Hurricane victims still relying on the wobbly benevolence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for housing received a familiar—although far-from-assured—reprieve Wednesday. This time, however, the stay of eviction was accompanied by an Obama administration strategy to rectify the situation by this summer, according to an article in the New York Times.

The plan would allow those living in eligible FEMA trailers and mobile homes—those that pass safety and formaldehyde inspections—to buy their units for $1 to $5 and would provide $50 million in HUD housing vouchers to residents whose units don’t qualify or who are now in alternate FEMA housing, such as hotels or temporary rentals. Arrangements will be made to reimburse trailer residents who bought their mobile homes for much higher amounts in anticipation of the program’s end.

The administration said federal Recovery Act funds earmarked for homelessness prevention—$26.1 million in Louisiana and Mississippi—should be used to help with security deposits and utility bills, according to a Times-Picayune report.

Thousands of residents had been told they would be on their own after the agency shut down its long-extended housing program May 31. But the agency—which has kept the program running more than two years past its usual 18-month disaster aid period—said it would hold off on evictions while Obama put his plan into play, according to the Washington Post. An estimated 3,400 victims of Hurricane Katrina still depend on government-provided housing, the article stated.

Even while those mired in the situation are heartened by the promise of action, many are still leery of getting their hopes up.

Many have decried the mismanagement of housing vouchers and other funds meant to help those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Years later, housing stock along the Gulf Coast is still woefully lacking and thousands of previously-approved housing vouchers are undistributed, according to multiple media reports.

In Jackson, Mississippi, $570 million set aside for Hurricane Katrina recovery housing has been diverted to a port project, according to the Sun Herald. It’s easy to understand why, even with the promise of a different administration and renewed efforts, doubters remain.

“It’s been such a long history of FEMA making announcements in the media,” Martha Kegel, the director of Unity of Greater New Orleans told the New York Times, “and nothing much in the way of assistance has ever trickled down….”