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Hope getting used to trailer cash Thursday, Nov 22, 2007 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - For $1 million a month, Hope city officials don't mind the eyesore - and the black eye for the federal government - that's made their city the site of the state's largest trailer park. The Federal Emergency Management Agency last week said it spends $1,089,350 per month to store and maintain thousands of manufactured home and travel trailers on Hope Municipal Airport property. FEMA has 19,602 vacant mobile homes and travel trailers in Hope. Most were intended as temporary housing for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Hope collects monthly rent for the property of about $25,000. Plus, it reaps an economic windfall comparable to the revenue generated by a small industry, said Wesley Woodard, president of the Hempstead County Economic Development Corporation. About 75 people are currently employed at the trailer site, where FEMA says monthly payroll costs are $416,755. "They stay in the local motels, they eat in the local restaurants and buy things at the hardware store. It's just like having a business here," Woodard said. Yet, Woodard and others having mixed feelings about the site, long a target of lawmakers as an example of wasteful government spending. FEMA purchased more trailers than necessary in the aftermath of the hurricanes, then learned that the housing units could not legally be placed in a flood plain, where the disaster occurred. "We pay federal taxes, too, and if there's waste involved we need to get it fixed," Woodard said. "Just like cars, houses fall apart if they're not used. As a taxpayer, I think they need to do something with them. A FEMA spokeswoman said the agency wants to eventually decrease the number of trailers at Hope to 13,500, with those at the ready to respond to future disasters. She did not offer a time frame. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., has introduced legislation to force FEMA to sell, give away or trash the Hope trailers within nine months. Another bill in Congress would ease restrictions on how the housing units could be distributed. Michael Teague, a spokesman for Pryor, said the economic impact to Hope has not been significant when compared to the dollars a manufacturing plant would generate. In addition, the site isn't exactly something the city solicited, he said. "On balance, when you measure whether FEMA has been a good steward of the nation's tax dollars, hands down they have not," Teague said. "Yes, Hope has benefited from the decisions FEMA has made, but I don't know if they've looked at this like a 20-year deal or anything." Hope's city treasury sees no additional revenue from the monthly lease of $25,000, said City Manager Catherine Cook. That money is deposited directly into operating funds at the airport, part of an agreement with the U.S. Army when the military donated the 50,000-acre Southwestern Proving Ground to the city in 1945. Hope Mayor Dennis Ramsey said the land transfer was conditioned on using money derived from the property for the benefit of the property. Cook said the FEMA-funded airport account has about $500,000 currently. Money has been used to purchase new fueling systems and tanks and roofing work on a hangar. Ramsey said he hopes some of the funding could leverage a grant for overlay of the airport's runway. "It's obviously been a win for the airport and for the folks that are working out there," Ramsey said. If FEMA were to move the trailers, "the eventual job loss would be more of an impact. "Obviously we've benefited from it and would obviously be interested in seeing a long-term facility out there," The $25,000-a-month lease rate remains the same regardless of how many housing units FEMA keeps on the site, Ramsey said. So, city officials aren't concerned about the loss of rent revenue if the agency were to downsize. FEMA officials last month sent 50 mobile homes from Hope to California, where they will be used by victims of wildfires in that state. About 1,000 are to be donated to American Indian tribes, the agency said. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, said he would support the FEMA spending if Hope was used as a location to prepare previously used trailers for future disaster victims. "However, having over 6,000 brand new, never-used, fully furnished mobile homes sitting at the Hope Airport in a hay meadow does not make any sense and is a waste of our taxpayers' hard-earned money," Ross added. Ross lashed out at FEMA in May for its unwillingness to ship a handful of trailers from Hope to Dumas in response to a tornado there. Now, employees are unable to perform maintenance on many of the housing units - there are more than 70,000 nationwide - because of concern about exposure to formaldehyde fumes. Ramsey said he did not know what effect the moratorium on entering the homes would have on jobs at the site. "I don't think you can ever get used to that site being out there," said Ramsey, who said a couple from Montana had stopped at the new 'tourist attraction' a few days ago. "Because, when you start doing the math on it, there's a lot of money sitting out there, and it's not doing anyone any good." |
