Finally

I've been very critical of inflexible trailer eviction deadlines and have always been discouraged by the total lack of local leadership on the issue. This past Monday was another hard deadline that threatened to throw hundreds of poor and disabled individuals and families onto the streets.

So, I'm extremely heartened by the Obama Administration policy change that will keep roofs over the heads of our most vulnerable neighbors - seniors, the disabled, and the sick.

The Obama administration will announce plans today to virtually give away roughly 1,800 mobile homes to 3,400 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who are living in government-provided housing along the Gulf Coast, officials said.

The administration also will make available $50 million in rental vouchers to income-eligible trailer occupants who move to targeted housing projects, and take over from Louisiana the job of helping residents find permanent homes, said a senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the formal announcement.

"We knew we needed to bring this program to a close," the official said. "We also want to ensure a humane and secure transition for all of them."

This is a much better policy than closing our eyes and pretending that the threat of eviction is a magic bullet for moving people into permanent housing. Good stuff. This announcement is a step in the right direction.

Another Year, Another Deadline

Last year around this time, I was blogging quite a bit about a poorly conceived policy that proposed to evict residents of FEMA trailers.

Councilor Stacy Head was out front pushing these evictions even though the continued use and sometimes abuse of formaldehyde-laden FEMA trailers had almost everything to do with the lack of affordable housing and almost nothing to do with people being too lazy to fix their homes. A decent compromise was reached when Cynthia Hedge-Morrell proposed a compromise that exempted the more heavily storm-damaged Districts D and E from that deadline.

FEMA ultimately extended that deadline as well - to the end of February and then again to May 1st. That's this May 1st. But as the article behind that link indicated way back in February, it was already likely that the enforcement of the May 1st deadline would result in evictions of a few thousand of our neighbors.

May 1st is now just a week or so away.

The truth is that people need to get out of these trailers. Many of them have dangerous levels of formaldehyde. But a cancerous trailer is better than the street.

FEMA caseworkers were put out there to inform people of the upcoming deadline but I'm not sure what kind of actual assistance they were able to provide.

I'm not an expert on these programs but I think that if you opted into the trailer program, it means you weren't involved with DHAP (Disaster Housing Assistance Program) or with other housing choice vouchers to get an apartment. The waiting list for Section 8 assistance is endless, and there's no cutting the line.

If I were to venture an educated guess, I'd say that the vast majority of people still inhabiting FEMA trailers are not just being lazy about home renovations or finding their own alternative housing. Rather, I imagine a huge percentage of current trailer inhabitants are senior citizens on fixed incomes. Another chunk of people have been victims of contractor fraud and waiting on litigation or otherwise do not have money to get their house up to livable standards.

Now, ideally, none of this would matter. The city would have a decent enough affordable housing supply that the thousand or so senior citizens could be given rental vouchers or whatever else and that would be the end of those awful trailers. But HANO only today announced a plan to begin renovations that should have been immediate priorities three years ago.

The rental market isn't nearly as bad as it was twelve months ago, but that doesn't indicate that a significant amount of affordable or subsidized housing has suddenly become available. Especially when we're talking about folks living purely off of their social security checks or families struggling with medical issues, etc.

FEMA will likely have to extend it's deadline once again as a result. Unless it's suddenly acceptable to throw senior citizens onto the streets. I hope that's not the case.

Senator Landrieu and Congressman Cao need to step up and make sure that nobody falls through the cracks.

Hedge-Morrell's Amendment Makes Sense

I have long criticized the upcoming FEMA trailer eviction deadline policy as poorly planned and hastily executed.

Today's T-P article indicates that the process is problematic for many:

Davida Finger, an attorney with the Loyola clinic, said many of her clients still in trailers continue to tussle with the Road Home program and can't rebuild their homes. Finger said the city should halt any plans to cite people after July 1, as well as possibly evict them from trailers, until it has set up a clearer process.

"I understand they want to do something if there are a lot of unused trailers sitting around and concerns about people's health," said Laura Tuggle, an attorney with New Orleans Legal Aid. "But they need to explain how the process will work to people, so people don't panic."

Tuggle said she's also concerned that the federal rental assistance program for Katrina victims isn't running smoothly enough to accommodate a new influx of people leaving trailers.

I have long argued that the affordable housing crisis and the lack of inexpensive rentals makes the eviction policy untenable.

There are an estimated 4,700 trailers. That's an awful lot of people that could require rental assistance.

Cynthia Hedge-Morrell has proposed extending the eviction deadline to September 30th for trailer residents in Districts D and E, which were more heavily damaged by the flood.

This is a solid idea that should have been included in the original policy. Not only does it give more time for people to complete renovations, find their own permanent housing solutions, or compile the documentation necessary to exempt themselves from eviction, but it also allows the city to concentrate on fairly vetting exemption applications from trailer residents elsewhere in the city where eviction proponents claim trailers have outlived their necessity.

So this actually happening

It is at these moments that I feel most feeble in my attempts to bring about positive change in my community.

The city is moving forward with their self-imposed FEMA trailer move-out deadline.

Of all the initiatives and policies and "undevelopment" schemes hatched by our municipal government, this one frustrates me the most.

In my mind, the unintended negative impacts of this policy are so obvious that they come off as very much intended.

I have, again and again, pointed out the problematic consequences of this policy.

Of course, we would like to get rid of all FEMA trailers. They are an unsightly reminder of tragedy and many have come to be rented illegally. They are not fit to withstand hurricane winds.

Most importantly, they are an immediate public health risk to all that inhabit them. They are contaminated with dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

So of course, it is important that we work to get people into permanent housing. Remaining in the trailers is not a truly viable option.

Yet look at the policy created to do that:

Trailer occupants should first contact FEMA to get the trailer removed. Then they need to file an affidavit with the city, included with the flier posted by FEMA, that certifies they asked the federal agency to remove the trailer. This affidavit also grants the city of New Orleans permission to contact the agency to request trailer removal. Filing the affidavit protects the resident if the trailer has not been taken away by July 1.

While FEMA notified trailer occupants about the return to the old city ordinance, the regulations also will apply to people who bought their own trailers after the storm, said James Ross, a Nagin spokesman.

If residents are not done rebuilding their flooded homes, they can ask the city Department of Safety & Permits for permission to continue living in the trailer. However, residents will have to show that they meet specific criteria to obtain an extension and provide the city with records that show they intend to rebuild a flooded house, according to the application. The request for an extension must be filed by July 1.

These criteria include documentation that there is ongoing litigation between a resident and insurance company or documentation that the resident applied for Road Home grants but has not received the money. Other records that may be required include loan papers or data that show repairs are ongoing and telling the city the anticipated completion date.

That's an awful lot of bureaucracy in 30 days just to keep from being kicked out of your trailer. That's an awful lot of bureaucracy for a city incapable of meeting its own notification laws for the demolition of private homes. That's too much bureaucracy for a city known to "mistakingly" tear down people's homes.

Just 30 days notification...

That's a lot to ask of the people struggling the most to rebuild. It puts all of the responsibility onto the shoulders of the victims of formaldehyde poisoning.

City policy does nothing to address the affordable housing crisis that forces many to illegally rent poisonous FEMA trailers because reasonably priced apartments are not available or forces many more to remain in their own poisonous FEMA trailers while home repairs hit bureaucratic walls of resistance.

Thus:

The 30-day notice to vacate their trailers has left a lot of people wondering what to do, said Davida Finger, an attorney handling housing cases for the Loyola Law Clinic.

"It has left people shellshocked," Finger said, noting that most of the people receiving the notices are those who have struggled the most to rebuild their damaged properties. The 30-day timeframe is simply too short, she said.

Many of the dozens of people who have called the Loyola clinic since the weekend are still wrangling with the Road Home program to receive grants to rebuild and aren't prepared to find new places to live, she said.

Finger said the city needs to give homeowners more specific information about the the extension process, such as when they can expect to hear back from the city and who will be deciding whether to grant the extensions.

Shell-shocked may be an understatement. One poor soul reached a tipping point.

I would argue that the city needs to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING to address the affordable housing crisis.

Instead the affordable housing crisis only exists when it is the federal government's policies that are negatively impacting poor New Orleanians. When it is our own policy, there is no affordable housing crisis.

Why is that?

Here is, briefly, a sketch of the We Could Be Famous policy toward FEMA trailers:

At the end of last summer, I would have realized that FEMA was not competent enough to develop a coherent trailer policy and had long abandoned their ethical obligations to address the formaldehyde allegations.

It is at this time that I would have empowered inspectors to go around and evaluate the validity of trailer occupancy, giving deadline removal notices to trailers no longer needed and calculating the affordable housing needs of those in a bad spot with their insurance company or the Road Home program.

In February, when FEMA finally admitted formaldehyde contamination, I would have filed a lawsuit on behalf of the city of New Orleans in the hopes of negotiating the procurement of federal funding for the award of tax incentives for the construction and rental of affordable units or for a two year rental subsidy program.

By March, caseworkers would be working to move trailer residents into permanent affordable housing alternatives and removing empty trailers from city streets.

By the end of May, there would be no more trailers because everyone would have gotten the necessary assistance to find permanent housing on their own.

Easier said than done, I know. But my policy was written in five minutes off the top of my head. The city's policy was a "well-studied and thoughtful discussion" that took place over the course of months and was then hastily unveiled with an immediately impending deadline and a malicious disregard for the negative consequences.

Stacy Head:

"And especially with the beginning of hurricane season, it's good to remind people that FEMA trailers are dangerous places - trailers in general are dangerous places to live - and more permanent housing is a much better long-term solution."

I'm sorry Councilwoman, but you have been one of the most hostile municipal officials toward solutions designed to alleviate the affordable housing crisis.

MUST LISTEN - A Rare Crossover Event

You must must must listen to this NPR report on housing and hurricane preparedness. Why are so many people living in formaldehyde-contaminated trailers? Why isn't there adequate permanent housing? What would the temporary housing situation be in the event of a Hurricane today?

"this is life and death"

It stars two agencies I talk about a lot, this time in the same episode. It's like when the cops of Homicide: Life on the Streets went and did some investigating with the Law and Order guys.

The only difference is that on those fictional shows the cops were solving murders, while in this real life situation, government agencies are committing them.

h/t: Karen

The City of Last Resort

A vacation destination, a FEMA paradise.

Although FEMA Director David Paulison has said that he didn't want to use trailers again after complaints of health problems linked to high formaldehyde levels in some trailers, the agency says it might not have any choice.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Deputy FEMA Administrator Harvey Johnson said that for a disaster approaching the size of Hurricane Katrina, the agency would probably have to use all options, including trailers.

For months, Senator Landrieu and others in Congress have been grilling FEMA officials at various hearings. A new disaster housing plan was to be submitted by FEMA brass over one year ago. They did not deliver at the original deadline. They have not delivered today.

Instead, FEMA's trailer policy remains maliciously confused.

It is not enough that they denied the existence of widespread formaldehyde contamination.

It is not enough that they sold poison trailers to Katrina victims and then spent the money in violation of agency rules.

It is not enough that after they admitted trailer contamination and reexamined their trailer sale program, they began selling poison trailers again.

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So formaldehyde contaminated trailers will remain the emergency housing option of last resort.

Last resort.

Funny.

Our Nation in a Nutshell

A nutshell provided by our own government fully loaded with dangerously high levels of formaldehyde.

Today's long story in the Washington Post has been a long time coming. It's rage-inducing.

This is a picture provided with the article:


A photograph of a beautiful child. Now, a victim of the "accident" at the intersection of incompetence and not-giving-a-fuck.

Today, industry and government experts depict the rushed procurement and construction as key failures that may have triggered a public health catastrophe among the more than 300,000 people, many of them children, who lived in FEMA homes.

What kind of country is this?

1. The federal government built a faulty levee system that was undermined during Hurricane Katrina, nearly destroying the city of New Orleans.

So to make it up to us, they build us a new levee system more blatantly suspect than the one that preceded it. They build us leaking levees stuffed with newspaper.

2. The federal governments deficient emergency response procedures were a national embarrassment played out on international television. Thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands lost their homes.

So to make it up to the Gulf Coast, the federal government provided trailers contaminated by dangerously high levels of formaldehyde. When people started getting sick, FEMA refused to test. When Sierra Club tested and sounded the alarms, FEMA refused to test.

3. FEMA admitted formaldehyde was poisoning people in the trailers that they provided.

So to make it up to the citizens of the Gulf Coast, they reduced the sale price of the trailers so that citizens could own their own contaminated trailer. They do not have procedures in place to determine whether trailers being sold are still contaminated.


And some people criticize the Obamas and other Democrats for their American pride.

Those people ought to come down here. I'd like to ask them what they're so proud of exactly.

I see an awful lot to be ashamed of.

I thank the Bush administration from the bottom of my heart for all the help they've provided.

Old Wounds Reopened, Covered in Salt

Then, doused with gasoline and lit on fire.

You know that if it's a post about FEMA, it's probably going to make you angry as hell.

Unfortunately...

Oyster and Judy B. refer to FEMA's new plan to sell trailers to residents at $13,000 a pop with the nothing but the most concrete assurances that the trailers they're planning to sell aren't the ones that have poisonous levels of formaldehyde:

Henderson is shocked the agency would do that after a FEMA test of her unit found elevated levels of formaldehyde gas, which she says has made her kids sick.

"One day I get a letter telling me my trailer is contaminated; the next day they want to sell it to me," Henderson said.

FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said the agency won't sell units that test high for formaldehyde. He could not say what FEMA has determined to be a safe level.

WOW! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!

I don't even know where to start.

Judy B. mentions that FEMA, in a panic, had already sold tons of its trailers to the public but was forced to buy them back in January after they FINALLY admitted what we had known for a year or more: that the trailers were making people sick.

Now FEMA is restarting the sale agenda though they won't say what constitutes a contaminated trailer and at least one family in Mississippi is being repeatedly asked to purchase a unit that has caused illness in the little ones.

Yet there's something else to remember here from only three months ago:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency misspent millions of dollars it received from selling used travel trailers, government investigators have found.

Instead of buying more trailers — as allowed under the law — FEMA used more than $13 million toward fully loaded sport-utility vehicles, travel expenses and purchase card accounts, according to a draft report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general obtained by The Associated Press.

Did Brownie get his job back somehow too?

No, but R. David Paulson seems to be doing a heckuva job as well.

How is this crap being allowed? This is absolutely sickening.

---

In other news about the Federal government's push to murder the citizens of the Gulf Coast . . .

dsb reports that one of the levees that breached during Katrina but has since been repaired is leaking once again. Is that wall stuffed with newspaper as well? Is that the reason?

It's important to know right now because, well there's bad news here. Sorry.

There is a sales tax holiday for the purchase of evacuation supplies in Louisiana THIS SATURDAY AND SUNDAY.

HERE is a list of useful evacuation items you can purchase without the additional burden of the state sales tax.

Extenuating Circumstances

Today's report detailing our enlightened city leadership's plan to evict FEMA trailer residents is so rife with contradictions I almost don't know where to begin.

Recovery director Ed Blakely is now defending an August 15th final deadline for the removal of FEMA trailers from Orleans Parish. extensions to be granted to allow neighbors to remain after that date will be permitted in instances of "really extenuating circumstances."

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There are many good reasons to remove the trailers as soon as possible.

They are unsightly. They crowd streets and driveways. Illegal rentals underneath the system are becoming public nuisance problems.

Most importantly, they are slowly killing the people living in them.

So the city would like to remove the trailers. But if only they knew how. If only it were so simple.

Though the formaldehyde risks were known two and a half years ago, FEMA didn't get around to admitting them until February. It was then that FEMA began a hastily-arranged emergency relocation plan for the estimated 25,000 New Orleanians living in toxic trailers. FEMA sought out cheap motels and apartments to house the thousands needing a safer place to live.

Even our own C. Ray Nagin quickly recognized how problematic FEMA's plan was, how potentially damaging it was. He wrote a letter to the President describing the issues. Here's a brief synopsis:

- There is a terrible shortage of affordable housing in New Orleans.
- This means that thousands of New Orleans FEMA trailer evacuees will have to be relocated outside of New Orleans because there are not available cheap motel and apartment units.
- That means that there would a second great displacement of working poor New Orleanians.
- This would hurt the city's economy because there is already a shortage of cheap labor and the service economy on which this city so heavily relies cannot afford to lose workers.
- It total, another major displacement of thousands of New Orleanians would represent a huge economic burden to the city and also it would be immoral and unfair to the evacuees.

Today's article wistfully recalls that letter to the President, "Blakely said Wednesday, that as far as he knows, Bush did not respond to Nagin's letter."

Nagin had called on Bush and FEMA to, instead of displacing thousands of our neighbors, provide free medical care to victims of formaldehyde exposure and rehabilitate affordable housing units to provide shelter for people right here in New Orleans.

A nice gesture by the Mayor, for sure, but not one he or anyone else expected to generate a positive response from the Bush administration. No chance in hell they'd agree to rehabilitate our affordable housing stock and provide free medical care.

So essentially, having rebuffed FEMA's disgraceful offer to displace 25,000 of our neighbors and offering an alternative plan from fantasy land that expected a do-little federal government to wave a magic wand, the city was left pretty much to its own devices.

What generally happens when the municipal government of New Orleans is responsible for something?

Nothing happens.

Thus we waited. And waited. And waited.

We waited for their strategy to provide affordable housing for those living in FEMA trailers but unable to procure Road Home money. We waited for their strategy to provide affordable housing to people scratching and clawing at minimum wage jobs to save enough money to make their own homes habitable again. We waited for the city to provide a viable strategy to get people out of these toxic trailers by summer time, when the heat increases the risks from formaldehyde.

Finally, at the end of March, Stacy Head and Ed Blakley suggested an idea: impose a deadline.

June 1st was floated as a possible date to require people to move out of their trailers. That would be plenty of time for people to either earn an exemption by proving that they were still waiting for Road Home money or to find another affordable housing option, right?

Well, no.

Stacy Head didn't even cite formaldehyde exposure as a main factor for needing to get rid of the FEMA trailers in haste. Instead, she indicated that the trailers had become eyesores, were being rented illegally, and were being inhabited as a "lifestyle choice."

There within lies the big hypocrisy of the whole recovery effort.

Not only is our city's affordable housing crisis so severe that there were not enough local options for FEMA to relocate victims of formaldehyde exposure within reasonable proximity to their jobs, but affordable housing is in such short supply that our neighbors have been reduced to actively seeking to illegally rent poisonous FEMA trailers because decent apartments are so expensive and difficult to obtain.

While city businesses yearn for a stable workforce, city government refuses to listen to calls for a reevaluation of Alphonso Jackson's plans to demolish public housing. While there are many elements to that debate, if the city was searching for emergency shelter for the estimated 20,000 people looking for relocation from FEMA trailers (or the estimated 12,000 homeless) they need look no further than Lafitte, which has just been leveled by city bulldozers.

City officials like to mention the affordable housing crisis when it is convenient for them. When FEMA's toxic trailer evacuation plan might result in a loss of workforce, we have an affordable housing crisis that makes it untenable. When the Census Bureau underestimates our population costing the city millions in federal funds, we have an affordable housing crisis that causes families to double or triple up in single units.

Other times, it is an inconvenience to city officials, something to be brushed aside as an exaggeration, as the misguided posturing of some bleeding heart. (Like when they're demolishing public housing, planning to demolish public housing, or claiming that the economic crisis does not threaten the replacement mixed income communities or other affordable housing developments waiting to be built throughout the city.)

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So now August 15th is to be a hard deadline for people to find a place to live and get out of their trailers. (Let's just forget the public heath crisis that demanded we rush to move people out before the heat of summer.) Do YOU think we'll have enough affordable housing by then? I'm skeptical. Just how will the city enforce a deadline? Will people be put out on the streets?

Today's article only raises more questions.

FEMA will be responsible for contacting trailer residents and informing them of the upcoming deadlines and working with them to find new homes. And we all have 100 percent confidence in FEMA's ability to do this)

As for the City:

Blakely said the city does not have the resources to do "individual case management," and no city money will be spent to move people out of trailers or provide new housing for them.

No case management. No new housing provided. Little affordable housing being built. Thousands of people needing to be moved out of poisonous FEMA trailers. Only so much room under the overpass at Claiborne and Canal.

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Perhaps most damning, is the comparison made in today's article detailing how the always compassionate Jefferson Parish dealt with the same problem.

In Jeff, there were 17,000 trailers in 2006 and Parish officials have been involved in expediting the removal of trailers ever since. They set a deadline for March of this year for all units no longer required by homeowners and have sent teams of inspectors to check.

The contrast is stark. Whatever the motivation of Jefferson Parish officials, they instituted a game plan over a year ago and have stuck to it, working slowly and methodically. Now there are only 600 illegal trailers remaining. In Orleans Parish, our officials sat on their hands and sat on their hands some more. Then all of a sudden, they hastily arrange short-term deadlines, provide absolutely no insight into the procedures, stand still on affordable housing issues, and claim that this has been "a well-studied and thoughtful policy discussion." No, it hasn't been. It has been a pathetic indicator of City Hall's larger inability to govern compassionately or even effectively.

You wonder if we're close to reaching a tipping point as a community. This isn't even a one-party city, it's a no-party system. Alan asks if the Democrats can save New Orleans, but I want this city to save itself. We're governed by cannibals.

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I believe I've covered the FEMA trailer deadline/formaldehyde issues diligently. For background information on this situation, please click on the 'FEMA Trailers' tag below to see a rundown of all I've written on the subject. See also 'affordable housing' and 'public housing.'

Well-Studied and Thoughtful

I'd like to take this opportunity to respond to Councilwoman Stacy Head's statements attempting to clarify her comments related to personal choice and the continued use of FEMA trailers.

On March 27th, there was a report in the Times-Picayune that described a new city plan to set a deadline for people to move out of their FEMA trailers.

Stacy Head, cited as an architect of the policy, described the need for the plan like this:

"At what point are we going to say that in New Orleans it's not OK to live in a trailer as a lifestyle choice?" she asked. "There are many, many trailers in the non-flooded areas (where) people just would rather live there than deal with a house that they didn't put any money into for a long time before that."

I first wrote about the quote the day that I read them on the 27th of March. I did so again on March 31st.

I found the quote to be extremely offensive and out of touch. I still do. It angered me that she could insinuate that those still stuck in formaldehyde-contaminated FEMA trailers are merely being lazy given high rents, Road Home holdups, the recent imperilment of new affordable housing developments, and the other seemingly endless challenges that this city struggles to address.

But I tried not to base my criticisms of Councilwoman Head's words on a platform of political correctness.

Instead, I urge everyone to look at the actions and policies that inform Councilwoman Stacy Head's language and sentiment.

Councilwoman Head now has an established track record of hostility when it comes to the recovery issues facing working people.

Stacy Head's offensive and patronizing language in discussing this particular issue merely underscores a consistent combativeness toward New Orleanians affected by the affordable housing crisis.

There was that incident at City Hall where she blew kisses to antagonize public housing protesters.

But more importantly, how about her inexplicable opposition to the compromise bill that Senator Landrieu tried to pass in Congress?

The Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act required one-for-one replacement of all public housing units lost in demolition. It was an attempt to ensure that the new mixed income communities would still provide the same stock of public units for poor families in New Orleans.

Given the affordable housing crisis in New Orleans, the GCHRA seemed like a political no-brainer. Not only would it allow the redevelopment plans to go forward with lessened opposition from housing advocates, but it would do something to address the affordable housing crisis in the medium term by guaranteeing thousands of new units.

And for most, the bill was a no-brainer.

The bill was supported by the Mayor, all but one from City Council, Governor Blanco, Senator Landrieu, and the entire Louisiana congressional delegation, save for Senator Vitter.

“If we don’t get the federal government to commit to help develop work force housing, we’ll be a city that stays at 250,000 people because we won’t get enough workers to come back to the city and help it grow,” Landrieu said.

Another LESS conservative version of the bill actually passed the House of Representatives WITH the support of current Governor Bobby Jindal and conservative Rep. Richard Baker of Baton Rouge.

The Senate version never made it to the floor because of the opposition of Vitter.

However, he was not the only official hostile to the bill. There was one more person.

Councilwoman Stacy Head of District B.

“No matter how many times I’ve tried to explain to Stacy no one is interested in rebuilding the old-time, dilapidated public housing,” Landrieu said. “Everyone except for her and Sen. Vitter seems to understand we need places for our policemen and teachers to live. I’m talking about law-abiding citizens that can’t afford $1,500 in rent.”

Councilwoman Head stood strong with David Vitter against common sense compromise legislation addressing the affordable housing crisis.

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Thus, Stacy Head's response to Alan Gutierrez's email requesting clarification should not surprise anybody.

The quote was accurate. There are people who should have moved out of trailers by now who have not. There are trailers being RENTED on Freret Street as we speak. Frankly, I find that disgusting. What kind of a cretin takes a FREE FEMA trailer and RENTS IT to someone. If you have a friend or relative that needs housing, let them use it for FREE! Attack that kind of behavior rather than challenge well-studied and thoughtful policy discussion! As was made very clear (if anyone listened), the council wants to assure that people who are in trailers because of Road Home delays, insurance issues, construction nightmares and the like have time to resolve their issues. We also made it clear that we are urging FEMA and churches and non-profits to help those people resolve their issues.

Stacy Head
Councilmember, District B

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She asks us not to "challenge well-studied and thoughtful policy discussion." Instead, she asks us to attack those renting out their FEMA trailers.

My first immediate linguistic reaction is that I think it is almost hilarious that we now have a politician begging us to stop having substantive and intelligent policy discussions in favor of emotional attacks against vague law-breakers. In my experience following politics, normally, officials have publicly encouraged an intellectual discourse amongst their constituents while underhandedly playing to people's emotional fears. This time, we actually have the politician directly telling us to stop questioning the policy and telling us to behave more like conservative talk radio. Maybe that happens more commonly in majority Republican areas, maybe Stacy Head thinks she mostly represents Republicans. I don't know. I have a bemused look on my face right now.

More substantively, Stacy Head, in the original Times-Picayune article, and again in her response at Think, discusses the illegal renting of FEMA trailers. She estimates that 30 percent of the trailers in the city are being rented. I did the math quickly in my brain to try to estimate what they would mean, if her number is accurate. That same article says there is around 7,200 trailers in Orleans Parish. That means approximately 2,300 are being rented. If you then imagine there are three people living in each trailer (a conservative estimate), then there are about 7,000 people living in illegally rented trailers.

I'm sorry, Councilwoman Head. I do not believe that the 7,000 people forced to rent poisonous FEMA trailers because affordable apartments are not available are cretins. I don't consider them to be criminals.

Nor do I consider the people renting the trailers out to be cretins. They're engaging in the free market recovery. They're providing affordable housing options in a city with few. They're meeting a market demand that our municipal government seems content to ignore.

Now perhaps rented FEMA trailers are causing a problem. Things relegated to an underground economy do tend to lead to other social challenges. Councilwoman Head does seem to blame, at least in her email to Alan, the trailer landlord more than the renter. She is disgusted that people would try to profit from the situation and suggests that desperate families in need of places to live should be allowed to stay in the trailers for free.

Well I'm wondering now whether or not Stacy Head would commit to waivers in any locally-based legislation implementing a deadline to vacate FEMA trailers. Perhaps, for instance, she would grant amnesty and extensions to all of those living illegally in FEMA trailers that are doing so for free. Perhaps she would work to legalize the lease of FEMA trailers so that the cretins renting them out could be brought under the same regulations and taxes facing the above-ground housing market. Maybe she'd be willing to pass legislation that would fine profiteers and earmark that money directly toward vouchers that might help families secure viable long-term housing.

For whatever reason, I imagine Stacy Head would be against entertaining those policy ideas. Instead, I believe she'll continue to ignore the realities of the affordable housing crisis.

Quote in Context

If you read the AP's report on the ridiculous FEMA trailer deadline being floated, you get to see a little bit more context for Stacy Head's disgusting assertion that trailer residents are making a lifestyle choice:

"At what point are we going to say that in New Orleans it's not OK to live in a trailer as a lifestyle choice?" she asked. "There are many, many trailers in the non-flooded areas (where) people just would rather live there than deal with a house that they didn't put any money into for a long time before that."

Are there many, many trailers in non-flooded areas where people would just rather live than deal with a house?

Does she really think people are finding the formaldehyde exposure risks in a flimsy one-room to be preferable to a proper home?

Is she implying that poor people in her district are sitting pretty in FEMA trailers? Is she implying that her high ground constituents in FEMA trailers got a housing upgrade as a result of the storm?

Extremely out of touch, mean-spirited, ugly.

Thus, any clarification where she attempts to argue that she was only referring to "the lifestyle choices" of those renting trailers illegally would be inaccurate.

She really needs to address her comments.

Lifestyles of the Poor and the Poisoned

This one is real ugly.

Some New Orleans officials are floating June 1st as a potential deadline for people to vacate all FEMA trailers in Orleans Parish.

The article uses an estimate of 7,200 trailers in New Orleans. That's got to be 15 to 25 thousand people.

Certainly, people need to move out of FEMA trailers. They're contaminated by dangerous formaldehyde exposure and are not safe.

FEMA, after a few years of refusing to conduct tests, has finally admitted that there are significant health risks in the trailers and is moving ever so slowly to get people into safer housing.

Any trailer resident relocation plan is extremely complicated, as Mayor Nagin of all people has expressed. His accurate argument, though he doesn't have the credibility to make it, is that FEMA's relocation plans will result in another massive displacement of Gulf Coast residents because there is not enough affordable housing here in the city to accommodate another several thousand apartment hunters.

(Now of course Mayor Nagin is a hypocrite on the issue because he has ignored the existence of the affordable housing crisis during relevant debates that have occurred here municipally. see: public housing demolitions, homelessness. Try as valiantly as possible to ignore that inconvenient truth and focus instead on the fact that we do indeed have an affordable housing crisis in this city)

In other extremely related news, city officials again cited the affordable housing crisis as a major contributing factor behind the low census estimates that could cost the city millions in federal funding:

City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell said she suspects that the Census Bureau also failed to take into account what she called "double-up" and "triple-up" households where two and three families have been forced to live under the same roof while storm repairs drag on.

Please keep the above context in mind as you read the following passage that I will now paste from today's related article on the potential city-imposed trailer closeout deadline:

With FEMA working toward a goal of relocating all those residents by summer, the city deadline would target people who simply don't want to leave or are living in trailers illegally, [Councilwoman Stacy] Head said. She estimated that as much as 30 percent of the city's trailer stock currently is being rented, a violation of federal law, or occupied by squatters.

"At what point are we going to say New Orleans is not a place where you can live in a trailer as a lifestyle choice?" she said.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? A LIFESTYLE CHOICE?

I want to explode.

Let's say that your estimate that 30% of Orleans Parish trailers are being illegally rented is accurate. That is about 2,500 trailers. For maybe 5,000-10,000 people.

You think that's a lifestyle choice?

You think people are happily getting fat in one room cancer boxes that they share with family?

A lifestyle choice?

It's cool to live in a FEMA trailer?

It's a status symbol?

Councilwoman Head, this is the most vile, out of touch statement you've ever made.

People are living in FEMA trailers because they have to. They're renting FEMA trailers or living in their own because WE HAVE AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS IN THIS CITY.

Rents are still extremely high. Road Home money still flows at a trickle. Funding for new affordable housing units are in peril.

Thousands upon thousands of our neighbors still live in FEMA trailers, I doubt they're loving it.

Councilwoman Head, why don't you come up with an actual plan to help find affordable housing for the thousands of families forced to illegally rent poisonous one-room trailers?

Recover Director Ed Blakely, the other callous official from this story also comes off looking like an absolute fool just from an unedited Times-Picayune passage:

Most people still living in trailers are older than 50 and are caught in financial limbo: even with Road Home and insurance payments, they can't afford to rebuild their homes, he said.

Blakely said the city has been "putting together some lending programs to assist people with that gap."

But those programs will not be available before June.

Unbelievable. You're floating a June 1st deadline so that we don't become known as "trailer city" but you admit that most residents are economically incapable of finding new housing or rebuilding their own home enough so that it is livable by summer. Your plan to help them with lending programs will not be available by the of the deadline you're setting.

Those seniors in financial limbo that FEMA formaldehyde trailers are slowly poisoning sure are making a lifestyle choice...
--

I've never been a huge fan of Councilwoman Head. I certainly have criticized her stance on public housing, which I find to be rife with conflicts of interest. But I never before thought she was a bad person. I've been appreciative of some of her efforts leading the charge to secure former DA Eddie Jordan's resignation an in other matters of ethics reform, etc. By all accounts I've heard, she's been way more responsive to the inquires of her district's residents than her predecessors.

This however, is unacceptable. Her assertion that the thousands of our neighbors stuck in FEMA trailers are making a "lifestyle choice" is not only ludicrous, it is mean-spirited and divisive.

I'd like to see a contrite apology and then I'd like to see your plan to increase the availability of affordable housing or your plan to reduce rent rates.

That's how you might start to get rid of the trailers.

As for Blakely... What is it that ya do here?

FEMA Redevelopment

Looks a lot like the redevelopment of our own city.

There is none.

Our Senator, Mary Landrieu blasted FEMA officials at a hearing yesterday in Washington. Also there to take heat were officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC director of environmental health, Harvey Frumkin apologized for his agency's role in the federal government's criminally slow response to formaldehyde contamination in FEMA trailers distributed throughout the area.

"We did not engage the formaldehyde issue as aggressively and effectively as we should have."

"...didn't adequately address the long-term dangers."

He's essentially saying that if his agency had done a better job telling FEMA that formaldehyde posed a long term health risk, FEMA would have acted earlier to scrap the trailers and relocate residents to safer accommodations. Instead, the CDC downplayed the dangers and FEMA advised trailer residents to ventilate their units.

I question this attempt to spread out the culpability.

FEMA knew of formaldehyde complaints in 2005. They knew of systemic formaldehyde contamination early in 2006. They did not acknowledge the immediate health risks until February of 2008.

Is that because the CDC memos weren't urgent enough? That's crap.

Formaldehyde is a well-known carcinogen. FEMA knew enough to list it as a occupational hazard for its own employees charged with spending some of their work day in and around the trailers.

It is called a contingency strategy.

You see, a federal agency charged with disaster preparedness comes up with plans in case disaster strikes. They're supposed to deal with worst-case scenarios all day long.

For instance:

Scenario A: The public discovers that the agency has been slow and unresponsive in ordering testing for formaldehyde hazards in agency trailers distributed to victims of Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters all over the country.

We already know that FEMA knew of the potential for this scenario in late 2005. They were made aware of negative formaldehyde reactions by their people on the field. In fact, FEMA at that time unveiled a plan to mitigate individual formaldehyde-related issues while simultaneously working to prevent suspicion of widespread formaldehyde contamination.

Okay, so if you're at FEMA at this point, as you're hearing that there are complaints related to formaldehyde, you might want to come up with a contingency plan. I'm not even talking about doing the right thing.

The right thing would have been to immediately order top to bottom testing of the trailer fleet for formaldehyde contamination while simultaneously confirming potential funding streams for emergency shelters in the event the trailers were found to be too dangerous for habitation. The right thing would have been to immediately halt the distribution of trailers at risk of contamination and to come up with an alternative plan to house those victimized by future natural disasters.

But at this point, unfortunately, nobody expects the right thing from FEMA.

They're villains.

What I'm talking about is the villain's contingency plan to save its own skin. Why didn't they, starting in 2005 when they realized that there may be formaldehyde contamination problems, formulate a plan to deal with the public relations fallout? They executed some of the same old cartoon villain rubric. They denied that there were serious health risks, they refused to order comprehensive testing even after elected officials and environmental agencies began asking pointed questions, and they delayed the testing process several times after it was ordered.

One would think all of this stonewalling would have allowed FEMA to come up with a plan to deal with the inevitable findings. With all the effort FEMA expended to deny and delay the findings of the formaldehyde tests, one would think they'd used the extra time they made for themselves to come up with a disaster housing strategy to ensure that it would never happen again. They could have used all that time they bought using the health of Katrina victims as currency to have a new rubric for the future in place to help deflect criticisms of what they had done in the past.

They didn't though. They didn't even do that.

FEMA is six months late on a Congressionally-mandated deadline to develop a post-disaster housing strategy for future storms.

Here is Sen. Mary Landrieu:

"The failure to complete the disaster housing strategy has left thousands of hard-working, tax-paying Americans at risk."

"This isn't six months after the storm. This is two-and-a-half years after the storm, with a new hurricane season approaching in June."

-

FEMA was still distributing trailers at new disaster sites. The Feb. 5 tornadoes that devastated towns all over the South required a response from FEMA that included housing assistance. FEMA's plan was to send trailers. On February 14th, FEMA announced a delay for formaldehyde testing of those trailers. That same day, FEMA and the CDC announced that residents of trailers on the Gulf Coast would be relocated due to dangerous formaldehyde contamination.

"Given that they sent trailers to Arkansas one day and brought them back the next, I don't think that is something to be proud of," said Landrieu, who called FEMA and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's disaster housing policy "a massive failure of initiative and preparedness."

-

They couldn't even prepare their PR team to mitigate criticism by having a plan in place to address future distribution of trailers that could also be contaminated with formaldehyde. They had to call in the PR team from the CDC for some emergency responses to a furious public.

UPDATE: Much more detail on FEMA's foot-dragging by Your Right Hand Thief.

The Long-Lost Art of Letter Writing: One Lame Duck's Correspondence With Another

It has been reported that Mayor C. Ray Nagin has written an official letter to George W. Bush declaring his reservations about FEMA's emergency relocation plan for the 25,000 Orleans Parish residents affected by dangerously high formaldehyde levels in FEMA trailers.

You can get a copy of that letter here. You can read the T-P article here.

Quickly, I'll recap the FEMAldehyde situation.

Almost two weeks ago, FEMA finally admitted that the trailers they've distributed to victims of Hurricane Katrina have dangerous levels of formaldehyde. The contamination is so extreme, in fact, that they announced impending emergency relocation of tens of thousands of people on the Gulf Coast.

FEMA took a week and announced their plans to begin relocating affected individuals and families to hotels and apartments on a temporary emergency basis. They began formulating plans to carry out this relocation, including public information sessions, which began on Monday.

I'm not saying FEMA created a good or even mediocre plan. I'm just saying they went through the trouble.

Mayor Nagin, for his part, determined just the other day, after FEMA had already begun implementing its emergency strategy, that it was appropriate to say something.

So he wrote a letter to the President.

In it, he rightfully scalds the FEMA relocation strategy. He correctly notes that because New Orleans faces an affordable housing crisis, the citizens in need of emergency shelter due to formaldehyde exposure will become displaced from New Orleans area. It is the first time I can remember hearing or seeing him acknowledge the city's affordable housing shortage or admitting to inflated post storm rental rates.

He states that the situation is "a significant public health crisis."

Nagin refers to a "second great displacement" of New Orleanians that will occur should FEMA's plan not be modified. This is a sad truth. This is the second mass relocation involving tens of thousands of socially and economically disadvantaged people within 3 years. You can come to your own conclusions regarding the human rights implications of that. Suffice it to say, it makes me sick to my stomach.

But Mayor Nagin, in what could also be interpreted as a shrewd way to communicate with our ultra-benevolent President, did not really discuss the human rights of his citizens. Instead, Nagin bemoans the loss of the workforce, which he says would overly stress the economy. He doesn't talk about how the proposed displacement would also cause additional stress to victims who would then be on their own to find a new job in their emergency location or forced somehow commute back to New Orleans from who-knows-where. That's more important to me as a fellow human being than what would happen to the stupid hotels if their dishwasher or their valet is forced to no-show on Friday night.

This is indicative of the callous attitude Mr. Nagin has displayed toward the his most disadvantaged constituents for the entirety of his administration.

Thus, Nagin unveils his own alternative to the FEMA relocation strategy. In addition to a call for free health care for victims of formaldehyde exposure and yet another nudge to speed up the Road Home Program - both worthy requests - Mayor Nagin does briefly lay out a plan to temporarily house the thousands of displaced people right here in New Orleans.

Nagin's solution is to have FEMA pay for the rehabilitation of 3,500 storm-damaged housing units or construction of temporary "panelized units" on vacant lots.

You've got to be kidding me, Mr. Mayor.

Where are the formaldehyde victims going to go in the interim? What are our neighbors to do while you haggle with FEMA about how much to build, for what price, and where? How long are you prepared to make people wait while FEMA renovate damaged homes?

You know what might have been a good idea Mr. Mayor?

Anticipating the easily anticipated.

If I were Mayor of New Orleans, I would have formulated an emergency relocation contingency plan to FEMA about a year and a half ago. That was when it became abundantly clear that the travel trailers that FEMA had purchased and distributed to my hypothetical constituents were contaminated with dangerous levels of a cancerous chemical. Not only would I have pushed FEMA to actually go through with their official tests, something that they postponed for months and months because they knew what they would find, but I also would have had a plan in place for FEMA to help house my citizens in the event that something like this happened.

I would not have demolished the salvageable public housing stock of the city. Instead, I would have suggested that developers interested in mixed-income communities try to focus on the empty lots that HUD and HANO had already abandoned. I would have immediately secured funding to make the standing units livable. By now, I'm sure, enough of those units would be ready and able to help house at least some of our neighbors being displaced by formaldehyde exposure.

Mr. Nagin's passive attitude toward the conjoining crises currently stressing our affordable housing market is a disgrace. His objections to FEMA's relocation strategy are insultingly, yet unsurprisingly, behind schedule. His alternative plan is an incomplete attempt to earn a mulligan for his disastrous role in pushing a poorly vetted and reactionary pro-demolition agenda. That refers to the demolition of public housing AND the absolutely insane demolitions of citizens' private homes against their will.

Did you read all that Mr. Mayor? I just ripped holes through your entire reign of terror on this city. Do you have anything substantive to say at all?

Why don't you get riled up about something useful?

Or you can just come cold cock me in the face. At least then I could look into your eyes to check if there's anything there.

Be well.

Deliberate Speed

FEMA and the CDC is will start a series of public meetings tonight.

FEMA trailer residents concerned with the formaldehyde levels in their homes can attend a series of public meetings beginning today that will address moving or testing their trailers.

Today's meetings in New Orleans include one from noon to 2 p.m. at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church, 2300 Crowder Blvd., and another from 6 to 8 p.m. at St. Anna's Episcopal Church, 1313 Esplanade Ave.

Wednesday's schedule includes a meeting for St. Bernard Parish residents from noon to 2 p.m. at Nunez Community College, 3700 Fenelon St. Jefferson Parish residents can attend a meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Joseph Yenni Government Building, 1221 Elmwood Park Blvd., 2nd floor Council Chambers.

Because they've done such a good job with the public here over the years...

FEMA Does It Again

The hits keep on coming.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency misspent millions of dollars it received from selling used travel trailers, government investigators have found.

Instead of buying more trailers — as allowed under the law — FEMA used more than $13 million toward fully loaded sport utility vehicles, travel expenses and purchase card accounts, according to a draft report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general obtained by The Associated Press. The report is to be released Friday.

I hate this agency so much.

They're the worst.

Has their been any follow up on their emergency relocation plans?
The ones related to their final admission that they've been housing hundreds of thousands of people in trailers with dangerously high levels of formaldehyde?
Anything on that?

Death By FEMA All Over Again

The news story reads like a public safety alert:

After downplaying the risks for months, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday it will rush to move Gulf Coast hurricane victims out of roughly 35,000 government-issued trailers because tests found dangerous levels of formaldehyde fumes.

FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison said the agency hopes to get everyone out and into hotels, motels, apartments and other temporary housing by the summer, when the heat and stuffy air could worsen the problem inside the trailers.

"The real issue is not what it will cost but how fast we can move people out," he said.

-
How fast?

How fast?

Now that's the issue?

Ugh. FEMA, this makes me so mad I could expose you to dangerously high levels of formaldehyde for two or more years... I'm boiling hot right now. I can't even... Let me just swallow it and try to explain without expletives.
-

Okay, so late this week, FEMA determined that the trailers that they distributed to victims of Hurricane Katrina have and always have had dangerously high levels of formaldehyde, a chemical in cigarettes and embalming fluid known to cause cancer, not just in lab rats, but in human beings. The levels are dangerous enough that FEMA has determined that they must IMMEDIATELY relocate vulnerable people: the elderly, children, and anyone with health problems, especially asthma. People will be moved to apartments and hotels as soon as possible, relocations are to begin immediately. Those living in FEMA parks are also especially at risk and those parks will be shut down immediately after the sick and elderly are accounted for. FEMA hopes to have everyone out of trailers within the next few months. The summer heat can exacerbate the risks of formaldehyde exposure.

So how many people does this affect?

One thousand? Five thousand?

No!

There are still more than 100,000 people still living in FEMA trailers all over Louisiana and Mississippi today.

That number does not include the thousands upon thousands more that once did live in FEMA trailers but have since renovated their homes. FEMA trailers have been poisoning Katrina victims since 2005. At one point there were 140,000 occupied FEMA trailers. Because a great deal of those were multiple occupancy units, there must be close to a half million people that spent significant time in a cancer can.

If you've spent even just two weeks inside a FEMA trailer, I'd advise you to contact a doctor and a lawyer. You've been exposed to dangerous levels of cancer-causing chemicals.

The formaldehyde levels in some trailers were found to be high enough to cause breathing problems in children, the elderly or people who already have respiratory trouble, CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said. About 5 percent had levels high enough to cause breathing problems even in people who do not ordinarily have respiratory trouble, she said.
--
As early as 2006, trailer occupants began reporting headaches, nosebleeds and difficulty breathing.
-

You've gotta give FEMA credit though, right? To find out this information and then take decisive action to relocate people to safer lodging is the right call, isn't it?

Well, it would have been the right decision if they weren't about two and a half years late.
It would have been the right decision if FEMA had indeed just found out about the risk.

They knew about the risk.

A long long time ago.

And they didn't relocate anybody, they didn't replace any trailers. They let thousands and thousands of our neighbors bake in stew of cancer-causing fumes last summer without so much as free paper towels for those experiencing formaldehyde-caused nose bleeds, without free cough drops to those experiencing formaldehyde-caused chronic breathing problems.

Last May, (that was around 8 or 9 months ago, but FEMA's not counting) CBS News obtained an internal FEMA document that lists formaldehyde exposure carrying the risk of cancer as a job hazard for its own employees charged with inspecting the trailers.

The Sierra Club did its own tests of FEMA trailers in May of 2006, almost two years ago now. Out of 32 trailers inspected, 30 were found to have formaldehyde levels above normal.

Here's how an MSNBC story from July of 2006 descibes all that:

Air quality tests of 44 FEMA trailers conducted by the Sierra Club since April have found formaldehyde concentrations as high as 0.34 parts per million – a level nearly equal to what a professional embalmer would be exposed to on the job, according to one study of the chemical’s workplace effects.

And all but four of the trailers have tested higher than the 0.1 parts per million that the EPA considers to be an “elevated level” capable of causing watery eyes, burning in the eyes and throat, nausea, and respiratory distress in some people.

That kind of makes it sound like FEMA was embalming residents of the Gulf Coast, doesn't It?

FEMA felt the pressure. In August of 2006, after the Sierra Club's tests and in the midst of a hot summer that compounded adverse reactions to formaldehyde exposure, FEMA issued a press release outlining their plans to test trailers for their formaldehyde levels. In the mean time, it prescribed methods for those wanting to "reduce their exposure":

• Increase ventilation. Open the windows and door of the trailer and use fans to force stale air out and bring fresh air in.
• Keep indoor temperatures cool. Heat does cause formaldehyde to increase the rate at which it releases fumes, so, after the trailer is well ventilated, keep temperatures cooler with air conditioning.
• Lower the humidity. Like heat, humidity causes formaldehyde to release fumes, so keep the relative humidity at about 40 to 50 percent in the trailer.
• Do not smoke inside. Tobacco smoking releases formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals.

What advice! A brochure given in the middle of August telling people that the best way to reduce exposure to formaldehyde in their homes is by simultaneously opening doors and windows while keeping the trailer temperature and humidity levels low.

Keep the trailer cool and dry with the windows open in the middle of August?

Have they ever been to the Gulf Coast during the month of August?

(That question really pisses me off to ask because we all know that they never have been. They infamously missed the opportunity to come see us late in August of 2005. Nonetheless, the September air is just as hot and just as moist.)

If you open the windows, it's going to get hot and humid in the trailer, you idiots!

And heavens, please don't smoke! You could be exposing yourself to formaldehyde!

So how were people supposed to reduce their exposure again?
-

When the FEMA press release dropped in August of 2006, Congressional Democrats demanded FEMA give up what they knew about formaldehyde. A year later, in July of 2007, that same Congressional Committee held two days of hearings on FEMA's failure to respond to formaldehyde risks. This is from Rep. Waxman's opening statement:

The FEMA documents depict a battle between FEMA field staff, who recognized right away that formaldehyde was a serious problem, and FEMA headquarters, particularly FEMA’s lawyers, who wanted to pretend it didn’t exist.

In March 2006, news articles reported high levels of formaldehyde in FEMA trailers. FEMA field staff urged immediate action, saying: “This needs to be fixed today,” “we need to take a proactive approach,” and there is an “immediate need” for a plan of action.

But when the issue reached FEMA’s lawyers, they blocked testing of occupied trailers. One FEMA attorney explained: “Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK. …Once you get results…the clock is running on our duty to respond to them.”

Another FEMA official wrote: the Office of General Counsel has advised that “we do not do testing” because it “would imply FEMA’s ownership of this issue.”

Early in the process, due to the perseverance of a pregnant mother with a four-month-old child, FEMA did test one occupied trailer. The results showed that their trailer had formaldehyde levels 75 times higher than the maximum workplace exposure level recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The mother evacuated the trailer. FEMA stopped testing occupied trailers. And top officials issued a statement that said: “FEMA and industry experts have evaluated the small number of cases where odors of formaldehyde have been reported, and we are confident that there is no ongoing risk.”

--

But FEMA knew of formaldehyde exposure problems well before the news media began to publish complaints in March of 2006. They knew of issues as early as December of 2005, and likely before that.

This story, out of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi is especially revealing:

...Jesse Fineran, a former Hancock County Emergency Operations Center hazardous material specialist, said he brought the issue to the attention of numerous federal agencies in the daily meetings Hancock County EOC with government representatives nearly two years ago.

Fineran's involvement began in October 2005, when his wife, who has asthma, needed aid after stepping into the couple's son's FEMA trailer. Fineran received a trailer a couple of months later, where his wife experienced the same problems. Fineran had both his son's trailer and his trailer tested for formaldehyde. He said Tests showed levels of 0.38 and 0.21 parts per million, respectively.

Fineran's son had his trailer replaced and Fineran received a special "product sensitive" trailer. Tests on these were 0.18 and 0.21 parts per million, respectively, Fineran said.
Fineran's wife is now living in Louisiana while Fineran lives in a FEMA trailer in Bay St. Louis.

Tests were done in trailers in November 2005 at a staging lot in Kiln, Fineran said. The tests, conducted by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, showed not only above-normal levels in the trailers, but the background level around the staging area was also elevated, Fineran said.

"They knew people were suffering," Fineran said.

On December 14, 2005, a daily report of the meetings made by Fineran stated an official with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found formaldehyde in FEMA trailers at a Kiln staging area. The data was provided to Bechtel, the contractor responsible for transporting and setup of trailers. Fineran said both Sid Melton, now chief of operations in Mississippi, and Michael Andrews, chief of mobile home operations in Mississippi, received the OSHA report in December 2005.

According to FEMA, a total of 47 trailers – 17 in Mississippi – have been swapped. Fineran said this number is low because FEMA would only replace a trailer after venting and the applicant specifically mentioned formaldehyde. Used trailers were cleaned with an agent that masks the smell of formaldehyde, Fineran said.
-

"FEMA WOULD ONLY REPLACE A TRAILER AFTER VENTING AND THE APPLICANT SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED FORMALDEHYDE. USED TRAILERS WERE CLEANED WITH AN AGENT THAT MASKS THE SMELL OF FORMALDEHYDE."

That was way back in 2005. Way, way back in 2005. And people have been living in these trailers for two years since.

FEMA, meanwhile, hurriedly made the decision that they needed to evict residents from trailer parks while they stalled testings responsibilities. This article from late November details those plans and delivers this interesting tidbit:

The agency has been careful not to attribute park closures to concerns about formaldehyde, which has been found at dangerous levels in some trailers. In a "Frequently Asked Questions" flier released Wednesday, a question asked: "Is FEMA closing parks because of formaldehyde?" FEMA answered: "Trailers were intended as short-term housing solutions. Rental resources are increasingly available in Louisiana and are more appropriate for long-term housing."

Testing of local units was scheduled to begin this month but has been postponed. It should begin "very soon," Josephson said.

[Josephson is Bob Josephson, a FEMA spokesperson]
-

Now, the context of that article about the closure of FEMA parks is something I should say more about. That article wasn't primarily about formaldehyde levels. It was about another type of crisis:

FEMA's effectiveness in moving New Orleans residents out of parks is in dispute, and critics acknowledge the situation is complex. The working poor occupy most FEMA trailers, and they may also be grappling with depression, iffy credit and minor criminal records, all of which make apartment hunting more difficult. Caseworkers cited all those issues as complicating factors for departing trailer-park residents, Josephson said.

FEMA caseworkers also had reported that some occupants talked about wanting a rental apartment but then turned down five or six places, Josephson said.

That's that gosh-darn New Orleans affordable housing crisis again!

Originally, the trailer evictions due to occur at the end of this May applied only to the group trailer sites located throughout the state. But FEMA has now finally been pushed to admit that formaldehyde levels are so dangerous that relocations are beginning immediately from both group sites and trailers on private property.

So there are going to be thousands more people looking for affordable housing solutions sooner than anticipated for the month of May.

In November and December I warned that the rush to demolish large expanses of the public housing stock here in New Orleans was fundamentally foolish because, among many many many other reasons, the anticipated May FEMA evictions would add more pressure to what is already an extremely tense affordable housing shortage. Now it seems that emergency is both larger and sooner than the city anticipated. (And it should have been anticipated!)

If Ray "Free Market Recovery" Nagin believed that enough affordable housing would magically come into existence to provide a roof over the head of everyone evicted by May, maybe now he's starting to become concerned about that rosy forecast.

Maybe now he's working round-the-clock with his team to come up with temporary housing for the thousands and thousands of people in and around New Orleans that need to be immediately relocated. Maybe now he's formulating some sort of rent control policy so that prices don't skyrocket with the increased demand. Maybe now he's negotiating with state and federal agencies to secure funding and implementation assistance for what could be another massive displacement of lives.

I know why everybody is laughing (and/or crying)...

It's because we know what the Mayor's plan is already.

It's under the bridge at Claiborne and Canal.
--

FEMA has perpetrated some sort of willful or criminally negligent form of chemical genocide upon hundreds of thousands of people already victimized by the Federal Flood while the municipal government of New Orleans has repeatedly passed on the opportunity to prepare for yet another federally-funded humanitarian crisis that we cannot say was unforeseen.

Has the Mayor or anyone from City Council spoken about what New Orleans is going to do to help people get out of their toxic trailers? Have they spoken about how this will affect the affordable housing crisis? Have they spoken about helping New Orleans citizens exposed to formaldehyde obtain justice against FEMA?

This website, toxictrailers.com has been following the formaldehyde poisoning of Katrina victims for some time they're looking to compile stories from people affected by formaldehyde exposure. They also provide an important list of phone numbers that I will recreate here:

To report formaldehyde problems to FEMA: 1-866-562-2381.

FEMA hotline for emergency housing (only for those with formaldehyde issues): 1-800-621-3362

To request reimbursement from FEMA for medical expenses caused by formaldehyde exposure, fax a letter from doctor along with bills to 1-800-827-8112.

Kits to test trailers for formaldehyde can be purchased from Advanced Chemical Sensors, 561-338-3116. Cost: $34/kit.

Number for FEMA to buy back trailers: 1-866-562-2381 or e-mail FEMA-EHU-DOC@dhs.gov.

Toxic trailer lawsuits:

Buzbee Law Firm, Galveston, Texas , 409-762-5393, http://www.txattorneys.com/

Parker Waichman Alonso Mark LLP, New Orleans, 1-800-LAW-INFO, www.toxicfematrailer.com or www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/toxic_fema_trailers

Rodney & Etter, New Orleans, www.toxicfematrailers.org

---

Fuck you, FEMA, fuck you.