For Some Displaced, Home Is Now a Trailer Village

This is where Elizabeth Burregi lives now: a 32-foot Fleetwood trailer littered with remnants of life before Katrina.

Her Aug. 28 copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune is still wrapped in plastic. Her daughter Haley’s pink book bag holds papers from a school term that lasted just one day.

“This is ... what we can call home. You can’t call a shelter home,” said Burregi, 37. The mobile home where her family lived before the hurricane sits dark and wind-weathered in Marrero, La.

On Sunday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency set up its first housing units for evacuees, creating a trailer village where the Burregis and their extended family -- nine people -- now live in two trailers.

In the coming weeks, a yet-to-be determined number of displaced residents should be able to move from makeshift shelters in gymnasiums and stadiums to temporary housing in trailers or manufactured houses.

Louisiana officials have criticized the federal government for moving too slowly in the relocation effort.

Patterson -- a community of 5,200 that bills itself as the cypress capital of Louisiana -- sits along U.S. 90, amid a smattering of chain gas stations and restaurants. A sign advertises gator tours.

Turn off the highway and head toward the silo strung with Christmas lights. Cross the railroad tracks. Nine white trailers rest on wood planks and concrete blocks in the Kemper Williams Park.

Signs taped in the trailer windows read: FEMA Disaster Relief Vehicle. To those inside, they are a welcome refuge from the stench and clamor of the shelter at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La., where many had been housed.

“I’m happy to be anywhere right now,” said Marion Orsini, 75, whose table was bare except for six pairs of black socks.

“We can get up, drink our own coffee, smoke our own cigarettes, we can go to the store,” said Glenn Bankston, 40. He was listening to a radio broadcasting hurricane news.

“This is fine, but I’m going back to New Orleans if they ever let us,” said Rodney Buffington, 75.

Elizabeth Burregi said she, her husband, Victor, 41, and their three children stayed at the university shelter for nearly a week -- barely sleeping, scared that someone would pick their pockets.

Then a FEMA official approached them Sunday, Victor said, and they were off to their new homes. “My heart started racing. We didn’t know what we were coming to,” Elizabeth said.

The Burregis’ trailer looks as if someone had tried to unpack a house in a hotel room. Empty cigarette packs and candy wrappers sit in a Coke box serving as a trash can. A plastic bag is full of crayons, and playing cards are scattered across the floor.

Space is tight: one full bed, twin bunk beds and a couch that folds out. There’s a microwave oven above the sink and stove, a restaurant-style booth and the smell of a bacon-and-eggs breakfast.

Though better than a shelter, the Burregis’ temporary home is far from ideal. The family doesn’t have an address -- they wondered how Victor would get his disability checks. And then there was the question of where to enroll the children in school.

“I’m in limbo. It makes you feel helpless,” said Elizabeth’s mother, Betty Romero, 56, who lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Gretna, La., before the storm. For now she was relishing the little things, like being able to enjoy a cup of hot tea.