Families in Katrina Temporary Housing Face Health Problems

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, wants to close six trailer parks in Louisiana and the City of New Orleans is giving residents until July to find new housing.

After looking into reports of health problems such as rashes, breathing troubles and nosebleeds, investigators announced that cheap plywood in the trailers releases a toxic colorless gas called formaldehyde.

Nowhere to go

	FEMA trailer residents waited to move into the temporary housing two years ago and are now being rushed out.

"We have hundreds of people who have the potential for being homeless because they don't have the means for sustainable housing," Sister Judith Brun, a Catholic nun who is helping displaced residents find housing, told the Associated Press.

Many of those who lack housing three years after the storm are the poor, elderly or disabled. Some suffer from depression and other mental illnesses or have drug or alcohol addictions.

"They just want you to get out of here, but they don't care where you move," Bryan Hebert, who recently moved out of the trailers into an apartment, told the Los Angeles Times.

"I just pray to God and hope he brings me an answer," the unemployed 46-year-old added.

Toxic trailers

	Witnesses testifying before a House committee told members of Congress about the extent of the formaldehyde problem in the trailers.

Within months, many of the hundreds of thousands of people living in the trailers and mobile homes reported strange illnesses such as breathing problems, burning eyes, blood disorders and even death.

"It's just the sickness. I can't get rid of it. It just keeps coming back," Gina Bourranie who was pregnant with her now 15-month-old daughter when she lived in a FEMA trailer, told the AP.

"I'm just like, 'Oh God, I wish like this would stop.' If I had known it would get her sick, I wouldn't have stayed in the trailer for so long."

Investigators found formaldehyde at amounts greater than are considered safe. The colorless gas is most often emitted in new construction and in hot weather, both conditions present in the Gulf Coast following Katrina.

Although there are no set safety standards for formaldehyde in U.S. homes, the World Health Organization classified the chemical as a carcinogen, something that has links to cancer, in 2004.

Early in 2008 the Centers for Disease Control reported that 41 percent of the Katrina trailers it tested had levels of formaldehyde greater than 100 parts per billion. This is the number that occupational safety experts say is safe for workers for 15 minutes of exposure.

The government responds

	Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison emphasized that FEMA bought the trailers, but did not build them.

Local FEMA personnel said they are trying to find more permanent housing for displaced people but that task is beyond the traditional scope of the agency.

"It's a little beyond what FEMA would normally do," Jim Stark, the agency's acting Gulf recovery director told the AP. "Our mission is for emergency housing. Unfortunately, the emergency housing period for New Orleans and southeast Louisiana stretched a lot longer than anyone expected."

That's little comfort to the many children who are now sick and most likely will be sick for years to come.

"You give them the most potent steroids, the most potent antibiotics, and still they have the symptoms," Bay St. Louis pediatrician Dr. Shama Shakir told the AP. "I worry about what will become of these children long-term."