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FEMA Sending Collection Letters

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Gail Fotheringham reads the letter she received from FEMA, which stated that she owed them more than $1,300 for mobile home rental. Fotheringham said she doesn’t understand why she owes money on a place where she was evicted from.

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By Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today

Published: February 16, 2008

SEBRING — It came in the mail last week, although it's dated Jan. 15, a collection notice from FEMA.

"I have no idea why they sent this," said Gail Fotheringham, 57, a grandmother who lived in a FEMA mobile home for 18 months with her daughter and three grandchildren.

"You have not paid the amount you owe the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Mobile Home Rental," said the letter, which seeks a balance due of $1,357.58.

Mary Hudak, a spokeswoman in Atlanta, said FEMA, on an ongoing basis, is collecting money owed to the federal agency for a variety of reasons. After the hurricanes of 2004, which ravaged Central Florida, FEMA provided $1.184 billion in assistance to individuals and households in Florida, and hundreds of mobile homes to families in Highlands and Hardee counties.

"If people needed money, FEMA advanced it to them," Hudak said. But they were expected to pay back the federal government.

Some recipients of FEMA trailers didn't pay their rent, others received insurance settlements for hurricane damage and didn't report it to FEMA, still others received duplicate FEMA checks. By law, FEMA cannot duplicate insurance benefits, said Florida spokesman Jim Homstad.

Hurricane Victim

Fotheringham and her family lived in a mobile home before a 2004 hurricane — Charley, Frances or Jeanne, she can't recall which — tore off a carport, left a hole in the floor and allowed in mold.

FEMA offered the five a travel trailer with bunkbeds and a kitchen table that folded out into a sleeping area. They stayed there for six months, then moved into a three-bedroom, one-bath mobile home in Valencia Mobile Home Park in Sebring.

In March 2006, she offered to buy the mobile home from FEMA, but she was evicted instead.

"They said I shouldn't have gotten it in the first place," said Fotheringham, an LPN who works at a cardiac care center in Sebring.

Currently, Fotheringham and her daughter have taken in another child and need more room, so she's looking for a house.

That may be problematic. The FEMA letter says, "if you do not pay your debt or take other action ... within 60 days from the date of this letter, FEMA will submit your debt to the Department of the Treasury. FEMA will continue to add interest, penalties and administrative charges to your unpaid debt until your debt is paid in full."

She could also be prosecuted, the IRS could collect the debt from future refunds or Social Security payments, or the debt cold be referred to a collection agency, the letter said.

Fotheringham said she will seek advice from an attorney.

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