When your house drowns, what happens? The Lovelaces of D'Iberville, Mississippi, told filmmaker Joel Cohen of the Center for Rural Strategies how they relied on family, friends, and FEMA in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina.

"Everybody ought to have to live in a FEMA trailer and lean over a toilet and brush their teeth," Mr. Lovelace said. He and his wife had considered buying a mobile home and traveling after his retirement. Not an idea they relish now.

Scores of people who were housed in FEMA trailers after the 2005 storms have testified that formaldehyde fumes inside the poorly ventilated trailers have cause health problems. According to the Washington Post, "As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects."