Hurricane evacuees now fear evictions

The government's disaster relief agency says help is on the way for Williams and other evacuees caught in the frustrating tangle that prevents landlords from accepting more rent money than what Washington is willing to cover.

It is a problem in Houston and elsewhere where rents set by the market outpace the government's gauge for determining aid levels. For families, it is making it harder to find long-term housing. For cash-strapped cities, it is adding to their financial woes and depleting their resources for helping hurricane victims.

''These vouchers are pretty much worthless because they don't cover the full amount of the rent," Williams, 40, said in a telephone interview from the Tranquility Bay apartment complex in Pearland, Texas.

Federal officials said they could not say how many Katrina victims have been affected. Houston officials said as many as 6,000 additional rental units could be opened to families using federal vouchers if they were allowed to pay part of the rent.

Since Katrina hit on Aug. 29, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided $3.4 billion in housing assistance to evacuated victims. The money goes directly to victims or to state and local governments as reimbursement for their costs in housing hundreds of thousands of evacuees.

Housing officials say FEMA reimburses only as much as a federal measure of average rental costs, which differs by city.

In some cases, local officials are unwilling to accept extra payments from tenants for fear that FEMA will not pick up its share.

The agency now is allowing some flexibility for reimbursements, including increasing the level of local rental costs and letting evacuees contribute to rental payments, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.

Last month FEMA circulated an internal e-mail clarifying the policy; it is not clear whether the information went to local housing officials.

The agency is preparing a statement to assure Houston housing officials, and FEMA's acting director, R. David Paulison, has told the city that FEMA will ''pay a fair price, but would not be gouged," Andrews said.