies to come up with an alternative strategy for housing, and 

here we are a year and a half later, after having already allocated 

$435 million, which is a lot of money—lots of pilots could have been 

tried. We do not still have the report, and that money has been 

spent. 

Do you want to comment please, Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I would just say that certainly we all feel your ire 

on the lack of submission of the report, but please do not take that 

12 

as an indication of lack of activity. As you know, and you mentioned the $400 million for the Alternative Housing Pilot Program, 

that now has generated 1,685 households in Mississippi that are 

living in these Mississippi cottages. And hopefully by December 

this year they will be up to 5,000 units produced between Texas, 

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. And I think your questions 

to FEMA specifically, our sessions together have focused on issues 

of housing that have been helpful in making progress. While I do 

not—we certainly feel for the families have gone through this the 

last 21⁄2 years. In fact, they have taught us a lot of lessons learned, 

and so we have captured those. I believe that we have amended our 

policies over the last 2 years, and you are seeing the benefit of 

some of those. So is from HUD, as we recommend—as we comment, 

we are capturing all of that as well. And so I hope that we are responsive when we do submit the report. 

Senator LANDRIEU. I appreciate that, and I do not want to keep 

harping on this report and plan, but I have to say one more thing. 

You are correct, there has been a lot of activity. A lot of the activity 

has been from families packing up their belongings and moving 

from hotel rooms to trailers to out on the street, to back in apartments, to being evicted. There has been a lot of activity. But it is 

not resulting in what could be a rational, comprehensive, informed 

public as to what they can expect in a disaster. So there is no comfort along the Gulf Coast. Do you understand? Even though there 

is a lot of activity, because there is no report and no publicized 

plan, there is no community organization or mayor or police juror 

or public official or governor that could actually stand up and give 

a 2-minute speech to the people in their State or region to say, 

look, if another hurricane comes, this is what we can expect. All 

they know and see is they have trailers with formaldehyde, people 

hitting the limits of $26,000 and they cannot go any more, their 

homeless populations doubling, and with all due respect to HUD, 

in my view what HUD has been good at is demolishing what housing there is there—not rebuilding. 

[Applause.] 

Senator LANDRIEU. Please, no comments from the audience. 

Thank you. 

So to the people that we are attempting to serve, it looks extremely bleak. Homeowners are caught in the Road Home program 

and red tape. Public officials do not know what to expect from the 

Federal Government. That is why this report is so important, because at least it gives us somewhat of a blueprint for people to say 

this is at least what the Federal Government is proposing. Then 

our governors and our parish officials can comment, let us know, 

and we can fine-tune it and move forward. But right now, without 

that document, people are just flailing, and I do not blame them. 

So we want that document by April 1. We want the document 

submitted to the Subcommittee about who is in charge, with titles 

and phone numbers and E-mails so we can address them, and let 

me move on to one other point to you, Mr. Johnson. 

From the time we get this report—also good data is very important for the organizations and communities struggling with how 

many people are homeless, where are people. I mean, what kind of 

tracking systemis this. FEMA, according to our information, does 

13 

not now conduct exit surveys on recipients of housing assistance. 

Only about 5 percent of the people receiving assistance at the program’s peak—I am talking about the disaster in the Gulf Coast— 

are still using FEMA-provided housing. So this seems like, if you 

just took that statistic, that we are making progress: 95 percent of 

the people are not using housing; only 5 percent. 

The problem is that because you all do not have an exit survey, 

we cannot tell what the true facts are regarding the 95 percent of 

the people that are no longer receiving your benefits. What happened to them? Did they purchase a home? Did they relocate to another place and have temporary, self-sustaining housing? 

How can you determine the effectiveness of your assistance program with HUD if you are not tracking and have no exit surveys 

of people leaving your programs? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it is a good question, and I do not think we 

have a survey. That does not mean we do not hear it a lot and get 

a lot of comments back. We do have some sense for when people 

leave the FEMA area of responsibility, where they go, but we do 

meet with the States, and the States have perhaps a more close 

sense because often they have made—for example, Road Home, we 

see people that—an average of 500 a week turned back their travel 

trailer recently because they have actually completed their renovations and are moving back into their homes. So I think that we 

probably are not without any kind of data, but you are right, we 

do not have—we do not survey. We do not have a systematic way 

to collect the data, analyze the data, and provide the kind of insight that would perhaps be helpful. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, if that could be part of your report between FEMA and HUD, because for our public officials struggling 

on the ground to make decisions, whether it is governors again or 

parish presidents struggling with providing budgets for their units 

of government, without that kind of information it is very difficult 

for them to make decisions about how to allocate whatever bond allocations they might have or surplus funding to housing. And it is 

very difficult for nonprofits to get that information as well, and 

they are struggling. 

I am going to get to CDC in a minute, but I have one more question about the case management, and I would like both HUD and 

FEMA to respond to this. 

Louisiana has established the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, 

which our former governor, I think, made a very wise decision in 

creating this Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, which was to fill in 

a real absence of a coordinated case management effort. Because 

as you know, families that are displaced, even middle-income families that are displaced, have housing needs. They are looking for 

jobs, trying to get their children in school, trying to re-find members of their family, locate members of their family that have been 

dispersed. They might have some health issues. 

So the truth of that dictated that there be some new entity created that could cross the lines and really minister to families where 

they were, meeting their multiple needs, trying to get them back 

to self-sufficiency. That is my version of what the Louisiana Family 

Recovery Corps does. I am sure the professionals can do a better 

job. 

14 

Our State funded it at $60 million, as I recall, but what has 

HUD or FEMA done to either use their expertise and contract with 

them to continue their work, or create your own entity that could 

do it better, if you think you can? Where are we with the wraparound services so when you knock on the door and tell this family 

you have got to exit this trailer, you hand them a card and say, 

‘‘Here is somebody you can call that might be able to help you’’? 

What card are you handing them? And if you are not handing them 

the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps and the Mississippi Homeowners Program, what card are you handing them? And I will start 

with you, please, Mr. Ozdinec. 

Mr. OZDINEC. Thank you very much, Chairman Landrieu. I again 

want to make as clear as I can that HUD’s role as part of the rental assistance is really authorized by an interagency agreement that 

we negotiated and agreed to with FEMA in July 2007. We knew 

from the very beginning, Madam Chairman, that this was going to 

be an important issue for you and the Subcommittee and, in fact, 

the general public in how we would be assessed as to our involvement and our ability to help. We would need to track families, and 

we would need to know exactly and precisely where they went and 

what they were doing. 

As a result of that, we had created a case management tracking 

system called TAAG—it is part of my written testimony, but I can 

give you today, of the 30,000 families that were originally referred 

to HUD as part of the DHAP program, exactly how many of those 

families we have been able to contact and bring into case management, and a demographic of those families, where they are and 

what they are doing. 

Just for example, of the 15,559 families that are engaged in case 

management today, we know that 81 percent have wages and benefits; we know that 77 percent have a high school diploma or a GED; 

we know that 23 percent have professional certifications and 14 

percent have college degrees. 

Now, this is emergent data. These are families that we have been 

able to contact first, meaning that they had followed FEMA’s process, they updated their address in FEMA’s database. So we were 

able immediately to get with them, and we were able immediately 

to assign a case manager. So this is emergent data, and this shows 

a little different picture, frankly, than what I expected. I expected 

to see the numbers a little lower in that regard. Of the 15,559 families, we have done what is called a risk assessment on 14,773 already. 

To give a sense of who are going to need the most help in terms 

of where they are today in their personal lives, whether it is employment or underemployment, whether it is medical issues or disability issues, and what services they can get plugged into as we 

move forward with case management, down to the lowest tier, 

which are families that we have identified that have already begun 

the process of moving on, either moving back to New Orleans or 

living in Texas, or establishing a life in Denver. And we see a typical bell curve there, at least on this emergent data, where—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. But TAAG, are you all doing this in-house, or 

do you contract with a private contractor? 

15 

Mr. OZDINEC. We have contracted with a private contractor to 

purchase the software—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. And what is the name of that contractor? 

Mr. OZDINEC. I do not know that, Madam Chairman, but I can 

certainly get that to you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So—excuse me. No comments from the audience, please. 

So HUD is contracting with an outside contractor to create this 

case management program. And then at the State level, I think 

both Louisiana and Mississippi have created their own programs. 

How does your program coordinate with what is happening with 

Louisiana and Mississippi’s program? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Well, Madam Chairman, thank you very much for 

that question. I have had several conversations with Adam Knapp 

and his staff at length, I guess, in the evening how we could work 

together moving forward here, given the resources that they have 

and the wrap-around resources with what we have, which is an assessment tool, and an ability to help families do an individual development plan so they can map out for themselves where they 

would like to be a year from now. And then those wrap-around 

services—which my case management does not buy. My case management buys about a 1:90 ratio in terms of case manager to families. So what we are doing is assessing and then—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. Could you explain that a little better—I do 

not understand the 1:90. Your money buys what? 

Mr. OZDINEC. The interagency agreement that we have established with FEMA allows HUD to provide enough money to housing authorities to do case management for 1 case manager to 90 

families. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. 

Mr. OZDINEC. That is how we assessed what we could do up 

front. Now, in many cases some of our families will not need any 

case management. I have a lawyer in Denver who has just decided 

he is done. We have already got 2,334 families who have opted out 

of the program, 310 have already said they are in permanent housing, 132 have actually purchased a home. So we know that there 

is some of that population who will not need case management, and 

so the idea is to focus our energies on those families that need it 

most. 

Now, let me also say, Madam Chairman—and this has been a 

critical point for me and for the Secretary from the beginning of 

this undertaking with FEMA. We know that in this population 

there are senior and elderly disabled families in that population 

that come March 2009, when DHAP ends, because the Stafford Act 

ends its disaster—the Department, the American public, the Congress need to make provisions for those families—and I use Mrs. 

Thibodeau all the time for my staff. She is 75 years old, worked 

every day in her life. She has a small pension, lived in the Lower 

9th Ward. That is the house that she was born in. That is the 

house she inherited. It is gone. She is living in Houston. The rent 

is $1,000 a month. She only earns $900 a month in Social Security. 

Come March 2009, how will she be able to pay the rent? 

The Secretary understands this, and you may notice in the President’s 2009 budget we asked for $39 million in tenant protection 

16 

money to ensure that as we transition the elderly and disabled 

families out of DHAP, we can give them a Section 8 voucher so 

that we can pay rental assistance and incorporate them into our 

existing housing choice voucher programs. 

Senator LANDRIEU. But let’s stick with Ms. Thibodeau for a 

minute because I share her story with my staff all the time, too. 

And what I would like to say about Ms. Thibodeau is let’s say she 

was from the Lower 9th Ward, and you give her a rental housing 

voucher. There are no apartments in the Lower 9th Ward that she 

can move back to. So her only daughter and son, who also own 

their homes, and her grandchildren, which they were one large, 

happy, extended family, are rebuilding their homes in the Lower 

9th Ward. But the only thing the Federal Government offers her 

is a voucher where she may have to go live in St. Charles Parish 

or in St. Tammany Parish, far away from where her family is, because HUD has not built one senior housing unit in St. Bernard, 

to my knowledge, or the Lower 9th Ward in 21⁄2 years. And to my 

knowledge, there is not even a plan to build housing for seniors in 

any parish in my State that I know of—and if I am wrong, then 

you can correct me—the Section 202 senior housing, and we are 

trying to get that. 

So I appreciate that you know about Ms. Thibodeau, but I hope 

that HUD will do more than just know about her and will put in 

your budget some plans to build housing for seniors, or to submit 

a plan to us that we could require our States to use part of their 

GO Zone allocation to build housing for Ms. Thibodeau and her 

family because her options are quite limited right now. 

Let me ask you this before we get off of this case management. 

How much funding are you testifying to that you have for case 

management? And have you at all entered into any agreement or 

contract or even discussion with the case management systems in 

place in Louisiana and Mississippi? 

Mr. OZDINEC. We utilize our public housing authorities across 

the country to administer all aspects of the program, including case 

management. Housing authorities, as you probably know, are local 

government agencies that have connections to the social service apparatus within their communities. 

Senator LANDRIEU. But do you know the one in New Orleans has 

been taken over by HUD itself, so we do not have an independent 

housing authority in Orleans Parish? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Yes, the New Orleans Housing Authority is in receivership with the Department as we speak, and Karen CatoTurner is the administrative receiver. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So you are contracting with yourself for case 

management because they are not in a position to do that. 

Mr. OZDINEC. The housing authority actually contracted with the 

Harris County Housing Authority of Texas to run their DHAP program in New Orleans. The Harris County Housing Authority has 

approximately 7,000 DHAP families. They did an outstanding job 

setting up their DHAP center. The city of Houston just did an outstanding job accepting families and trying to make them welcome 

into the city, and the Harris County Housing Authority really—if 

you ever get the chance to go to the DHAP Center there or, Madam 

Chairman, go to the DHAP Center now in New Orleans, I think 

17 

you will be surprised at the level of professionalism and effort that 

has been put in to try to attract landlords to come in and to basically sign the lease addendum and to participate in the program 

because the rent will be paid. 

In New Orleans, for example, our case management provider is 

Odyssey House. I do not know if you are familiar with them. 

Senator LANDRIEU. No. But they have done a lot of the case management leading up to DHAP, and the decision was made that they 

had a tremendous amount of knowledge moving into the DHAP 

process. So the housing authority decided to use Odyssey House as 

their case management arm. 

Let me also say in the second part to your question that I have 

indeed talked to Adam Knapp, and we are in conversation about 

how we can use what they have available to supplement or to wrap 

around our assessment tools and our case management, giving 

them access, for example, to TAAG so that their wrap-around services can assess the—the assessment is already done. The question 

is now what services are needed? 

Senator LANDRIEU. So the answer is that you could not contract 

with the local agency in New Orleans because it was in receivership, so you contracted with Harris County. Have you contracted 

or made any inquiries to the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, 

which the State itself set up to do this kind of work? Yes or no? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Yes, I have. 

Senator LANDRIEU. You have contracted with them? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Oh, no. I have contacted them. 

Senator LANDRIEU. You have contacted them. 

Mr. OZDINEC. Yes. I have not contracted with—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. Have you contacted or contracted with the 

Mississippi group that the Governor of Mississippi set up? 

Mr. OZDINEC. I have not. I have just talked to Adam Knapp. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Just for the record—and I appreciate 

what Harris County has done. I have spoken to the Mayor of Houston several times and continue to thank him for the good work that 

he is doing. But I will say this: The city of Houston was an intact 

city. The population of Houston is several million, very strong economy, very low unemployment. They were a perfect city to absorb 

some of our people, and we are grateful for it. 

But rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward, Lakeview, Gentilly, St. Bernard, Cameron, and parts of St. Tammany are wholly different 

when you are rebuilding a community of housing for people than 

putting them in apartments in an already vibrant, ongoing, established city. 

Mr. OZDINEC. I agree with you, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam Chairman. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Go ahead. 

Mr. JOHNSON. You asked me to go down to New Orleans and to 

meet people, and I have done that twice. And one of the results of 

that is to get a sense for case management and the gap that might 

exist between our case management and what the State desires. 

And in the audience today is Lisa Woodruff-White, the Deputy Secretary Attorney for the Louisiana Department of Social Services, 

and she has almost as much passion as you do for case management. And we have agreed to meet between FEMA, HUD, and the 

18 

Department of Social Services and to understand what the gap is 

between case management, as Milan describes, and case management as the State would like to see it, and to see what we can do 

in terms of working through HUD and the State to fill in those 

gaps. 

So I think there is room here that we can—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, thank you, Mr. Johnson. I think that 

would be very helpful because we say we want to honor the work 

of the State and parishes, but yet we continue to create programs 

with limited funding that do not seem to acknowledge the investments the State and the parishes have already made because, of 

course, it is in their interest because these are their citizens that 

are with them every day. So I thank you. I would urge you to pursue it. But I would like to know how much funding do you have 

allocated for case management, just so that we can get this on the 

record. Do you have any money allocated for case management in 

your budget? And how much is in HUD’s budget? 

Mr. JOHNSON. FEMA had no role in case management prior to 

PKEMRA. With PKEMRA you gave us that responsibility, so we 

have a pilot project now with HHS to look at case management, 

and as we indicated in the testimony, through our MOA with HUD, 

we provide them funds for case management, and those come from 

the Disaster Relief Fund. So our effort to follow on to that and perhaps work with the State and expand that effort would be funded 

from the DRF. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So you have a rough estimate of how much 

you have budgeted for this? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I do not. 

Mr. OZDINEC. I do. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Go ahead. 

Mr. OZDINEC. First of all, allow me to correct my testimony, 

Madam Chairman. It is actually 1:50, not 1:90, which actually 

translates into $92 per family per month. That is what our IAA 

says. That is what we provide the housing authority. So that 

breaks down—the entire IAA between FEMA and HUD for case 

management, for rental assistance, and for administration is approximately $597 million, starting from September 1, 2007, to 

March 2009. And that is for everything. 

Of that number, we spend approximately $2,760,000 per month 

on case management. That is $92 per person per month. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. You spend $2 million per month—— 

Mr. OZDINEC. $2.7 million. 

Senator LANDRIEU. $2.7 million, in the Gulf Coast or the whole 

country? 

Mr. OZDINEC. In the entire country. 

Senator LANDRIEU. In the whole country, $2.7 million a month. 

Mr. OZDINEC. Correct. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And what was the $597 million number? 

Mr. OZDINEC. That is the entire amount of the IAA, which includes case management at $2.7 million a month; it includes administrative costs for housing authorities to be able to administer, 

do the inspections, do the paperwork, do the contracts; and it includes the rental assistance payment to the landlord. Obviously, 

that is the largest amount of that $579 million. 

19 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Would you break down for us, submit the 

amount minus—take the $597 million and minus your payments to 

landlords. 

Mr. OZDINEC. Sure. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And just get into what we are spending to either contract with hopefully appropriate private entities or nonprofit entities to do the kind of counseling and wrap-around services necessary because I want to get to the bottom of how much is 

allocated and, if we need more money, ask Congress for some if we 

have confidence that it will be spent correctly and well to get help 

to these families that, with just a little counseling and a little support, might actually be able to find housing and a situation on their 

own at no government subsidy. 

Mr. OZDINEC. We agree. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So it is just like anything. A little bit of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and some of these families are 

very able, with a little bit of assistance, to be able to actually get 

into a very self-sufficient mode. But they do not have the money 

to hire lawyers, accountants, to explain the rules and regulations 

to them, etc. I do not have to go into that. 

Mr. OZDINEC. We agree, Madam Chairman, and we would be delighted to provide that for you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Let me ask CDC—if I can get to the questions for CDC. Excuse me just one minute. 

[Pause.] 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you for being so patient, Mr. Frumkin, 

while we went through that. But a large part of this hearing is 

about the trailers and the formaldehyde situation, and you all are 

in the middle of this discussion. 

When did FEMA first inform the trailer residents of the potential 

danger of formaldehyde testing? Do you know, Mr. Johnson? That 

question is to you. And then I will ask you when you first heard 

of it. 

Mr. JOHNSON. The issue first arose in probably the spring of 

2006 and not long after we began to recognize the occurrence of 

formaldehyde issues, we created a website which we put formaldehyde information on. We created one of the first of a number of flyers that we distributed to households on formaldehyde and then 

began to consult with EPA, with CDC, and others, 

So we began, I think, being transparent and raising the issue 

and offering advice to residents back in the spring of 2006. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And, Mr. Frumkin, tell us when it became 

apparent to you all or when you all were asked to step in. 

TESTIMONY OF HOWARD FRUMKIN, M.D., DRPH, DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH/AGENCY 

FOR TOXIC SUBSTANCES AND DISEASE REGISTRY CENTERS 

FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

Dr. FRUMKIN. The initial approach to CDC from FEMA came in 

the middle of 2006, and that was an informal approach staff to 

staff. And that was the beginning of—actually the part of CDC 

called ATSDR engaged the issue at that point. 

20 

1The information submitted by Senator Landrieu appears in the Appendix on page 67. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. And go on, explain a little bit more about 

that. 

Dr. FRUMKIN. During the second half of 2006, staff at ATSDR 

played a small role in a planning process that EPA and FEMA carried out that led to testing of unoccupied trailers at the end of 

2006, and we issued a report on those results in early 2007. 

Then as 2007 went on, we became more and more engaged in the 

formaldehyde issue and eventually undertook the larger study that 

the written testimony we have submitted describes. 

Senator LANDRIEU. All right. Then are you familiar with this 

July 19, 2006 hearing? It was before the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee. Secretary Paulison said that FEMA 

had been proactive in reviewing the situation, has recommended a 

wide range of actions to reduce health risk, has been working with 

experts to better understand the health environment, investigates 

short- and long-term solutions. He went on to say at that hearing, 

‘‘I wish to make it very clear that the health and safety of residents 

has been and continues to be our primary concern.’’ 

And then in a June 1, 2006 E-mail, I think to you, Mr. Frumkin, 

Dr. Christopher De Rosa, Director of the Division of Toxicology, 

said, ‘‘We should be very cautious about the use of the word ‘safe’ 

in reference to formaldehyde. Since it is a carcinogen, it is a matter 

of science policy. There is no safe level of exposure.’’ 

Do you have any understanding or memory of this memo? Can 

you try to explain what happened between FEMA and you all when 

the incidents, people were coming, reported being sick and how you 

all tried to handle it? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. Well, if we could take it back to the middle of 

2006, our staff were approached by FEMA staff and asked to assess 

a data set that was being collected by FEMA and EPA regarding 

levels in the trailers. Our staff prepared a report on the test results 

when we received those results in December 2006 and issued that 

report in February 2007. 

That report was part of our emergency response approach to the 

post-Katrina situation. It was prepared by emergency response 

staff, and in retrospect, it did not adequately address the potential 

long-term hazards of formaldehyde exposure. We recognized that 

very soon after the report was issued and sent a corrective letter 

to FEMA in February 2007, shortly after the report itself came out. 

As 2007 went on, into the spring and early summer, it became 

clear that the report had failed to do what we needed it to do. It 

did not adequately explain the long-term health implications of 

formaldehyde exposure, and it was subject to misinterpretation. 

So in the summer of 2007, we made the decision that the report 

needed to be fully renovated and replaced, and we did that during 

the summer and released a replacement report late that summer. 

Senator LANDRIEU. All right. I would like to submit this document to the record. This is an E-mail from Christopher De Rosa 

outlining about the statement I made—it goes on, ‘‘We should be 

very cautious about the use of the word ‘safe’ . . . ’’ I will submit 

that to the record.1

21 

When this was going on between FEMA and HUD and CDC— 

I do not know if HUD was involved in this, but between FEMA and 

CDC, was there any meeting called by the Gulf Coast Coordinator 

of Recovery or any high-level person in the White House about trying to figure out what was happening, if there were, in fact, toxic 

levels and what was the problem? Or was this just done between 

your agencies? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. I am not aware of any higher-level meetings. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Are you aware of any higher-level meetings? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I am not aware of any specific meeting. What I 

would say is in the summer of 2007, in particular, I think that is 

the point that the formaldehyde issue got a lot more visibility, and 

perhaps at that point—absent hindsight, but at that point everyone 

began to recognize the challenge that it presented, and so there 

was a lot of discussion at various levels as to what course we would 

follow. And as Dr. Frumkin indicates, that ultimately led to an 

MOA between FEMA and CDC, one part of which is the study— 

the scientific analysis of the 519 housing units that brought us to 

where we are now. But there has been a lot of discussion to make 

sure that all our folks are on the same path between the Department, FEMA, and CDC. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Do we have some understanding at this 

point—and this question is to anyone that can answer it—as to if 

there is a difference between the formaldehyde levels in regular 

mobile homes that are constructed and built and sold in the United 

States and the trailers that are provided by FEMA for victims or 

survivors of disasters, what the difference is? Because, obviously, 

thousands of people live seemingly safely in mobile homes that use 

some of the same materials. Does anybody want to comment about 

how these trailers are different than the mobile homes and why 

there was no standard of health safety when the program of trailers was instituted? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. I can get started with that, Senator. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Go ahead. 

Dr. FRUMKIN. There really are two distinctions that I think you 

raised in the question. One is between trailers and mobile homes, 

and the other is between the units that were supplied by FEMA 

in the aftermath of the disaster and the larger universe of units 

that are in use nationally. 

So, with regard to the distinction between mobile homes and 

trailers, the small travel trailers, according to the data that we 

have just released, and prior data, have higher levels of formaldehyde than larger units. That is presumably—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. And these are for all travel trailers, even 

those that people buy off the private lots to connect to their SUVs 

to travel around the country? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. The data that we have available—and it really is 

not encyclopedic or thorough data. But the indications that we have 

are that smaller units are going to tend to have higher levels than 

the larger units, presumably—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. So this is true for FEMA-bought trailers and 

for privately bought trailers for recreational use? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. We have good information that we have just released in the last few weeks on the FEMA-supplied trailers in this 

22 

particular setting. We have less complete information about the 

larger universe of units. But the information that we have suggests 

the same pattern. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Is there—and I am going to let you continue, but is there a standard for safety for the larger mobile manufactured homes and there is an absence of one for the smaller? Or 

there are no standards for either type of manufactured housing? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. The larger units are considered housing, and those 

are regulated by HUD. The smaller units are considered transportation. And to the extent that they are regulated, it is by the Department of Transportation. 

Now, with regard to the air quality, HUD does address that issue 

in its regulations, not by regulating the levels of formaldehyde that 

are permissible in the air, but by regulating the amount of formaldehyde that can off-gas from the components that go into building the trailers. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And what causes the formaldehyde in the 

trailers? Is it the adhesive in the plywood or wood products? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. The particle board that is used to make the trailers. It goes into the walls, the floors, the furnishings. That particle 

board uses a matrix that off-gases formaldehyde. It is an organic 

chemical matrix that off-gases formaldehyde. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So go ahead. So the smaller ones have higher 

levels of formaldehyde. 

Dr. FRUMKIN. The small ones have higher levels probably because they are smaller and less well ventilated, and so you have 

got an enclosed space where there is more opportunity for the offgassing from the materials to enter the interior environment and 

stay there. 

Now, we are most confident about that statement with regard to 

the sampling set that we just released. I have to emphasize that 

the results that we just released may not be generalizable to other 

trailers in other settings. So my answer about that, in general, 

travel trailers may have higher levels than mobile homes does not 

come from the data that we just generated. It comes from years of 

research that has been done around the country on levels of formaldehyde in—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. So we knew this long before, that the smaller 

trailers had higher levels. 

Dr. FRUMKIN. We know that there were problems with formaldehyde in various units back as early as the 1980s, and to tell you 

the truth, that problem seemed to have receded in recent decades 

because of construction and design changes in those units. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So was there some kind of extraordinary production that occurred that caused this increase? Or was it just 

there were more trailers for us to study, more travel trailers? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. It is a good question, and we have asked that 

many times. I do not think we have information on specifics of construction preceding this episode? 

Senator LANDRIEU. Even before this formaldehyde issue was 

raised, I was very perplexed as a Senator as to why FEMA even 

used travel trailers for housing people, specifically because after 

they were issued, they were told that they could not be moved. So 

the idea of having a trailer that is movable in the event that there 

23 

was another storm, you could attach it to your car and move, I 

thought might have made some sense. But then the Federal Government issued a warning or a directive that those trailers were 

not to be moved under any circumstance because they could not be 

part of this massive evacuation because then you would not only 

have cars on the highways, but you would have every car with a 

trailer. 

So do you know, Mr. Johnson, where FEMA got this original idea 

to use travel trailers in the first place? 

Mr. JOHNSON. There are, again, several issues in your question. 

I would say that FEMA has used travel trailers and mobile homes 

for decades—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. I am not talking about mobile homes. Just 

travel trailers. 

Mr. JOHNSON. We have used travel trailers—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. Let’s focus on travel trailers. 

Mr. JOHNSON [continuing]. For decades, and they have been 

viewed as an ideal unit because they were small, they could fit into 

driveways, they were mobile to get to a location. In the Gulf Coast 

in particular, because of the hurricane season, when we installed 

those, we installed them and tied them down so that, in fact, they 

would not become a wind hazard if they were either left behind and 

caused more trouble. And as you know, one of the biggest issues 

in trying to encourage people to evacuate is the road condition, particularly when they go to contra flow. And if there were a number 

of trucks or cars with travel trailers, that would just exacerbate the 

challenge we already have with evacuation. 

So I think there were good reasons to use travel trailers, and 

successful use for decades. I think the situation here is that we 

have never had a disaster where we have used travel trailers, 

where people have resided in them for such a long period of time. 

And I believe that conspired—and one last issue. While we are focused on formaldehyde, inside those units, whether people smoke 

or do not smoke, what kind of cleaning products they use, how they 

cook, all those exacerbate the air quality, and in some cases even 

exacerbate the off-gassing of formaldehyde. 

So, really, it is a complex issue that we understand better now, 

and since July, Administrator Paulison has not permitted travel 

trailers to be used at all in any disaster, even though we have 

them new in our inventory. And so I think we have all learned a 

lot more and are more sophisticated in how we use those. 

Senator LANDRIEU. All right. Let me ask this question, back to 

you, Mr. Frumkin. With CDC’s own scientists raising safety concerns, why did CDC and FEMA not begin testing immediately? 

There are organizations that did some of their own testing. I am 

sure you are aware of the Sierra Club’s test. They were able to conduct testing that found 88 percent of their test population were far 

above the average in terms of exposure. 

Why did it take CDC and FEMA until February 2008 when this 

initially came to you in 2006 and you said that you were aware of 

formaldehyde in trailers for a long period of time, back to—what 

did you say? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. The literature goes back to the 1980s. 

24 

Senator LANDRIEU. To the 1980s. So the literature goes back to 

the 1980s. This issue raised itself in 2006. And then our studies did 

not start until 2008 when other groups had indicated they had 

found some high levels of exposure. What happened there? 

Dr. FRUMKIN. Well, to clarify the timeline, the concerns arose in 

the first half of 2006, and our engagement began in the middle of 

2006 when we participated with EPA and FEMA in planning the 

testing that then took place at the end of 2006. 

But that said, I must tell you that, in retrospect, we did not engage the formaldehyde issue as aggressively and as early as we 

should have. In the immediate period coming out of the disaster, 

we were extremely engaged and performed a lot of services in the 

region, and we addressed issues that we knew at the time were environmental health priorities. We addressed issues of toxic contamination in the ambient environment. We looked at risk of electrocution and carbon monoxide poisoning related to re-entry. We 

helped clear schools for re-entry and so on. Very good knowledge 

that those were expected problems, and we engaged them and did 

very successful work on them. 

Formaldehyde in trailers did not rise to the top of our priority 

list at that time, and if I could roll the tape back, I would change 

that. I wish we had engaged the issue earlier than we did. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Does anybody want to add anything? Does 

HUD have any responsibility at all or involvement in this? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Well, Madam Chairman, I knew you might ask 

this question, and I did a little research. We have a number of organizations within HUD that regulate formaldehyde, or at least 

regulate manufactured housing, and that is our Policy Development and Research, Community Planning, and our Safe and 

Healthy Homes. It is not my expertise, but we do indeed govern the 

manufactured housing industry. I understand a package of proposed revisions to HUD’s construction and safety standards is 

being developed by HUD with the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC). The MHCC is a Federal advisory committee that was established by Congress to recommend revisions to 

HUD’s construction and safety standards. Its members include industry representatives, consumer representatives, and public officials. We will be happy to get back with you if you have any other 

questions or want information about that committee. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. We would like you to submit the names 

of the people on that committee, if you would, and also their 

timeline about when their report is due. 

Mr. OZDINEC. OK. 

Senator LANDRIEU. All right. Mr. Johnson, given this situation, 

as you know, there are going to be other hearings on the House 

side. I think Congressman Waxman is going to be getting into the 

specifics of these trailer contracts, and we will do some of it here. 

And I am very interested in that, but I am really interested in trying to get this general housing plan for thousands of people, as I 

have said—homeowners, renters, middle-income families, poor families, and particularly those families who are very fragile, whether 

they are part of the disabled population or seniors. 

What can you tell this Subcommittee to give us—besides the report that is coming, what have you done administratively to try, 

25 

without waiting for Congress, to get a sense of trying to get these 

families to some stable housing initiatives? What are you doing and 

what is your team doing? Because we have talked a lot about levees, we have talked a lot about project and public work order 

sheets, which you have been very focused on, and we appreciate 

that. But besides the disaster of red tape of public assistance work 

sheets, which are going on all throughout the Gulf Coast, the backlog, this housing situation is truly a crisis at this—it always has 

been in the last 21⁄2 years, but it still is. So what are you doing 

administratively, or what could you do administratively? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, we are doing a lot. I mean, you are generally 

interested most in outcomes, and so I think that we have done a 

good job in developing an aggressive plan to relocate families, 

households from travel trailers and mobile homes into apartments 

and other forms of permanent housing. As we indicated in the 

opening statement, we have gone from 143,000 families in mobile 

homes and travel trailers to about 34,000, and that is good 

progress. 

We started a program several months ago to close the group sites 

in Mississippi and Louisiana, and that has been a process where 

we started with about 82 group sites, and we currently have about 

40 group sites. So we have reduced the group sites. Just since January, we have moved 800 households out of group sites into apartments and other affordable housing. And in doing that process, it 

has been almost seamless and without any adverse reportings in 

the media or anywhere else. We have moved those families into the 

same neighborhoods with the same schools, same work, same 

church. They have helped identify the apartments. We have given 

them choices as to which ones they want to go to. We have begun 

to work with landlords to encourage more landlords to participate 

in the program. And so our focus is really to relocate those households out of those mobile homes and travel trailers into the apartments, and that is our primary focus. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Do you know how many landlords you have— 

and if you do not, if you could submit this. To date, how many 

landlords are participating in this program by parish and by county 

that you could submit to us just so that we can get a handle on 

that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We can do that. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. And then you pay a Section 8 voucher 

to these landlords, or is it more than Section 8 provides? Are there 

any income limits to that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. As we talked about earlier with the DHAP program, we work hand in hand with HUD on how we pay for and 

are transitioning FEMA payment through our contractor into 

DHAP and the use of HUD’s public housing authorities. In some 

locations, we typically would use the fair market rent (FMR). 

But because we needed to find more apartments, we have gone 

up to 150 percent of the FMR in Louisiana and particularly in Mississippi where the housing stock has not—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. But are there income limits based on the 

families that qualify for the programs that you are describing? 

Mr. JOHNSON. There are. 

Senator LANDRIEU. What are those income limits? 

26 

Mr. JOHNSON. We can provide that to you for the record. I do not 

know exactly what they are, but people must be recertified and be 

an eligible applicant in order to stay in the Federally subsidized 

housing. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Do you think it is something around 130 

percent of poverty or 150 percent of poverty, something along that 

line? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I would ask HUD—— 

Senator LANDRIEU. Does anybody know from HUD? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Madam Chairman, under DHAP, we have no income requirements. We pay 100 percent of the rent, whatever the 

rent may be. 

Senator LANDRIEU. To any family of any income? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Provided that FEMA has referred that family as 

being eligible for the program under the Stafford Act. We are indeed an agent—I can walk you through the context of what our 

work entails in terms of that $579 million and the IAA. 

Senator LANDRIEU. But let me get this clear for the record. Any 

family that qualifies for Stafford Act assistance is entitled to 100 

percent of their rent, with no income limitations to the family. Is 

that what you all are testifying? 

Mr. OZDINEC. Correct, with one exception. In the DHAP program, 

as we designed the program in August 2007, we said that every 

family in DHAP starting in March 2008 would begin to pay rent 

as a preparation for self-sufficiency. In March, the rent would be 

$50—their portion—and then we would pay the rest. In April, their 

portion would be $100, and then we would pay the rest. In May, 

their portion would be $150, and so on and so on, until March 2009 

when the family was paying the entire amount of rent and the program ended, so that we did not just end the program abruptly in 

March 2009. During that 18 months or that year, we would be 

working with that family through our case management, through 

the wrap-around services, to help them become self-sufficient and 

get back to paying their own rent or move into homeownership or 

make that next move. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. But to be clear, the people that are eligible, the families eligible for this, are basically 5 percent of your 

total roll, right? The current eligibles are 5 percent of what it was 

at its peak? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Correct. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. So for 95 percent of the people who are 

no longer on FEMA rolls, this does not apply. It just applies to the 

5 percent that still are. 

Mr. OZDINEC. That FEMA has referred to HUD. 

Senator LANDRIEU. That FEMA has referred to HUD. But FEMA 

does not have any exit memos, or they have already testified they 

do not really have data about what happened to that other 95 percent, which is problematic because we are not sure—not only when 

we are perhaps meeting the needs of the 5 percent that are left, 

we really do not have any way to figure out of the 95 percent that 

are no longer FEMA eligible, how many of them actually moved on 

to self-sufficiency or how many of them are barely holding on by 

their fingernails or how many of them are homeless. We do not 

27 

have any way to know that. This is a problem, and we have to 

solve this problem. 

The other problem that I see is this: People who stepped up—and 

this is a broad statement, but hundreds of families that stepped up, 

dug into their own bank accounts to elevate their homes when 

their neighborhoods were destroyed—the government could not get 

its act together, and raised this home, these families, 3 feet to 6 

feet; they are all over the region—are being told that they acted 

precipitously and that they took their situation into their own 

hands and so we cannot reimburse them for elevating their homes. 

Families that actually pulled themselves together and the husband left and went to Illinois to get a job, the wife returned back 

to teach school in St. Bernard, where all the schools were destroyed, and lived in a travel trailer, is no longer FEMA eligible, 

is told that her rent cannot be paid if she moved her family into 

an apartment because she is not FEMA eligible anymore. 

I cannot express to you how extraordinarily frustrating it is for 

people who are doing more than they could ever be asked to do, but 

your rules are not allowing us to reward people for their own selfinitiative, to recognize that it is not just poor families but middleincome families, police officers, nurses, firefighters, doctors who are 

struggling here. And every time Congress—at least I try, and others, to change the rules, we are told we cannot change the rules 

or bills get stuck in committee. 

So this Subcommittee is going to continue to meet to get to the 

bottom of it, but after a catastrophic disaster, help has to go to everyone, not just the low-income but the middle-income, scaled down 

appropriately, but more resources have to be given to help the lowincome that have less ability to hire lawyers, less ability to hire accountants, and less ability—and that is the way it should work, 

where everybody gets some help, there are longer periods of time 

to help after a catastrophic disaster, and, most importantly, there 

are good choices for people to make for themselves and their families, so that government is not dictating to them but giving them 

choices. 

That is not the program that we have, so you can understand the 

frustration of those of us that are trying to represent them to the 

best of our ability. 

Mr. OZDINEC. And, Madam Chairman, if I may say this, an outstanding statement, and I do not think we could agree with you 

any more than that, and that is our goal certainly with the group 

of families that FEMA has referred to us. And we will continue to 

do our level best to do exactly what you just said because that is 

why we have been asked to be part of this process. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. Well, I am going to ask you all for final 

statements, and if there are any other questions that I need to get 

on the record. But I hope that it starts with this report that will 

start April 1 to outline how we can fix the rules and regulations 

to meet the needs of people that are getting knocked on their doors, 

tell them to leave these travel trailers with toxic levels of formaldehyde, to people that have tried to elevate their homes that cannot 

get reimbursement because the government decided that they did 

not get approval from EPA before they elevated their home, and 

EPA can only give approval to two homeowners a month because 

28 

that is all that they can do to oversee this program; and to families 

that are literally homeless in our streets, the homeless families, the 

senior citizens we have not built units for. 

So this program I hope will come with an April 1 deadline, but 

it also better be attached to funding. And I want to put the administration on notice. This is to the Bush Administration. If that report shows up at Congress without reasonable estimates for funding, this Subcommittee and others will push this funding through 

Congress to fund a true case management program, a true assessment program to find out where these 95 percent of the families 

are, the studies that have to be done for the formaldehyde and 

funding for CDC. This is no longer going to be tolerated—recovery 

on the cheap, or recovery by wasteful spending. And that is all we 

have been chosen—either wasting the money on things that do not 

work, or programs that have no financial backing to make them 

work. 

So that is the goal besides finding out if there was anything done 

wrong, if there was any fraud, if there was any gross neglect on 

the part of these agencies. That is also the subject of this Subcommittee’s hearings. 

All right. We have a few minutes for final questions. Why don’t 

we start with you, Mr. Frumkin, since you have gotten the least 

bit of time. 

Dr. FRUMKIN. Senator Landrieu, just to thank you and the Subcommittee Members for your interest in this area and your commitment to safe and healthy and adequate housing for all Americans. 

It is something that we very much share at CDC. One of our agency-wide goals is safe and healthy housing, and that applies not only 

to the post-disaster situation, but to all Americans across all income brackets. 

We do think that the data we have just provided will be very 

helpful in helping understand where some of the hazards in postdisaster housing reside, and we hope that it will help us move forward toward better, safer housing for all those who need it. 

Thank you. 

Mr. OZDINEC. Again, thank you, Madam Chairman, for inviting 

me. It was an honor to be here. And I just want to say that as the 

person that runs the largest rental assistance program in the country, a $16 billion a year Section 8 program with 24 agencies across 

the country, I think we are well suited administratively to be able 

to provide rental assistance and do the things that HUD does well 

in relief and long-term housing for FEMA. And I would also like 

to thank the public housing authorities, the 344 public housing authorities that stepped up to the plate and decided to participate in 

DHAP, a brand-new program, and provide rental assistance to families that they do not traditionally provide that rental assistance. 

And I do want you to know that we as an agency and my staff 

are committed to doing the best that we can given the resources, 

and if there are things that we are not doing well, I would like to 

know about them, and we need to make adjustments. And if we are 

called upon later to do something very similar, I want to make 

those adjustments now so that we can prepare for the day when 

there is another need for long-term rental assistance. 

29 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, Mr. Ozdinec, I appreciate your comments, but I have to say as Chairman, the verdict is still out on 

the job that HUD is doing. And I appreciate your willingness to 

work with us, but the verdict is still out on HUD. I do not think 

there would be—if you took a survey in Louisiana right now, or 

perhaps Mississippi, about what HUD has done, you might not get 

a 5-percent approval rating. I am not sure what I would get, but 

I do not know if you would get a 5-percent approval rating. So let’s 

just keep working at it. 

Mr. OZDINEC. I agree. Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam Chairman, thank you again for beginning 

this series of hearings. I think that from FEMA’s perspective there 

were a lot of mistakes made across the board in Hurricane Katrina. 

And our objective has been to learn from those mistakes, and I believe that we have done that to the benefit of the residents in Louisiana and Mississippi, and all the disasters that have occurred 

since then. FEMA’s performance in the California wildfires, the tornadoes in Tennessee and Arkansas, the ice storms in Oklahoma, 

the floods in the Midwest and the Great Lakes area—all of those 

have gone very well, and in large part learning the lessons that we 

gained from Hurricane Katrina. And that is our focus in our comments today. Our focus on developing the National Disaster Housing Strategy is to build on that and to provide better response, better recovery. And I believe that we will be able to do that, and 

these hearings will probably be helpful in that regard. 

So thank you very much. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. I thank you all. I just want to read into 

the record before we wrap up because we are going to have a series 

of hearings, and some of the future questions that we are going to 

be asking is about the allocation of housing dollars: When we allocated money to the States, how much of that money went to housing, who made those decisions, and why these decisions were made. 

And so that will be the subject of one of our hearings to come, and 

we are going to hone in on some more of your administrators from 

HUD about how this case management is going to be handled, and 

then, of course, honing in more about the outcome for residents of 

trailers and the future use of trailers and mobile homes in disasters. 

So there is a lot more that has to be done, but I thank you all. 

Please submit in writing your testimony, and please remember to 

get that testimony in. Our rules are 48 hours. But because of this 

situation, we even said just get it to us 24 hours in advance. The 

Senate Rules are 48 hours; we said just 24 hours. You still did not 

even meet that timeline. It gives us time to evaluate what you are 

saying so that we can formulate the proper questions to give the 

public the true story, not just the spin of people that come before 

the Subcommittee. 

The record will be open for 15 days for anybody that would like 

to submit documents, and the meeting will be adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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