FEMA ready to halt hotel-room payments

WASHINGTON — FEMA will stop paying for hotel rooms for most evacuees of hurricanes Katrina and Rita on Dec. 1, officials said Tuesday as the agency pushed victims to find more stable housing.

Housing advocates said they fear that won't be enough time for an estimated 53,000 families — mostly in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi — who remain in hotels.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had previously set the December deadline as a potential goal to have evacuees out of hotels and into travel trailers, mobile homes or apartments until they find permanent homes. Tuesday's announcement marked the first time the agency said it would cease directly paying for hotel rooms that have cost at least $250 million since the storms struck.

FEMA granted exceptions to evacuees in hotels in Louisiana and Mississippi, where there is a shortage of housing.

Evacuees in those states have until Jan. 7 to find homes, said David Garratt, FEMA's acting director of recovery. He said 9,830 households remain in hotels in Louisiana and 2,508 in Mississippi. After Dec. 1, most hurricane evacuees who aren't ready to leave hotels will have to pay the costs out of pocket — either with FEMA rental housing aid they receive or from their own funds.

Katrina hit on Aug. 29, followed by Rita on Sept. 24.

Over the past month, FEMA has moved 8,748 people out of emergency shelters and into hotels and other transitional housing, Garratt said. As of Tuesday, 2,491 evacuees remain in shelters, down from a high of 321,000, he said.

Also by Dec. 1, thousands of evacuees who receive FEMA housing aid in vouchers issued though state or local authorities will have to sign a rental lease to remain eligible for the funding. Three months later, on March 1, FEMA will end the voucher program and send housing aid directly to evacuees who qualify.

Additionally, the six-month leases for evacuees living on cruise ships will end March 1, Garratt said.

In the past month, FEMA has deployed "strike teams" of federal, state and local authorities to meet with evacuees and discuss their long-term housing goals — and how to reach them. Now, FEMA will assign 3,000 social workers to manage evacuees' cases — a $66 million contract with the United Methodist Committee on Relief and the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster.

got no-bid contracts

NEW ORLEANS — The uncle and father of a Louisiana lawmaker won three no-bid contracts worth $108 million to provide temporary housing for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, stirring complaints of a sweetheart deal from rival businesses and prompting a state investigation.

A state agency is investigating because the lawmaker's family did not have a Louisiana license to sell new trailer homes until well after the company provided the first ones to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA wants 125,000 campers and mobile homes for those who lost their homes in the storm that struck Aug. 29. The New Orleans-area motorcycle shop owned by Rep. Gary Smith's family received FEMA contracts to provide 6,400 trailers.

Smith's uncle, Glen Smith, said he was able to secure the contracts because he has worked with the federal government for decades during disasters, removing debris, dredging rivers, and providing mobile housing following Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

The commission is close to finishing its investigation into the shop's license, said John Torrance, executive director of the agency. The shop's owners are likely to face fines, he said.

Critics of the government's no-bid contracts have called them gifts to politically connected companies. FEMA said they were needed to speed recovery efforts. Federal auditors are looking into several deals.