Your Tax Dollars at Work

Note to Hurricane Rita survivors: Please don't beat up the FEMA
trailers, use them as meth labs or cart them off to your deer lease
during hunting season.

More than 1,200 of the one-bedroom travel trailers issued to people
displaced by Rita have been torn up so badly that serious repairs have
been necessary, according to a statement Tuesday from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.

try{OAS_AD('Middle');}catch(e){}
'); -->"They're certainly not for long-term living, and we at FEMA
better understand that better than anybody," said Don Jacks, an agency
spokesman in Austin.

4,600 trailers issued
In Texas, more than 4,600 of the one-bedroom trailers were issued free
of charge to those made homeless by the Category 3 hurricane when it
hit Sabine Pass on Sept. 24, 2005.

Today, about 3,000 of the trailers  which cost federal taxpayers
$20,000 each  remain in use in Texas. So far, about 1,200 have
suffered so much vandalism they had to be sent to FEMA repair centers
in Texas and Arkansas, Jacks said.

One trailer had more than 300 cigarette burns. Another was burned to
the ground. Hundreds of others have torn cushions, broken doors, torn-
up refrigerators and myriad problems.

Used as drug labs
Then there's the illegal use issue.

Some of the trailers issued to Hurricane Rita and Katrina evacuees
have been used as drug labs. One Texas man trucked his to Louisiana
and sold it. A few other tenants have hooked them up to vehicles and
even taken their trailers to deer leases to have a place to stay while
hunting.

"They are rare instances," Jacks said of the hunters. "You shake your
head and wonder, 'What are they thinking?'"

Jacks said residents need to understand that vandalizing or removing
the trailers could violate their written agreements with FEMA.

That said, only five Rita victims have been removed from trailers for
violating those agreements, according to FEMA.

terri.langford@chron.com