WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - After Hurricane Katrina left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, the Federal Emergency Management Agency signed contracts for more than $2 billion in temporary housing, including more than 120,000 trailers and mobile homes. But the agency has placed just 109 Louisiana families in those homes.

A month after the disaster, the federal government's temporary housing effort is stumbling.

The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that FEMA was freezing many orders for trailers, although the agency disputes that. Members of Congress, complaining that a $236 million deal to lease three ships to house evacuees was far too expensive, are calling for an investigation. And under an alternative FEMA program to give victims cash to find their own housing, 332,000 households have been approved in just a week.

 Federal officials acknowledge that the installation of mobile homes has moved slowly, especially in Louisiana. But they are blaming the disruption caused by Hurricane Rita, as well as local officials in Louisiana.

"We as a federal government can't come in and just place anything anywhere," said James McIntyre, a FEMA spokesman. "This is not a takeover. We have to work within the limitations set by state and local officials."

Louisiana officials, though, have been working tirelessly to find spots for the trailers, said Kim Hunter Reed, director of policy and planning for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

Ms. Reed described the process as too cumbersome and in need of streamlining, but said: "We are working as fast and as hard as we can to make this happen. We have thousands of people in shelters who are past ready to move."

Almost 48,000 people remain in shelters in Louisiana, according to the governor's office, and about 30,000 Louisiana citizens are in shelters in other states. For those who want to stay in Louisiana, FEMA's new cash and voucher programs are not a solution, Ms. Reed said, because there is no vacant housing.

Some housing experts say it would make sense to scrap plans for large-scale installations or even for the smaller 500-unit trailer parks the agency now envisions.

"There are a lot of problems with trailers," said Susan J. Popkin, a researcher for the Urban Institute in Washington. "You're concentrating people in the middle of nowhere, and once they're there, it's very hard for them to get out."

Especially if displaced families get relocation help and other social services, Ms. Popkin said, they would be better off moving to places with existing schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. "People's basic needs go beyond a roof," she said.

FEMA is leasing three ships from Carnival Cruise Lines and a fourth from Scotia Prince Lines; together, they can hold 8,116 people.

As of Wednesday, 3,726 people were on the ships when a census was taken, suggesting they may be less than half full. FEMA officials say that understates occupancy, because not all guests are on the ships at any given time. Based on the number of people registered to stay on the ships - most of whom are doing recovery work - FEMA officials believe the ships are more than 80 percent full and will be at capacity in a few days.

"It serves quite a big need to put people in the right location," Natalie Rule, a FEMA spokeswoman, said. "People needed to rebuild."

But the ship deal has drawn rebukes from several lawmakers, some of whom are calling for an investigation into how the Carnival contract was negotiated. The three Carnival ships are costing the government $236 million, or about $1,280 per person per week, assuming full occupancy. The Scotia Prince ferry, less luxurious, is costing $13 million, or about $500 per person a week.

"Where was the judgment?" said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma.

Mr. Coburn suggested that the government could have saved money by simply sending people on a six-month cruise, as the advertised weekly rates for some Carnival cruises to the Caribbean are lower. "I don't know anybody who has experience in finance or in business who says that the price they paid is appropriate," he said.

Carnival has said that the government payments would simply replace the revenues it would have collected if it sailed its planned cruises. Four analysts who track the industry said that Carnival had negotiated a good deal, but that there were too many variables involved - including lost gambling revenues - to determine whether it would prove to be a windfall for the company.

The temporary housing FEMA has provided was made available fairly quickly in Alabama and Mississippi. Nearly 4,000 travel trailers or mobile homes are ready for occupancy in those two states, and many of them are already filled.

But progress has been much slower in Louisiana. Only 1,397 travel trailers or mobile homes have been installed, and just 109 are occupied. About 1,000 trailers have been given to businesses, like the Folger's coffee operation of Procter & Gamble, for temporary housing for workers

Ron Albright, program manager for the Fluor Corporation of Aliso Viejo, Calif., the engineering consulting firm hired by FEMA to install the units, acknowledged that the work had gone slower than the company would like. Mr. Albright said getting approval to occupy land that has access to basic utilities and other infrastructure had been difficult.

Several big trailer parks are in the works, but FEMA is nowhere near a goal that it set earlier this month of delivering 30,000 units of housing every two weeks.

Officials from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, said they were still committed to providing temporary housing through mobile homes and trailers. But they said they wanted to give evacuees choices.

"It may be some will voluntarily choose to go where there are jobs, and for the time being use temporary housing assistance," Ms. Rule, the FEMA spokeswoman, said. "Maybe they'll want to rebuild on their lots and they'll want to put a trailer there. We're not going to make them do it, but we're going to enable them to do it."

So, a week ago, the federal government announced it would provide two kinds of rental assistance to evacuees for up to 18 months. It can be used anywhere in the country.

Homeowners and renters are eligible for cash payments; people who had been living in federally subsidized housing are eligible for a voucher program.

Edgar O. Olsen, an economist at the University of Virginia, said that this kind of program made more sense than installing a lot of trailers, even though it might result in a steep drop in population.

"Let the individuals decide what makes most sense," Mr. Olsen said. "If it means the population of New Orleans is less, that may bother some politicians in Louisiana. It doesn't bother me in the slightest."

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