By Steve Gravelle, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Oct. 27--CEDAR RAPIDS -- Facing a deadline to leave her family's governmentsupplied mobile home or start paying rent, Veronica Dorsey is scrambling.
"I'm hoping to be out of there before they start charging us rent," Dorsey said of the three-bedroom mobile home at Grand View Manufactured Home Community in southwest Cedar Rapids.
Dorsey, 28, husband Eric, their two young sons, and a dog and cat moved into the mobile home supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in July 2008, after floodwaters overran their home on G Avenue NW. Last week, FEMA officials announced tenants could stay in the mobile homes past the Nov. 27 deadline -- but they'd be charged rent starting in December.
In Dorsey's case, that's $920 monthly for their three-bedroom mobile home. FEMA charges the fair-market rate set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The rate for a two-bedroom unit in the Cedar Rapids market is $649.
FEMA tenants had been staying rent-free, which allowed Dorsey to continue to make mortgage payments on the G Avenue house, where repairs are near completion. If the house isn't ready before FEMA begins charging, she'll have to pay both the rent and
the mortgage. "It's going to be a big hardship," she said. "My husband got laid off, and we're barely going to be able to pay our mortgage and our utilities down atthe house." Her husband is on a seasonal layoff from Cretex Concrete Products,she said. Dorsey said she received a letter from FEMA about the rent about a week ago.
"This is a standard practice if it's deemed necessary to extend a program," said Crystal Payton, FEMA spokeswoman in Des Moines. "People have been living without paying any rent now for15, 16 months."Displaced residentshad faced a Nov. 27 deadline to be out of FEMAprovided housing. First District Rep. Dave Loebsack announced Friday that the agency would extend the deadline to next June, but he didn't mention that tenants will be charged rent if they stay past the original fall deadline.
On Monday, Loebsack's office said families may be eligible for a reimbursement on their rent, on a scale based on income and family size.
Dorsey said she's been told she may qualify for housing assistance, but she hopes to move back home by December.
"What's holding us up right now is getting the paint, because that's not on the contractor's bid," she said. "We're alsostuck with waiting on the windows." Dorsey said her case advocate at the Community Recovery Center is putting in a work order through Rebuild Iowa for the paint, and she'll seek volunteers to help get the house painted.
If they choose to pay the rent, FEMA tenants may stay in the mobile homes through June.
Payton said a similar agreement was in effect for residents of Greensburg, Kan., after a tornado razed much of the town in May 2007.
From a peak of 564 families in the summer of 2008, there were 124 Iowa families in FEMA housing last week.
รข?" Contact the writer: (319) 3985819 or steve.gravelle@ gazcomm.com
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