‘Scrap’ FEMA Mobile Homes Turn Up in Trailer Parks in Georgia and Missouri
March 6th, 2009It’s the toxic gift that keeps on giving.
Previous Cryptogon coverage on FEMA’s Formaldehyde Trailers
Via: MSNBC:
As FEMA ponders whether to resume public sales of thousands of surplus travel trailers and mobile homes that once housed Gulf Coast hurricane victims, at least one purchaser has figured out a way around the suspension: Buying “scrap” units not intended for human habitation and then returning them to the housing pool.
And there are indications that he wasn’t the only one using the dodge before the agency moved to halt the practice.
The hurried purchase of tens of thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes after the twin disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 has been a headache almost from the start for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That’s because many of the units also triggered headaches — and far worse — for the hurricane victims they were intended to shelter because they contained high levels of the airborne form of the industrial chemical formaldehyde.
That problem is at the center of a massive lawsuit expected to go to trial later this year, as nearly 40,000 plaintiffs seek damages from manufacturers of the units, four companies that installed them and the federal government. It also prompted FEMA to suspend sales of the travel trailers and mobile homes to the public in July 2007.
But now FEMA is finding that even getting rid of decommissioned travel trailers and mobile homes can be complicated.
The federal General Services Administration began auctioning off some of the FEMA units that had been declared as scrap — meaning they “have no value above the basic material content and repairs to maintain the unit are uneconomical” — in October. So far, 348 mobile homes and about 750 travel trailers have been auctioned through the GSA’s Web site, and agency officials estimate that another 4,000 or so currently are destined to be sold as scrap.
‘Not intended for habitation’
But although the word “scrap” is prominent on all sales information and documentation provided to purchasers, and the terms clearly indicate that the units are “not intended for habitation,” more than two dozen of the units have turned up in recent weeks at mobile home parks in Missouri and Georgia.
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
A friend of mine, now living in Arkansas, recently told me there were some great deals on FEMA trailers, and that she was interested in buying one to live in. She claimed that the formaldehyde issue is in the carpet only, which can be removed.
There are a lot of people in this country who are hard up for a place to live, who would be willing to take their chances with formaldehyde, in preference to taking their chances with homelessness.
I’m not saying this is a good idea, though I will say even a FEMA trailer beats homelessness, or being unable to feed your kids because you have to pay the rent.