As state-run disaster housing program winds down, futures vary

Standing just outside of a camper she's lived in since Hurricane Ida -- in nearly the same spot where she was shot last year -- Charisma Mouton is full of excitement. She is going to college.

Prior to Hurricane Ida, Mouton was a housekeeper with her own home. Ida took all of it from her, and by December of 2021 she was living in a state-provided camper. Things kept spinning downward for her when her car's brakes went out, leaving her no reliable way to job hunt. Her camper in the Rebecca Plantation Park had its propane tank stolen. She couldn't receive mail to fill out her government documents. And in May of 2022, she was shot outside of the camper.

On June 1, she stood outside the same camper and proudly held up an email on her cellphone that showed she was accepted into Fletcher Technical Community College's nursing program. She starts in July.

"I thought I was trippin' when I read it," she said. "And I called my case worker and she was like, 'Oh, that's some good news.'"

She's also considering working as a forklift driver or truck driver while she attends classes.

The Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness has been broadcasting June 1 as the end of the program, but as the date grew closer they described it as a soft ending.

The Ida Shelter program is separate from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's trailer program and the two function much differently at this point. Both were originally funded by the federal government, but on January 1 the feds stopped funding Ida Shelters and the State picked up the cost.

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FEMA is charging tenants rent to remain in the trailers and must get extensions every six months. The Ida Sheltering program is free to tenants, but the state is looking at ways to reduce the cost of the program such as no longer providing propane to the occupants.

Terrebonne is down to 765 campers on private sites across the parish, and 106 on group sites. Rebecca Plantation makes up the bulk of the group site number with its 87 campers. Lafourche has 429 throughout its parish.

To help residents in the campers with their needs, and verify that they were trying to move to permanent housing, caseworkers began contacting the residents much more frequently. At first, the barrage of questions bristled residents, including Mouton, because they felt they would have nowhere to go.

Mouton's caseworker secured her financial assistance for job training through the Louisiana Workforce Commission, assured her she can stay in the camper until the end of the month, and informed her that the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government would be accepting 500 Housing and Urban Development rental assistance applications for vouchers on June 30 at the Houma Municipal Auditorium, 880 Verrett Street, from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Elsewhere in the park, futures are a little more bleak. Nathaniel Fournier stood outside of his camper with a toolbelt on and an electric saw chopping wood. He said he wasn't sure what he was going to use the wood for yet, but he enjoyed building stuff to pass the time. Around his camper he had a small white fence, potted plants, and piles of debris that he pulled the wood from.

He was building a back end onto a trailer to live in when Ida tore it up.

Originally, FEMA housed him in a hotel in Lafayette. He would drive to and from work, and to visit his son. He does construction work, but the head gasket blew on his van eight months ago, leaving him without a reliable way to get to job sites. He said he could easily pull $700 to $800 a job, but without transportation, work has all but dried up.

He is hoping for rental assistance, and said that beyond that, he is unsure of a next step.

"I'm not going to lie, it's been a blessing to get the camper but it's one thing after another back here," he said. "It's just a snowball effect."