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FEMA Trailer Construction Begins For Almeda Fire Victims In Talent

In January 2021, the Federal Emergency Management Agency installed several manufactured homes in Mill City following last year's Santiam Canyon wildfire. The agency plans to install similar units in Jackson County.
FEMA
In January 2021, the Federal Emergency Management Agency installed several manufactured homes in Mill City following last year's Santiam Canyon wildfire. The agency plans to install similar units in Jackson County.

Construction has begun on a new housing site in Talent, Ore. for victims of last fall’s Almeda Fire.

Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency are planning to have 27 new mobile homes ready for families to move into by mid-June. The FEMA trailers will be at the former site of the Totem Pole Mobile Park along Highway 99 in the Rogue Valley.

“This is one of the sites that literally burnt to the ground, that people had just moments to flee from,” says Jamie McLeod-Skinner, interim city manager for the City of Talent. “And so now, it’s an opportunity for folks to return.”

The Totem Pole site is one of three housing projects in the works in the Talent and Phoenix area. There are still approximately 125 families displaced by the Almeda Fire waiting for housing, according to FEMA spokesman Paul Corah.

But between finding property and acquiring the trailers, the process has been slow in the Rogue Valley. Corah says the agency considered over 300 sites in Jackson County alone.

“It’s easier to get an RV site way away from Talent and Phoenix, but no one wants to live out there,” Corah says.

According to McLeod-Skinner, with FEMA investing in the infrastructure, the city is hoping the Talent site could potentially be used for permanent housing.

“Everyone recognizes that kids and families were in that stressful situation that much longer, but the hope was that with that additional time spent up front it may open the door for longer term [housing] and more housing stability,” she says.

The new trailers are available to tenants rent-free until March 2022, 18 months after the emergency declaration for the Almeda Fire last September. McLeod-Skinner says she expects officials in Talent, Jackson County and the Governor’s office to extend that deadline.

Erik Neumann is JPR's news director. He earned a master's degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and joined JPR as a reporter in 2019 after working at NPR member station KUER in Salt Lake City.