Surely Not

FEMA Trailers Freed Up For Other Uses

(AP) HOPE, Ark. Nearly 10,000 emergency housing trailers that were intended to be sent to the Gulf Coast to help Hurricane Katrina victims have been freed up for other uses.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency parked the trailers at Hope Municipal Airport in the months following the hurricane. The agency came under criticism when the trailers sat empty.

FEMA officials said that regulations against placing the homes in flood plains prevented their use on the Gulf Coast.

On Friday, Congress approved a homeland security spending bill that included a provision allowing FEMA to sell or donate the trailers to municipalities, nonprofit groups or American Indian tribes.

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said he would prefer that the homes had gone to hurricane victims as originally intended, but selling or donating them to cities or community groups was better than letting them sit unused.

"Allowing the homes to sit and deteriorate at the airport is an abuse of taxpayer funding and should not be an option," Pryor said in a statement.

Pryor and Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., sponsored the measures in their respective chambers before the provision went to a conference committee. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., added the option to convey the trailers to Indian tribes to house the homeless.

"I am proud that the 9,778 fully furnished manufactured homes sitting in Hope, Arkansas, may finally be put to good use," Ross said. "These are the kind of commonsense solutions the American taxpayers expect and deserve."

FEMA was directed to work with the Department of Interior to transfer the trailers to tribes, depending on need.

Indian housing has been a problem for decades. According to a 2003 survey, an estimated 200,000 housing units are needed immediately in Indian country and approximately 90,000 Indian families are homeless or "under-housed."

The Homeland Security Department's inspector general has said that U.S. taxpayers could be stuck with a maintenance bill of nearly $47 million a year for thousands of trailers that sit parked at sites around the country.

comment:

This just makes too much sense and is too logical to be really true !! And to thank it only took em a year to come up with this idea..

But what you wanna bet that there will be plenty of pissin contests between all the "gimme" people around the Country ??

Unlike the Democrats tho, I have a better idea for these trailers !!

How bout we offer them to the THOUSANDS of Troops and Vets that are eligable for VA, FHA, or G.I. Bill, to get em ?? Not SELL em to em, but GIVE em to any who apply and are approved for a land purchase or already have land to put em on.. Kinda like the "40 acres and a mule" after the War Between The States.. After news of a program like that got out, maybe we wouldnt be seein reports of shortages of new recruits into the Military anymore.. I'm sick-and-fuggin-tired of hearin stories about homeless Vets .. A country that lets shit like that happen dont deserve to have Warriors go to distant lands to protect its freedom !! And anybody, politician or civilian, needs to have their ass kicked up between their shoulders if they stand there and shrug their shoulders and say " nothin I can do" , cause there damn sure is somethin they can do, and these trailers are one of the thangs they CAN DO, and SHOULD DO !!

Instead of these Politicians pushin these trailers at VOTERS, maybe they could have shown a little PATRIOTISM and APPRECIATION to the Fighters for our FREEDOM !! But like I said, SURELY NOT, that would have made just WAY WAY WAY too much gotdam sense !! Sorry, but they didnt win any "brownie points" with me with this decision.. Close, but no ceegar !!