The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been working hard to respect its deadline of moving all the people who are living in its six trailer parks to other housing facilities by June 1, the first day of the hurricane season.

One of the reasons for which this decision was made was the high levels of formaldehyde, a substance usually found in building materials, which was discovered during tests made to see whether the trailers were safe to live in for a longer period of time. Formaldehyde is known to be a carcinogen substance and one that causes breathing problems.

Most of the people have been happy to leave the trailer parks, where they have said that drugs were dealt and that it was not a suitable place for children to grow up, but many people have shown concern about where they will live and how they will be able to pay their rents.

After Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, rent prices have gone higher and higher, people having to pay now about 40 percent more than before for a place to stay. The salaries and the federal financial aides have remained the same. FEMA has tried to find cheaper housing for the hurricane’s victims, but most of these buildings were destroyed by Katrina. One solution that was found was to accommodate the victims that haven’t found a place to stay in motels.

While some of the people that have lived in the FEMA trailer parks will benefit of housing subsidies until March 2009, those of them who can’t prove where they lived before Katrina destroyed their homes will benefit of the aid for another month only.

By Saturday, a day before the deadline, the former largest FEMA trailer park, Renaissance Village, had only 40 still occupied trailers out of the 575 that housed the Katrina victims until a few days ago.