Abandoned FEMA Trailers Sit at Bossier Parish R-V Park

In a follow up to a KTAL Troubleshooters investigation we first brought to our viewers on Monday, a number of FEMA trailers are sitting unoccupied at a Bossier Parish R.V. Park because many of them were abandoned. However, FEMA is still paying the leases on those lots. "William used to stay here with his wife Wanda," Warren Martinez, a New Orleans evacuee, said as we walked through Cash Point Landing. He is one of the last Katrina evacuees still living at the park. He says many of the others just left and never came back. That`s what we discovered when we visited Cash Point to investigate. We found photographs, trash and personal belongings inside a number of the trailers:all signs they were quickly abandoned. FEMA housing representative Cindy Permenter checks each and every FEMA travel trailer at Cash Point at least every few months and updates the cases of the evacuees. She says the number of occupied trailers is constantly changing. "There are 8 trailers occupied but that doesn`t mean people are actually living in them," Permenter said. In fact, 4 out of the 8 Cash Point travel trailers FEMA has listed as occupied could have been abandoned. That means the tenants left and never informed FEMA. "I see them one day and the next week they`ve just left," Permenter said. There are 15 travel trailers still on the property that according to FEMA are unoccupied. Permenter says most of those were abandoned. Martinez says one of the tenants died five months ago. Yet, the trailer she lived in still sits here with a number of her belongings outside. Some of the abandoned FEMA travel trailers have been damaged by squatters and cannot be leased to other evacuees. Eventhough only a confirmed 4 travel trailers are actually being lived in, FEMA is still paying rent for all 23 pads. Permenter says before FEMA can mark a trailer abandoned, they have to attempt to notify the tenant through a specific process. The agency has already moved at least 25 empty travel trailers have already been moved off Cash Point Landing. FEMA representatives will not confirm how much the agency is spending at Cash Point. However, an average renter would pay $300 per month for one lot. FEMA says representatives will revisit those 4 mobile homes they believe to be abandoned one more time before they are marked vacant. As for the ones that are confirmed vacant, a representative says they will be towed away as soon as possible and those leases will be canceled.