\u201cHomesick\u201d by Nicholas Shapiro, Duke University Press, 256 pages.<\/strong><\/p>\n The holiday season is a time for homecomings and family gatherings, staying in, snuggling down and enjoying the comforts of home \u2014 which makes Nicholas Shapiro\u2019s \u201cHomesick\u201d an apt but unconventional read to end the year on.<\/p>\n \u201cHomesick\u201d is, at the surface, a biography of the emergency housing provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: the infamous FEMA trailer. Along the way, Shapiro, a professor and environmental researcher at UCLA who spent 15 years interviewing and advocating for trailer residents, presents a crucial story about the homes we inhabit and how they\u2019re killing us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the months immediately following Katrina, the federal government awarded trailer manufacturers over $2 billion in no-bid contracts to churn out over 120,000 mobile homes. Distributed across the Gulf Coast, and centered in and around New Orleans, FEMA trailers provided housing for over 300,000 residents.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FEMA trailers are pictured Friday, April 8, 2022, at the I-10 RV Resort in Lake Charles, La.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLong before they became a symbol of protracted and painful recovery,\u201d Shapiro concedes, \u201cFEMA trailers were cornerstones of the infrastructure of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite their cramped quarters, most often 250 square feet, and thin walls, the trailers performed their utilitarian tasks: to be cheap, temporary and portable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all the space I could handle,\u201d a New Orleanian told the author.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like living in a Swiss Army knife,\u201d a Plaquemines Parish resident boasted. \u201cWhat more could you ask for?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The biggest ask, it turns out, was for homes that didn\u2019t make inhabitants sick.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the engineered wood that gave form to most surfaces in these trailers,\u201d Shapiro writes, \u201ctoxic chemicals, most notably formaldehyde, were continuously wriggling free of their bonds and into breathing space in a process known as \u2018off-gassing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Because off-gassing is temperature and moisture-dependent, as the heat and humidity rise throughout the day, season to season, all those surfaces \u2014 walls, floors, ceilings, cabinetry and doors \u2014 leach increased levels of formaldehyde into a trailer\u2019s enclosed atmosphere.<\/p>\n Made from methane, and used in home construction materials since the 1950s, formaldehyde is the most common and most understood indoor-air pollutant. This naturally occurring gas responsible for so much of our modern housing is also \u201can irritant, an allergen, a neurotoxin and a known human carcinogen.\u201d Formaldehyde causes more cancer than any known air pollutant, by far.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n FEMA trailers represent the largest formaldehyde exposure in human history, with many residents experiencing levels of toxicity two to three times higher than the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended limits.<\/p>\n Jeremy, a New Orleans pastor in Mid-City, lived in a trailer with his family going on five years when Shapiro interviewed him.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could really feel the formaldehyde,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Over time, his family members suffered from bronchitis, chronic fatigue, nasal congestion, insomnia and eye irritation.<\/p>\n Another New Orleanian, Marquisha, was 13 when she moved into a trailer and was soon diagnosed with asthma and pneumonia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tie-down stakes from her FEMA trailer and flowers in old tires are an homage to the recovery years following Hurricane Katrina at the New Orleans garden of Karen Kersting.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I went up in there, my head would hurt a lot,\u201d she told Shapiro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt burns my eyes and I am getting headaches every day,\u201d someone wrote on the website of Gulf Stream, the leading FEMA trailer manufacturer. \u201cI have tried many things, but nothing seems to work. PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!!\u201d<\/p>\n Never stepped foot in a FEMA trailer? Shapiro says don\u2019t count your blessings.<\/p>\n \u201cNine out of every ten breaths in your life,\u201d he writes, \u201cwill take place in enclosed spaces where the air is suffused with chemicals that are off-gassing from construction materials and the myriad commodities that fill our daily lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the course of a day, the average American gulps down 18 pounds of \u201cindustrially textured air.\u201d Our homes are literally making us homesick.<\/p>\n This is a tough read, in terms of subject matter and Shapiro\u2019s occasional descent into academese, one in which levity only comes in the form of absurdity. Formaldehyde was only one of many problems for trailer residents, including crumbling pipes, moldy siding and electrical outlets that spontaneously combusted. Keys provided by FEMA could often unlock multiple trailers, resulting in simple and frequent break-ins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Shapiro profiles Frank Renda, a senior environmental scientist working for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, who raised alarms over a 2007 report that downplayed the long-term health risks of inhabiting a FEMA trailer. Punished for insubordination, Renda was reassigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In his new office, in a new building, he soon started developing rashes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christopher Owens, center, peers into the window of a FEMA trailer as he helps Jeffrey Babcock, 48, settle into his temporary home in Lake Charles on Thursday, May 13, 2021. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n
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