The Federal Emergency Management Agency is ready to erect temporary manufactured housing units for Vermonters whose homes are uninhabitable due to this summer’s floods — as soon as the agency finds a location for the shelters.
In addition to a sample unit in Berlin, FEMA has six staged in Hartford and more available, ready to be hooked up to utility lines and moved into.
Finding locations in Vermont to site the units has proven to be a challenge for the agency. One option, according to FEMA coordinating officer Will Roy, could be the former Montpelier Elks Country Club, which is now owned by the city. The Montpelier City Council preliminarily approved the proposition earlier this month. Another potential location is in Springfield, Roy said.
Roy told reporters at a Wednesday press conference that of the roughly 240 Vermont households initially contacted by FEMA whose homes were substantially damaged or destroyed, 43 are actively requesting FEMA accommodations. Other families, Roy said, have found temporary shelter elsewhere, whether in a rental, with friends or family, or out of state.
Displaced families occupying FEMA temporary housing units do not have to pay rent or utilities, Roy said. But there is a limit on how long they can stay: 18 months from the date of a disaster declaration. With Vermont’s disaster declaration dated July 2023, displaced families can stay in the units until January 2025, unless the state is granted an extension, according to FEMA individual assistance support contact Sam Harvey.
None of the seven units already in Vermont are spoken for, Harvey said. The goal is to move in displaced families as soon as possible.
“We are not trying to make anybody wait,” Harvey said. “If we had a private site that was available tomorrow, we would start that ball rolling.”
On Wednesday, FEMA officials offered members of the media a tour of the sample housing unit in Berlin. The age of each unit varies, but they are generally less than 10 years old and have been previously occupied elsewhere in the country. The units being sent to Vermont are cold-weather graded for winters as frigid and snowy as Alaska’s, according to Harvey.
Harvey said each unit is furnished with kitchen appliances, a dining table, a couch, beds and basic linens to ease occupants’ move-in process — especially if they lost most of their belongings in the flood. The units include washer and dryer hookups, but tenants have to bring their own machines and take them when they leave. Units compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act are available and include an entrance ramp, shower bench, bathroom supports, and wider door frames and halls.
“We want it to be move-in ready, A., so that survivors don’t have to pay any of their own money for something that is going to be temporary, but B., so it just goes a little bit faster,” Harvey said.
One-, two- and three-bedroom units are available depending on household size, Harvey said. If a large family requires more than three bedrooms, they could potentially occupy two units placed next to each other.
FEMA aims to relocate disaster-affected households within a half-hour of their homes, so they remain in close proximity to their workplaces, schools, doctors and community. For school-aged children moved into units located outside of their home school district, Harvey said, FEMA works with municipalities to help arrange bus transportation.
A sample, two-bedroom unit staged at a state government building in Berlin this week was adorned with tan walls, a tan linoleum floor, a tan couch, bedroom dressers affixed to the walls and a wooden dining table and chairs. To make themselves feel at home, occupants are free to move around whatever furniture isn’t bolted to the walls or floor, Harvey said. They can add area rugs and hang pictures or decorations from the walls with removable adhesive, but no nails.
One of the sample units’ two beds featured dolphin-patterned pillowcases.
“We try to make it a little homey,” Harvey said.