FEMA homes stranded in N.C.

Thousands built for storm victims

From a distance, the small white homes dotting a hillside near Palmer Road look like a new subdivision.

But a closer look reveals that these homes are on wheels, and their haphazard arrangement in the field betray that they are parked, not set on foundations.

The yellow banners with black lettering offer the final clue.

These are FEMA trailers, and many of them have been waiting in Rowan County for months to be shipped out as housing for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Brand new and fully furnished, the trailers have become symbols of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's bureaucratic struggles in providing shelter to Gulf Coast families still homeless a half year after the natural disasters.

In Rockwell, where Schult Homes built 509 FEMA homes between September and the first week of December, 275 of the trailers still wait to be shipped away to staging areas in Arkansas and Texas.

Schult Homes General Manager Joe Earnhardt said Monday about 25 FEMA homes a week are leaving Rockwell. The same is true for FEMA trailers produced at the Schult Homes Plant in Richfield, according to a company spokesman.

Besides the homes scattered on a hill behind Schult Homes Plant 957 in Rockwell, the company also has parked FEMA trailers inside the fences of its property on both sides of Viscount Road.

Thousands sit unused

National news reports recently said nearly 11,000 FEMA trailers -- produced under government contracts at manufacturing plants throughout the United States -- are sitting at a municipal airport and in fields in Hope, Ark.

One reason they have not gone to Gulf Coast states is that federal, state and local regulations often prohibit or limit the placement of temporary housing in flood plains. Much of the storm devastation occurred in flood-prone coastal areas.

Communities also have resisted the FEMA homes because their infrastructure isn't ready to take on a lot of new families -- FEMAvilles -- or their local ordinances prohibit the trailers. Only eight of 64 Louisiana parishes have accepted the mobile homes, for example.

FEMA Acting Director David Paulison said that his agency has not wasted money on the trailers. Those that won't be used in the Gulf Coast states can be sent around the country when other disasters occur, he said.

At a cost of $850 million, FEMA ordered 25,000 mobile homes, and only about 2,700 have been installed. Louisiana officials say about 55,000 families in their state are waiting for a manufactured housing unit.

The federal government also bought 100,000 travel trailers, of which 72,000 have been installed and occupied.

The travel trailers, which can be parked in the driveway of a person's damaged home while it's being restored, cost about $10,000 each; the mobile homes, an average of $34,000 each.

Government property

Both the travel trailers and mobile homes are property of the federal government, and each trailer recipient is informed in writing about rules and regulations when he signs an occupancy agreement.

Clayton Homes, the parent company of Schult Homes, built or supplied about 4,100 FEMA homes in three separate contracts, said Chris Nicely, vice president of marketing.

In the weeks immediately after the hurricanes, Clayton Homes shipped 1,800 mobile homes directly out of its open inventory. The company then built 2,000 to FEMA specifications at six different plants, including the facilities in Rockwell and Richfield.

A third contract called for about 200 in-stock homes from independent Clayton Homes dealers.

Nicely said Clayton Homes has produced all the homes ordered by FEMA but still has an estimated 700 to 800 in storage around its plants.

"Hopefully, we'll continue to see them go," he said, adding that the company would like to get out of the FEMA inventory business. Nicely guessed that Clayton still had about 10 weeks of shipments left.

The trailers are typically 900 to 1,100 square feet and include three bedrooms. They also have a furniture package, supplied by one of Clayton's vendors.

Earnhardt, the general manager at the Rockwell plant, said his facility was fortunate to have adequate storage area for the FEMA homes over the past several months.

But Nicely, speaking from the company headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn., said, "Any long-term storage is out of the question."