FEMA turning to conventional housing?

We have an email this morning from the National Multi Housing Association, which together with the National Apartment Association has been thundering for weeks over what it views as FEMA's neglect of conventional apartment housing possibilities for Rita and Katrina evacuees. Today, now, it claims credit for what sounds like a change of direction from FEMA:

...FEMA is now revising its post-disaster housing policy and will move evacuees from hotels to more permanent housing, including apartments. On Monday, NMHC/NAA met with FEMA to begin working out the details. FEMA reports that it has two options for providing housing assistance. It can provide assistance directly to the evacuees under the Section 408 program, as it has already done by sending many people $2,358 checks to cover three months of rent. Or it can provide funding directly to the states through the Section 403 emergency sheltering program.
It appears that FEMA now realizes that it will need to rely on the state and local governments to match evacuees with appropriate housing. Under the program, FEMA would provide money to each state, and the state would then contract for housing with the apartment owner. (This program is already taking place in Houston, where the city has created its own voucher program.) ...

The text will probably appear a little later at the National Multi Housing Association site. Do look at NMHC's site today in any case, as they've just posted a big group of useful articles, including an eight-page PDF fact sheet explaining the FEMA "Public Assistance" program under Sec. 403 of the Stafford Act, which would be emphasized under the change of policy NMHC is describing. Sec. 403 reimburses state and local governments for the cost of interim housing. This fact sheet goes beyond the obvious into thorny questions like who pays for the cost of transporting evacuees and how to set the price of furniture provided. Really worth reading, not just for public employees, but also for apartment owners and managers who may end up contracting with those reimbursed local governments.

Also new on the NMHC site: apartment market survey data (explanatory press release here), and a table of demographic and housing data in major Katrina receiving communities.