When the industry learned the specifics regarding the July 7 auction, it directly contacted Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) who chairs the House Housing Subcommittee. After conferring with senior Democrats who sit on the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Ney instructed his Washington staff to contact FEMA and direct them to postpone the July 7 auction. FEMA complied and the auction was postponed.
As a follow-up, Reps. Ney and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the Ranking Democrat on the House Housing Subcommittee, met on July 11 with FEMA officials in Washington. In response to Congressional objections, FEMA reported that it now has no current plans to auction any new unoccupied homes, including those in Selma or Hope, Ark. (where approximately 10,000 FEMA “temporary housing units” are in storage at one of FEMA’s “staging areas.”). In the future, FEMA might attempt to auction older, previously occupied homes that are no longer “mission ready.” Future auctions would take place following consultation with Reps. Ney and Waters. But now the manufactured housing industry has learned that FEMA plans an auction of “used homes” for July 21 and MHI has again alerted Reps. Ney and Waters regarding FEMA’s latest auction plans.

Rep. Ney and Waters also requested additional information from FEMA on a number of issues including: the current plan to get the new units down to the lower Gulf Coast region; FEMA’s general inventory and location of all homes; who would be invited to bid (general public vs. industry retailers), etc. at future auctions. FEMA officials indicated that it would provide this information to the Congressional staff “in the near future.”