You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Audit: FEMA Misspent $1B in Hurricane Katrina Relief

HeadlineApr 14, 2006

A new audit from the Department of Homeland Security has determined FEMA misspent at least one billion dollars after Hurricane Katrina in attempts to secure temporary housing for evacuees. $900 million dollars was lost when FEMA bought 25,000 manufactured homes that were too big or unsafe in flood zones. The audit also criticized FEMA for spending over $850 million dollars to put up evacuees in hotels and on cruise ships for months at a time at rates far above the cost of private apartments. The spending has left FEMA short of funds to deal with other matters. Last week Democracy Now visited a FEMA trailer park in Baker, Louisiana where residents complained FEMA had just stopped providing free meals due to lack of funding.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top