Tour of the Units Available through FEMA's Direct Housing Assistance Program

Hi. I'm Lenisha, and I'm here at a staging yard where FEMA brings mobile housing units and travel trailers before they go to an eligible individual or family. FEMA provides direct temporary housing assistance to individuals and families when there is a lack of housing resources due to a disaster. Now we have multiple solutions for temporary sheltering and housing assistance. The first step is always going to be apply for FEMA's assistance first. Today I'm here with Joe from housing, and he's going to walk us through what happens when we bring these units to a staging yard. Well, hello. These units are coming from our mobile, permanent bases in Cumberland, Maryland and Selma, Alabama. Currently, we have approximately 100 units. One bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom units. Sleep two, sleep four and sleep six travel trailers. These are temporary units that will be brought in for the survivors as needed as part of our housing program. All right, so we are going to take you guys on a virtual tour of the units available. So let's go. All right. So we're here in one of the available units Joe, can you tell us about this unit and some other units that are available and what comes with the unit as well? Yes, these this unit work particularly is a three bedroom, two bath unit. It comes fully furnished with beds and couches and tables and chairs. This is ready for shipping. Everything will be set up and installed when it's at a location. These units come with a starter kit, paper plates, sheets, blankets, pillows, that kind of thing to help families get started. They are universal units. The universal units have the lower cabinets. They have the under roll under sinks in here in the kitchen and in the bathrooms. They have sprinkler systems. We have smoke detectors. We have what we call the weather radios. These weather radios go into every unit that comes in. And we also have, for hearing impaired, we have the shakers that go under the pillows and also the strobe lights that go in. We also have the two bedroom units, which is again just a smaller unit, and then the one bedroom units, which is one bedroom, one bath. When we determine a family or individual is eligible for one of these units, where can we place the units for them to move in? These units will be placed either in a commercial park or a private site or alternate site, if they choose to say go to a grandparents property. We want to make sure that these units are placed in a safe, secure manner so that there's no future chances of them being damaged or anyone being hurt. Now we are in a travel trailer, which is significantly smaller than the mobile housing unit. Can you explain to us the difference of when we would provide someone a mobile housing unit or, versus a travel trailer? Well, the travel trailers are usually selected because of the size of the property and the makeup of the family. If it's just one person or a couple, it'd be easier to pull one of these units in. It's quicker and easier to set up. And it is for just a smaller family size. Okay. And do we provide the same essential items with the travel trailer like we do for the mobile housing? Yes, it comes fully with sheets, blankets, everything and is turnkey. When somebody walks in, they have they can get a set of keys and go right into living with it. These are our temporary units, six months is what the normal time is in these and then the mobile homes are more of a longer term solution. And for the travel trailers is just one version of the travel trailer? No, there's multiple. There's sleep two, which is just a bed for the two people, and then they sleep four, which would have a single bunk bed. And then there's the one that sleeps six. So how does FEMA determine how we're going to get the travel trailer or the mobile housing unit to someone's private property? Once someone applies, goes through the system and gets the application in, we will conduct a SIR, Site Inspection Report. What we do is send a team of people out. They'll measure the property. They're looking for the roads, the access. Are the bridges out? We try to find alternative ways to get things into the into the mountains if we need to. We try to figure out what the best location is, we don't want to impede someone rebuilding their house. So we have to look at how we can get it off to the side. But that whole process is done and then we stay in touch with the applicant the entire time, and we'll let them know what size unit will fit. We always measure to the largest unit. Now that we've seen the mobile housing units and travel trailers that an eligible survivor may receive during disaster recovery, I want to remind you, the first step is always to submit your application with FEMA. You can do that a few different ways, you can go on disaster assistance.gov, submit your application there, or you can go in person at a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center and sit down with someone to help you walk through that application process. Or you can simply call the FEMA helpline number, which is 1-800-621-3362. And always remember to keep us updated on any changes of your current situation, to keep us informed on any changes that may need to come to your application. Put that application in with FEMA as soon as you possibly can.