TEXAS CITY — After Hurricane Ike devastated her sister’s residence in Galveston, Emma Fontenot agreed to have a mobile home set up on her property to house her sister’s family.

The Federal Emergency Managment Agency installed it but must remove it after the city said no trailers were allowed.

Jessie Henderson lived in apartment 34B of the Palm Terrace in Galveston, which is a Galveston Housing Authority complex. After evacuating the island ahead of Hurricane Ike, she returned to find that her apartment was no longer livable.

“If it weren’t for my sister, I’d be living in a tent somewhere,” Henderson said.

Like thousands of others, she applied to FEMA for housing assistance. Meanwhile, Henderson, her daughter and 7-year-old grandson found refuge in Fontenot’s Texas City home.

She wasn’t the only family sheltered there. At one point, Fontenot was the voluntary innkeeper for 27 kinfolk.

Many have moved on, but Henderson, along with sister Sadie Lundy and niece Calmetta Lundy and her children, remain.

Two weeks ago, FEMA told Henderson she was approved for a mobile home if they could find a place to put it.

The home couldn’t be placed at the Palm Terrace, but Fontenot offered up extra acreage at her home.

The FEMA contractor agreed and went about the site assessment and brought the home in, hooked up the water and sewer and installed a light pole.

The contractor even installed a front porch.

“They did everything they were supposed to,” Sadie Lundy said.

Everything, that is, except get the proper permits and permission from the city of Texas City, which has a very strict ordinance against mobile homes.

“The only place in Texas City where we allow trailers is in designated trailer parks,” said George Fuller, the community development director. “Anywhere else, trailers or mobile homes are not permitted.”

The FEMA contractor would have known that had a call been made to the city for the proper permits.

City building officials said neither the agency nor its contractor ever called to get permission to install the mobile home.

Fuller said had Texas City suffered severe damage from Ike like other communities in the county, it was likely a revised ordinance would have been put in place that would have allowed homeowners with dwellings that suffered significant damage to place a temporary mobile home in front of their home for a limited period of time.

Even if that were the case, Fontenot’s property would not be eligible.

“If we allowed for that, everyone with family from Galveston would be putting up trailers in their yards,” Fuller said. “We’re sorry that it’s hard, and we are really sensitive to what they are going through.

“But Texas City is back to normal, and we can’t make exceptions to the ordinance because it affects property values.”

The Lundys said they also had been approved for mobile homes at their sister’s house.

Fontenot and her sisters said they understand the city’s point, and it’s the Galveston Housing Authority they are really mad at.

“They have just dumped us,” Sadie Lundy said.

“Why haven’t they found us apartments or a place to live? I am frustrated. I am homeless. I am handicapped, and I need some help now.”

“In a sense, we are homeless because we don’t have a place to live where we can have some privacy,” Calmetta Lundy said.

Meanwhile, FEMA is trying to find out how the mess happened in the first place. Spokeswoman Barb Sturner said the agency “respects all local codes and ordinances,” but it was not clear how the proper procedures were not followed in this case.

That includes obtaining all the proper permits and getting clearance from the city to place the mobile home on private property.

In most of the cities in the county, FEMA mobile homes can only be installed on the lot of a severely Ike-damaged home.

None allow for those from other communities to place a mobile home on nondamaged lots.

Sturner said that while the agency will investigate what happened, “the main point is these people need a place to stay. We will find a way to house these families.”

For now, Fontenot’s home remains an inn for her sisters and their kids while the white trailer sits idle next door waiting to be dismantled and taken elsewhere.