Storm victims still struggle to find permanent homes

BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer

PUNTA GORDA Ñ Almost two years after Hurricane Charley destroyed his low-rent apartment complex, Carl Riggs is still struggling to find some sense of normalcy.

The one-legged Vietnam veteran, who is on disability, lives in a government trailer on a gravel lot behind the Charlotte County jail. It's one of about 200 trailers set aside there for hurricane victims. "We're trying to live normal, but sometimes it's just impossible," Riggs said. "We're just trying to survive. I don't know what the answer is."

Thousands of Floridians face the same obstacles as large regions saw their low-cost housing either destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by the eight hurricanes that hit or brushed by the state in 2004 and 2005. The devastation left the newly homeless poor with few options, and Florida's soaring real estate prices aren't helping.

"There's no affordable housing left here, none at all," Riggs said. "We're go-getters. We talk to people every day, but there's nothing."

About 5,050 Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers were still being used in Florida at the end of April Ñ just one month before the next hurricane season Ñ down from a peak of 18,894. Throughout the Gulf Coast region, more than 111,000 FEMA trailers were still in use, including the areas of Louisiana and Mississippi destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last August. It's the largest deployment of FEMA temporary housing in the agency's history. The trailers are free to storm victims for up to 18 months, then, in many cases, residents must start paying rent to FEMA and eventually find their own homes.

Riggs, 54, his wife, Joan, a nurse, and 15-year-old daughter aren't paying rent, yet. They were living in poverty before Charley hit on Aug. 13, 2004. After losing all their possessions and the $450-a-month apartment the family had lived in for 12 years, there seems to be no way out.

"We were making ends meet," he said. "After the storm hit, forget it."

Loraine Helber, Charlotte County's housing coordinator, said community groups are working with people like Riggs to find permanent housing, but that the county's stock is slim, especially rental properties for low-income residents.

"Many of the damaged or destroyed homes and apartments that had been our rentals or first-time homes are being relisted now, but sometimes the rent isn't affordable anymore because of prices for repairs," Helber said. "There has been an increase in our homelessness."

Indian River County officials estimate their homeless population jumped more than 20 percent to about 860 people. Its housing authority recently announced a program for low-income residents displaced by storms that could provide temporary rental assistance to up to 50 families. The jump in homelessness is "pretty consistent throughout the heavily damaged hurricane counties," Helber said. "Everything is expensive. Taxes have gone up, insurance is escalating.We're doing as much as we can."

House lawmakers recently voted to approve a $634 million plan they say will help address the housing crisis, providing down payment assistance and lowinterest loans to poor people but affordable rental properties are still scarce.

"The solution is simple Ñ more affordable housing more quickly," said Jaimie Ross, president of the nonprofit Florida Housing Coalition. In Desoto County, Virgil Luther, 40, lives with his wife and eight children in a cramped three-bedroom FEMA trailer. He, too, has been looking for permanent housing after losing his rental apartment to Charley.

"I want to get out real bad, but there's no housing," Luther said. "The hurricanes caused everything else to go up in price, but we're still the same poor people getting the same wages." Luther could leave the state for more affordable housing, but this is where he was born, this is his community.

"I have roots here," Luther said. "I've been here all my life. If we have to load up in my van and stay in my van, we will."

Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles-area psychologist specializing in trauma, said roots are often all people have left after a disaster. "A lot of times people want to leave, but when they leave, they lose all their connections, and that can be even worse than losing possessions. Then they're all alone," Butterworth said.