The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency will be allowed to donate an unspecified number of Hancock County’s Katrina cottages to nonprofit agencies.

Hancock County supervisors agreed Wednesday to allow MEMA to donate the cottages that were designed to create safer alternatives to the flimsy FEMA trailers being used to house Hurricane Katrina victims following the 2005 storm.

The state’s alternative housing program, which has provided free cottages to Katrina victims, expires at the end of March. Residents who live in the structures and are unable to buy them will be forced to relocate.

MEMA spokesman DeWayne Gray said his agency wants to donate the cottages to nonprofits who want to pool them into parks in unincorporated areas for elderly people and low-income residents.