A model home with an overgrown yard in Lehigh Acres, Fla. As hurricane season approaches, FEMA looks at the potential for emergency shelters in foreclosed homes. (Photo by Wilfredo Lee / AP)
by Mark Silva
The new director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency knows Florida well: Craig Fugate ran emergency preparedness and disaster relief in the Sunshine State before President Barack Obama moved him to Washington.
So it seems only fitting that the Florida-bred FEMA chief should be looking at a Florida-styled solution to natural disasters that capitalizes on the state's economic crisis as well: The government is looking at placing displaced Floridians in foreclosed homes should a Katrina-like storm strike the hurricane-prone state, the AP reports.
That Florida home once was viewed as a tax shelter.
Now it could be a storm shelter.
It's like looking for the silver lining in a storm cloud: In an effort to find some benefit in a home-mortgage foreclosure crisis that has hit Florida particularly, hard, the agency is contemplating a plan that could avert the sort of mass exodus of residents who fled the Gulf Coast after Katrina. (Florida suffered its worst hit, with Hurricane Andrew, in 1992.)
"When you have a diaspora that leaves the state it's very hard to get those guys back. You really want to prevent them from leaving the state," Jeff Bryant, FEMA's coordinating officer for Florida, told the AP. "We want to keep them in their same local community."
The idea is still under development, but it works like this: FEMA contacts banks, other mortgage holders and their representatives to compile a list of available homes. The evacuees are assigned homes close to their own and FEMA uses a contractor, acting as its agent, to pay rent directly to whoever owns the home.
In April, there were 278,287 homes in some stage of foreclosure in Florida, according to RealtyTrac.
The housing plan probably would be saved for a "large catastrophic event,'' FEMA says.
"But a large disaster, everything has to be on the table,'' says Ruben Almaguer, interim director of the state's Division of Emergency Management. "Everything has to be on the table.''
Hurricane season officially started this month, though the biggest storms traditionally land toward the end of August and into the fall. The economy is not expected to recover before then.
Comments
Offering forclosed homes to displaced disaster victims? I hope they plan to qualify anyone put in a home. Any banker or homeowner who doesn't demand to know the type of people being put in their home is downright crazy. After the mess left behind at hotels and churches in Houston from people from New Orleans, they want to heep that misery on someone else? I have family in Houston and they are still telling stories of the trashed areas left behind. Florida will recover on our own without Fema's help. Thanks, but no thanks.
Posted by: Jolie D. | June 3, 2009 11:51 AM
I agree with Jolie D. I have a house that I leased to someone, and they even put down a bunch of money, because they were going to buy it. This is usually an indication that the person will treat it well. I was absolutely shocked and horrified when I got in to the house after they left. Thankfully I kept back some of the deposit to clean walls, shampoo carpet and wipe down walls and clean up ridiculous messes that should never have been tolerated. The worst mess was that apparently someone in the house had a repeating problem with using the bedroom as a toilet! Disgusting! Banks stand to loose a LOT by letting FEMA run their investments...
Eric
Posted by: Eric Harrison | June 3, 2009 2:25 PM
Is it even plausible to offer evacuees a home close to their own home after a "large catastrophic event"?
.
In general, this capitalization scheme reeks of that other capitalization wonder, the sub-prime loans.
Posted by: SnowPatrol | June 3, 2009 5:42 PM