The May 2007 AARP Bulletin reports that FEEMA stockpiled some 8000 new manufactured homes in Hope, Arkansas to be used for the homeless in connection with Hurricane Katrina. When a tornado hit the Arkansas town of Dumas in February it left over 150 people homeless. Since the FEEMA manufactured homes were only 126 miles from Dumas, the officials asked for housing assistance, but FEEMA refused. Why? Well, because President Bush hadn’t declared the town a federal disaster area. Under bureaucratic rules, in order to declare a disaster area the tornado had to cause deaths. After a public outcry, FEEMA finally relented two weeks after the tornado had struck, but required the state to pay for moving them.

FEEMA has a glut of brand new manufactured homes because the ones brought for the Katrina victims can’t be used in a flood zone. So the agency has been auctioning off taxpayer paid, brand new manufactured homes at fire sale prices. Ain’t the federal government and Bush White administration wonderful?