The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday delivered what amounts to eviction notices to two residents who have been living in government-issued mobile homes after Hurricane Ike damaged or destroyed their homes.
Only two of Galveston County’s 482 FEMA mobile home residents were given 60 days to move out. The notices sent Tuesday were to former renters who had been placed in mobile homes.
More revocation letters could be sent to homeowners who have been in the FEMA mobile homes but who are not making progress in repairing their hurricane-damaged houses.
In September, FEMA sent letters to the 1,786 Texas families still in mobile homes, reminding them the program ends in about five months. FEMA said more than 350 of those families were not living up to the terms of their agreement, which require them to look for long-term housing or to make significant progress in repairing their hurricane-damaged homes.
Last month, 37 FEMA mobile home dwellers, who had been renting before the storm, got letters telling them they had 15 days to find another housing option or the agency would begin the process to evict them.
The notice of revocation of the license to live in a mobile home unit was sent to five households on Tuesday, FEMA spokesman Brad Craine said. Only two of those went to people in Galveston County; one was sent to a household in the High Island FEMA mobile home community and the other went to someone in the Hitchcock area.
The agency would not say who had been issued the revocation letters.
Those who receive the letters have 60 days to vacate the mobile home but can appeal, an agency spokeswoman said.
FEMA spokeswoman Patricia Brach said the fact that only five people statewide got the letters was proof that most people are making progress in finding long-term housing.
Among those not getting the letter were Marty Rogers and his wife, Barbara Davis. They have lived in FEMA’s mobile home community in High Island since Ike washed away their home near Gilchrist.
They plan to move Friday. They found a mobile home trailer they can put on their property where their house once stood. The mobile home is not owned by FEMA. Davis said the couple was able to get some federal assistance to help pay the upfront costs of leasing the trailer.
That was little consolation to Sidney Lampman, who has been living in a FEMA mobile home near Old Bayou Vista.
While she did not receive the revocation notice, she expected one soon.
Lampman said she wants to buy her mobile home from the federal government but because the property she lives on is within the 100-year flood plain, the county won’t issue the permits FEMA requires to sell the unit. She said she would like to buy the mobile home and move to Brazoria County, but that is not allowed.
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By The Numbers
FEMA mobile homes
Galveston County
Private Property: 390
In private trailer parks: 36
In FEMA community sites: 56*
Total: 482+
Statewide: 1,383
* 19 at Schreiber Field in Galveston, 37 in High Island
+ 136 are in the city of Galveston
Source: FEMA as of Nov. 9
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What The Letters Say
“Under the ‘Conditions for Use of Government Property’ you agreed to obtain permanent housing as soon as possible and to establish a permanent housing plan for your family. You also agreed that if FEMA determined adequate housing was available, your household would accept that alternate housing and leave the housing unit as soon as possible.”
