Just as bank foreclosures have pushed people out of homes only to let the houses idle in vacancy, the trailer eviction policies seem to defy logic (though perhaps that's on par with other examples of the agency's legendary dysfunction).

The US Human Rights Network called on the Obama administration to deliver “substantive” relief to the families left behind by the recovery effort—far more than the threadbare services and substandard housing that have deepened the region's economic and racial inequities:

Thousands of persons -- not unsurprisingly principally people of color -- are still displaced from their Gulf Coast region home and the federal government has the primary responsibility to provide assistance to these displaced persons throughout the duration of their displacement.

Despite ample evidence that survivors have not been able to access adequate assistance, Louisiana FEMA spokesperson Manuel Broussard told the Times, “Everyone’s been offered housing up to this point several times. And for various reasons, they have not accepted it.”

FEMA's memo on the termination of the trailer program explains that the agency “has been providing temporary housing for 44 months—26 months longer than the statutory limit,” suggesting that somehow, the trailer occupants are the ones dragging their heels in moving toward self-sufficiency.

FEMA is making one last effort to make the best of the situation: occupants are supposed to be given the option of purchasing their trailers at a price that the agency determines based on “fair market value,” provided that the survivor fronts the money for “other costs, such as the State sales tax, insurance, local permit fees, and hazard and flood insurance (if required), and any cost associated with moving the unit (if applicable).”

Whatever housing resources FEMA has made available to hurricane survivors over the past 44 months, one thing the agency doesn't seem capable of offering is dignity.

Image via Flickr