Government Spurring Housing Boom Following Katrina

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he federal government is beginning what some planners are calling one of the biggest bursts of federal housing development in U.S. history, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Last year in Florida, the Federal Emergency Management Agency built a record 15,000 homes in following four hurricanes that swept through that state. After Hurricane Katrina, they hope to build 30,000 homes every two weeks, reaching 300,000 within months, the Times said in a front-page story.

The numbers could drop if the demand falls, but more than 140,000 people are now packed into emergency shelters, while hundreds of thousands of others fill hotels, friends’ or relatives’ homes or are temporarily relocated across the country, the paper reported.

The building boom is intended to bring as many people as possible back to the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, the Times said.

At four big staging areas in the region, FEMA is assembling tens of thousands of mobile homes and trailers. In Baton Rouge, La., thousands are already lined up on a field at a former Defense Department logistics center, the Times said.

To meet FEMA's needs, factories are putting out the trailers and mobile homes and the agency also is buying homes from lots and warehouses across the country, it reported.