FEMA is planning on spending millions of dollars on manufactured homes that can be “quickly built and deployed” anywhere in the United States. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also requiring the manufacturers of the homes to respond to the posted solicitation only with homes that have the “potential to become permanent housing.”
The FEMA homes ad first appeared late last week on the FBO.gov website. The federal agency noted in the solicitation that multiple contracts will be awarded and worth up to a “half-billion dollars” for an “indefinite” quantity of manufactured homes. Homes which meet the Federal Emergency Management Agency needs can have from one to three bedrooms. FEMA’s Disaster Relief Housing manual lists the manufactured homes as their “top-tier” of housing choices.
During Hurricane Katrina the term “FEMA trailers” became commonplace. The taxpayer funded acquisition of the portable temporary units were in short supply the days following the catastrophic natural disaster. The vast majority of the FEMA trailers have been sold to the public because the federal government allegedly did not have enough space to store the camper style dwellings.
Excerpt from a FEMA trailers for sale ad on a government auction website:
“Good News! FEMA Trailers are back on sale by the Government after a long hiatus due to issues of formaldehyde. Back in March 2007 the Government started offering FEMA Trailers for sale from the Katrina and Rita Disasters at fire-sale prices. After the destructive hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast in August and September 2005, FEMA Spent more than $2.5 billion to buy up nearly 150,000 trailers, campers, and mobile homes, many of which were never even used. In 2007, the government started to sell these travel trailers, and many were bought for unheard-of prices, as potential buyers began inquiring how to buy a FEMA Trailer, many were gobbling up the FEMA trailer deals rather that spending $25,000 to $40,000 for a brand-new trailer.”
If FEMA did not have enough space to hold the trailers until needed again after a natural disaster, where will they put all of the mobile homes currently being sought? That question, among many others about the new purchasing program, has prompted renewed interest in “ FEMA camps ” stories.
In January, a different FEMA advertisement requested bids for companies that could provide “motor coach evacuation of the general population in response to a government-declared emergency.”
Do you think that FEMA is merely attempting to improve its less than shining reputation for quick and comprehensive response to an emergency, or could something more sinister be on the horizon?
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