The Homes They Built and FEMA Deferred
By Mary Nichols

Juan Casada is missing half his home. The kitchen’s caved-in roof illuminates the three-bedroom trailer and brings other damages to light. He’s lived here in far north San Juan for two years without incident, until Hurricane Dolly tattered this South Texas region known as The Delta. You can smell the mold, visible on the living room ceiling, and hear the constant drip of water on the floor. “The floor went to total waste, along with all my kitchen appliances,” Juan said pointing to the mold-black floor. “The inspector said that my house was still livable. How? You tell me. My family is spread out, and we have been living on sandwiches for two-weeks,” he said in August after being denied assistance by FEMA.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said that the condition of his home was livable when the agency denied his application for help. The inspection report stated that Casada’s home didn’t have sufficient damage for needed assistance.

DEFINING THE PROBLEM

After Hurricane Dolly flooded the Rio Grande Valley in July, more than 36,000 people registered for assistance with FEMA from Starr, Hidalgo and Cameron counties. Out of the 36,000 requests for FEMA’s help, nearly 23,000 have been denied. That’s about 80% of all applicants. FEMA cites reasons such as not having liability insurance, failed identity verification, or forgetting to sign applications. About 15,000 — nearly half — of the denied requests were because FEMA said the homes suffered from what the agency calls “deferred maintenance,” a term generally describing a ramshackle home. In Juan’s case, it’s a

40-foot-long trailer with a hole in the roof that lets in rain and mosquitoes — and that’s left him, his wife and his three children practically homeless for ongoing months.

YOU HAVE BEEN DEFERRED

Juan’s home was one of the 15,000 tagged as suffering deferred maintenance, and therefore denied. The diagnosis basically means that an inspector felt that a home had damage before the storm, or that insufficient damage was caused by the storm. How accurate these diagnoses are is something to ponder. Especially since many who were denied recall inspectors parking on the street to take pictures, inspecting homes from inside their parked cars. Some recall inspectors unwilling to deal with mosquitoes.

FEMA subcontractors conducted some 30,000 inspections after Dolly. Patricia Villarreal, legal clinics coordinator for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid (TRLA), a non-profit law firm serving the southwest, said that she’s dealt with about 300 inspection appeals from people fighting FEMA denials. TRLA seems to be the only group in South Texas helping residents navigate the maze of government bureaucracy involved in appealing a denial.

“ We have many situations where the inspector says there is minimal damage and, in fact, they are missing half their house. It has become a noticeable trend,” said Villarreal.

Charles Powell, a FEMA spokesperson, said in an interview at FEMA headquarters in McAllen, that most FEMA denials in the Valley cite deferred maintenance. Compared with FEMA denials in other hurricane-hit regions, the Valley stands out for its high rate of deferred maintenance denials.

“A lot of the homes built were built from second hand materials,” said Powell. “So the damage was, in most cases, caused from the faulty building of the house, and not the storm.”

Villarreal said the situation is unfair. U.S. residents shouldn’t be denied disaster funds because a FEMA inspector thinks a home is shoddy. Generally poor, the denied are the ones who often need help most.

MEET YOUR INSPECTOR

FEMA uses two privately owned companies to conduct damage inspections when disaster strikes. Several to a few hundred inspectors are brought into hurricane disaster zones where and when needed. According to FEMA, most inspectors have a construction background, are fingerprinted, and have had background checks.

Though some of their training is classroom based, with ongoing field training, some practice inspections using online tutorials.

TRLA doubts that FEMA inspections in the Rio Grande Valley were performed properly.

Jose Luis Argaello lives in a small, aquamarine house in San Juan. His home used to be a small ranch, but now it’s part of a small neighborhood that remained flooded a month after Dolly. Argaello’s home appears old and built out of what FEMA might describe as second hand material. Argaello, however, is proud of the home he built. After damage from Dolly, mold grew on ceilings in the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. Five adults and six children live in the house, complete with chickens, dogs, cats, and a parrot out back.

“They gave me (money) to paint the damages,” he said. “ But, what’s the point when water is leaking into the rooms. The roof is the problem.”

Argaello says a female inspector refused to climb a ladder to look at his roof. A third of the roof’s tiles were blown away. As rains continue from the season’s hurricanes, his living conditions deteriorate.

PROGRESSIVE POSSIBILITIES

Though the region’s damage was severe, similar future damage can be prevented using progressive construction techniques, as performed on some homes rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.

Michael Grote, program manager of Architect for Humanity’s Biloxi Model Home Program, is solving people’s below-standard-home problems by building solid, cost-effective housing for Katrina victims in Mississippi.

“We worked with most anyone who was affected, “ he said. “Obviously we targeted a neighborhood that is predominantly populated with lower income, working class, working poor.”

Like Katrina, Dolly left many lower income homes without repair. When Dolly victims begin rebuilding, they’ll make do with what funds they’ve received from FEMA, if any, and build just enough to get by until another hurricane, Grote explained.

The Biloxi program, in contrast, helps build homes with long-term construction to proper city and FEMA codes, and re-establishes communities while changing the way homes are built in hurricane-prone areas.

“It is an important transition from temporary to permanent housing. If you are just relying on municipal inspectors to be your buffer between good and substandard construction,” he said. “That’s not much at all, when you look at the indemnity municipalities have in times of building/structural failure.”

Though Rio Grande Valley counties have not backed a similar sustainable construction project, officials say they’ve taken basic measures to help fix Dolly’s lingering damage by participating in canned food drives and referring residents to community organizations that might be able to help.

But there are no local government efforts to deal with any regional concerns about the health or homelessness of the families living in the 30,000 homes denied by FEMA.

“As far as health issues, continuing mosquitoes,” said Lambrecht. “They are better controlled, but obviously mosquitoes will still persist until all the larvae hatch.”

STILL DEFINING THE PROBLEM

To deal with poor living conditions, families like Juan’s split up to live with friends and relatives, avoiding a return to their holed and leaky trailers and shacks. Residents like Horacio and Lupita Cervantes, migrant workers, returned to a damaged home but were denied by FEMA because the home’s water meter had been stolen. A tree fell through one woman’s living room, and the inspection report read there was no ‘visible damage.

The Rio Grande Valley has received a total of $35 million to help with Dolly relief efforts. Some have been lucky enough to receive a favorable inspection and a chunk of green. But tens of thousands are left to figure out what to do with the holes in their roofs, growing mold, and destroyed appliances.

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