Officials Texas-wide are saying the federal government is far too slow in helping displaced Harvey victims with short-term housing they need after enduring the disaster of a lifetime.
Communities all along the Texas coast are clamoring for short-term housing as Harvey victims rebuild – and are complaining that the federal bureaucracy is moving at a snail's pace.
More than 880,000 Texas households have applied for disaster aid of some sort.
That raises the question of whether help has reached areas that need it most, like further down the coast.
“No,” Mayor Charles Bujan of hard-hit Port Aransas says point-blank to Newsradio 740 KTRH. “Absolutely not.”
Bujan says most of his affected constituents registered with FEMA, as they had been instructed to do by the federal government. Yet now -- more than two months later -- only “four or five” FEMA trailers have been authorized in Port Aransas, the mayor said.
That’s despite the fact that 85 percent of his town’s homes were damaged or destroyed.
The state says more than 7,000 families still need government-subsidized temporary housing, like as apartments or trailers, while they rebuild their lives and homes.
Bujan says storm victims remain scattered throughout south Texas, waiting for the means to return and rebuild.
The Texas Tribune, in shining first light on the issue, reports that about 51,000 southeast Texans are still in motel rooms, based on FEMA’s signup count – and another 26,000 or more are bunking with relatives, paying for motel rooms out of their own pockets or, in some cases, accepting the risk of staying in their still-unrepaired homes.