OnsceneALERT
Oct 16, 20213 min
CRITICAL INCIDENT NOTIFICATION
OTHER SIGNIFICANT INCIDENT
Dara Bouy and her two children are ready to come home.
The 33-year-old Luling resident has been living with relatives in New Orleans East since Hurricane Ida damaged the roof of their rental home, sending water pouring into the house and drenching all of their belongings. Her landlord is working on repairs, but has said the work will take at least six more months.
“Honestly, it’s a headache, right now … not really having a stable place to live,” she said. “There’s so many residents in St. Charles Parish who are facing the same obstacles that I’m facing.”
Hopefully, Bouy won’t have to wait much longer. She is one of the thousands of Louisiana residents who have applied for temporary housing under the state’s new Hurricane Ida Sheltering Program, which began delivering travel trailers to the area over the weekend.
The free trailers are available to residents who live in one of the six parishes designated by state officials as “most impacted” by the storm: St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. James, Jefferson, Terrebonne and Lafourche. Residents are eligible if their homes are unsafe or unlivable and they don’t already have options for shelter in their home parish.
As of Wednesday, three trailers had been placed with St. John residents and another 18 were waiting to be installed by contractors, St. John the Baptist Parish President Jaclyn Hotard said.
In St. Charles Parish, about 50 trailers were parked at a staging site on Judge Edward Dufresne Parkway in Hahnville. Nine were distributed to residents on Monday, said St. Charles Parish President Matthew Jewell.
“It’s incredibly important for the restoration to have people as close to their homes as possible so they don’t have to commute back and forth from out of the parish or somewhere else,” Jewell said.
FEMA officials estimate about they’ll need about 250 to 275 trailers for St. Charles residents. But Jewell suspects the number could be higher.
The state’s Sheltering Program exists separate and apart from the federal government’s more well-known FEMA trailer program, according to state and local officials. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency is reimbursing the state 90% of the trailers’ price tag, Louisiana is managing the Ida Sheltering Program.
The state stepped up to offer trailers as a way to more quickly provide housing to residents in need, according to Mike Steele, communications director for the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. The FEMA trailers, part of the federal agency’s direct housing program, won’t be ready to roll out until mid-November, according to officials.
“There’s two programs going on at the same time, and it can be confusing,” said Hotard, who encouraged residents to register for both types of assistance.
Residents from more than 1,200 St. Charles Parish households checked into hotels as part of FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance Program after Hurricane Ida, Jewell said. As of this week, about 443 hotel rooms were still occupied by St. Charles residents unable to return home.
For residents of neighboring St. John, 747 families were still in FEMA-sponsored hotel rooms as of Monday, Hotard said.
The state’s Ida Sheltering Program is designed to be a temporary way to bridge the gap until FEMA’s housing assistance gets underway. If eligible, residents must make sure they have room on their property for the trailer and the appropriate utility hookups.
Renters can register for the state’s program, according to officials from the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. If they qualify for trailer, they will need permission from the landowner.
Eligible renters in larger-scale apartment buildings or complexes, where there would be no room to install trailers, could be placed at group site, such as a former mobile home park.
To register or seek more information about Louisiana’s Hurricane Ida Sheltering Program, visit idashelteringla.com or call 1-844-268-0301. Registrants will need a FEMA number to apply. If you do not know your FEMA number or need to request one, visit disasterassistance.gov or call 1-800-621-3362.
Source Agency (NOLA)
Sourcing Link (NOLA)
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Incident Number
2-211015-7301
Alert Type
Critical Incident Notification
Incident Type
Other Significant Incident
Incident Occurred
October 15, 2021
Alert Posted
October 15, 2021
Last Updated
October 15, 2021
Incident Location
Lafourche Parish, LA
END OF ALERT