BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – While many shelters are in place for Tuesday’s storm, FEMA is granting hundreds of people displaced by Hurricane Ida one last extension for temporary housing.

Short-term accommodations, from FEMA, were set to end today, but that deadline has now been extended by 48 hours.

FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program pays for hotel rooms for those who lost their homes in a storm. But the accommodations are temporary, and for many, it’s about to end, forcing people like Karen Cooper, to find a new place to live.

“I’m not exactly for sure where or what I’m going to do,” Karen said while standing outside the Hyatt hotel, a place she has called home for over a month.

Hurricane Ida took ruined hundreds of thousands of homes in Louisiana, forcing many people, like Cooper, to live out of a hotel. Nearly 1,400 families are currently enrolled in the TSA program.

“It was destroyed,” Karen said describing her old home. “Totally destroyed, I didn’t know what else to do.”

Roughly 900 people in the TSA program were given notice that FEMA would no longer be fronting their hotel bills.

“The goal of temporary housing is always to get people into long, long term housing,” said FEMA Media Relations Manager Bob Howard. “Temporary housing, very unusual for an event, has gone on for seven months.”

Cooper recognized that she had a two weeks notice to find her own lodging. But over the months the deadline kept getting extended and extended. So when FEMA stayed firm, she was caught off guard.

“Now they are saying it is completely at this end,” Cooper said.

Howard said FEMA tries to help people using TSA to find a more long-term solution. But Cooper explained that if there is assistance, it hasn’t come fast enough to help her in the next few days.

“Then they said that I was approved for, you know, the rental assistance, the extended rental assistance, but I haven’t seen anything of that,” said Cooper.

The manager at the hotel said Cooper can stay one night more night to wade out the storm, according to Cooper, but soon, she might have to move into her car.

“It’s scary, very scary. You sleep with one eye open,” Cooper said.

Finding a permanent residence in her price range has been difficult.

“There’s just nothing in that’s really available in my budget right now,” Cooper explained.

“At the request of the state due to the severe weather, a two-day delayed check out has been approved for all households in the Transitional Sheltering Program (TSA) who had been set for move out on Wednesday March 23rd. The new Check Out date is Friday March 25th. FEMA works with survivors in hotels every step of the way providing information on FEMA assistance and guidance on finding more permanent housing solutions.  TSA occupants were notified nearly 2 weeks ago about their eligibility status and check-out date. After this latest round of checkouts, the only participants eligible to remain in the TSA program will be those who qualify for FEMA’s Direct Housing.“

FEMA Media Relations Manager Bob Howard