Families in FEMA trailers must begin paying rent Jan. 1

About three dozen Iowa families face a Jan. 1 deadline to begin paying rent on temporary housing they've been living in since the June 2008 floods, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said Wednesday.

That's an extra rent-free month. FEMA announced in October its mobile homes could remain in Iowa through next June, but tenants would be charged rent starting Dec. 1. The agency's guidelines had called for the mobile homes to be removed by the end of this month.

Of the 73 units remaining in Iowa, 37 households plan to move out before Jan. 1, FEMA spokesman Bob Josephson said. The agency housed 592 Iowa families in the mobile homes in the weeks after the flood.

Rent for the remaining units will be based on local market rates set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, with reductions based on family size and income. Cedar Rapids' local market rate is $920 monthly for a three-bedroom unit, $649 for two bedrooms, and $492 for a single bedroom.

Monthly rents can't exceed 30 percent of a family's adjusted income. FEMA representative meet monthly with tenants to help them plan the transition to permanent housing.

Nearly all the FEMA tenants in Linn County also have case advocates at the Community Recovery Center in northwest Cedar Rapids. Steve Schmitz, the center's director, said the advocates are frustrated by a lack of detailed information from FEMA on each family's rental rate.

“There's concern about whether or not the FEMA residents are going to be charged the full amount,” he said. “It almost sounds like they won't know until they get their rent bill” for December.