Nearly decade after Wilma, FEMA wants people to pay money back

June 14--WEST PALM BEACH -- For nearly a year, Enos Gaudet's$901 monthly Social Security check came with a $133 bite, courtesy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Gaudet now lives in DeLand, west of Daytona Beach. In 2005, he was teaching at Belle Glade Middle School. Wilma smashed the mobile home he was renting on the shore of Lake Okeechobee, near the Pahokee Marina. FEMA gave him money.

Gaudet is one of 528 individuals or families who FEMA has decided it overpaid, and from whom the agency demanded some of its money back.

The numbers of affected people are tiny. The 528 represent only one fifth of 1 percent of the nearly quarter million Florida households that got Wilma assistance. And the $1.12 millionFEMA wants back is only a third of a percent of the $342.26 million it paid out.

About half of the amount that people were told to pay back has been recovered.

Of course, FEMA doesn't have to just wait around for a check. It carries the power of the federal government.

That means income tax refunds, or in Gaudet's case, Social Security payments.

FEMA says most of the repayments came about because people inadvertently "double dipped." They made claims with both FEMA and their private insurance companies. Or two members of the same household, perhaps relatives or roommates, both made requests for federal assistance.

FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak said FEMA sends a series of letters, each more demanding than the previous one, then latches on to various federal agencies that could withhold money from federal payments to the individuals.

FEMA has said in the past it began rechecking its books under congressional pressure to show it is managing its budget properly.

Hudak said FEMA has been conducting the same process with other storms from the calamitous 2004 and 2005 seasons.

She said this month that the process for collecting for Wilma has taken this long -- it struck nearly nine years ago -- because the agency had to sift through the 227,321 payouts for discrepancies.

After The Palm Beach Post filed a federal Freedom of Information Act last month for payout records, FEMA said it could immediately provide only statewide figures. A county breakdown would be provided once the agency dispensed the 724 requests ahead of The Post, something that could take months or years.

Hudak said the 528 are people who were told to repay Wilma money pretty much have exhausted any avenues of appeal.

That's the case with Gaudet.

After Wilma smashed his Pahokee mobile home, he said, the structure was declared unlivable and "there was no electricity for 30 days."

He said he spent several months commuting from a $25-a-night hotel on U.S. 1 in West Palm Beach, until the distance became impractical. He lived in a FEMA-supplied mobile home for three days, but it was too small for his large frame.

"I couldn't fit in the bathroom," he said.

Finally, unable to get to work, he lost his job at the school.

He said that when he finally got a new position at a private school in Pahokee in March 2006, and moved back out there, "the FEMA money stopped."

In all, he said, FEMA had given him $3,000 for housing assistance and $500 for clothes.

Then, he said, "skip to December 2013. I'm not retired. I find my Social Security (check) is missing hundreds of dollars."

Gaudet, 70, said he couldn't figure out who was taking the money until he finally learned it was FEMA.

"I said, 'It's been eight years," he recalled.

He said the agency told him he could keep the $500 for clothing but shouldn't have received the housing help because of the condo he owned in West Palm Beach. He said someone already had a lease from before the storm and was living in it through July 2006.

Gaudet said he'd never seen any of the demand letters because they'd been sent to the mobile home in Pahokee, where he hadn't lived since the spring of 2006.

Gaudet, who moved to DeLand in 2008, said he appealed and also tried to get a North Florida congressman to help, both without luck.

But around that time, he said, in spring of 2013, FEMA did stop garnishing his Social Security check; by then it had taken $1,000. He says FEMA told him at the time it still intends to pursue that last $2,000 and has reported the debt on his credit report.

FEMA spokeswoman Hudak said the agency's barred by privacy issues from discussing individual cases.

It's not just individuals FEMA is pursuing. It's also going after cities nationwide, large and small. From 2010 to 2013 alone, it asked for $65 million back just from towns, cities and counties in Florida.

This past summer, the agency told Lake Worth it hadn't properly documented $4 million of the $26.5 million it had received for repairs and cleanup after the 2004 and 2005 storms and would have to pay it back.

"We are working with our new federal lobbyist," City Manager Michael Bornstein said, "to resolve this in Washington. There are meetings being scheduled next month."

FEMA also ordered the South Florida Water Management District to repay $21.9 million in 2013, arguing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should have paid. The district later sued FEMA, contending the work had already been approved.

The case is still under consideration by the judge in federal court," district spokesman Gabe Margasak said.

___

(c)2014 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.)

Visit The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) at www.palmbeachpost.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services