City councilmen demand an end to tent city; council urges permanent solution

Published 6:18 pm Thursday, October 12, 2017

By David Ball

david.ball@panews.com

The Port Arthur City Council was seeking answers on housing questions after many homes were damaged in Tropical Storm Harvey flooding.

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Harold Doucet Sr., District 4 councilman, said he would like to see residents move out of tents and into more permanent housing including hotels.

Denise Bordelon, division supervisor with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said some hotel chain owners don’t want to participate in the FEMA program of housing displaced residents. She added that she would meet with them during the week to see if they could increase the number of hotels participating.

As of Thursday, Bordelon said the meeting with Mayor Derrick Freeman, FEMA and six hotel owners of multiple locations went “fairly well.”

Several hotel owners said they would free up some rooms to offer to displaced residents. Other owners did not have the rooms available.

Furthermore, FEMA is partnering with a couple of hotels that thought they wouldn’t be eligible under the rental voucher program.

The Texas General Land Office is administering the FEMA housing program in the state. The GLO is pushing for long-term housing solutions such as manufactured homes and travel trailers.

Bordelon said some Port Arthur residents have received calls they will get one of the trailers.

“Units are moving out. Jefferson County will receive some of the first units,” she said.

Freeman said the city has found more than 30 hotel vouchers for residents staying in inadequate housing, but some don’t want to leave.

He added that Oct. 24 is the last day to apply for a hotel residence.

Doucet said FEMA should schedule a town hall meeting at the civic center’s tent city.

Bordelon said there were 2,000 trailers in a yard in Hearne, Texas. Not all trailers have a sprinkler fire suppressant system, but that is not a requirement. She said elderly and disabled residents will use the ones with sprinkler systems.

“The lower requirements will free up more trailers,” Bordelon said.

The city also looked into using CHRISTUS St. Mary Hospital which is largely vacant as temporary housing for displaced city employees. The arrangement, however, proved to be too costly even at a 90/10 funding split wherein the city spends only 10 percent of the total cost because the rent is $1 million a month and it would cost the city $100,000 a month.

Currently, 60 employees are staying in hotel rooms and 250 had their homes impacted by Harvey and some hotels have asked city employees to leave.