If your home in Gary, Hammond, Merrillville, Crown Point, Valparaiso, Portage, Michigan City, La Porte, and rural Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties is not livable after the August storms, you may be able to stay on your own property while it is repaired. We deliver a furnished travel trailer to your driveway or yard, set it up, have it connected, and service it for the whole stay. When a carrier approves the trailer, we can bill the carrier directly.
Local rules. No code we found in Lake, Porter, or LaPorte County has a storm or rebuilding exception for living in a travel trailer on your lot; Valparaiso and Portage allow short stays, and the rest bar it. Each rule is linked to its official source below.
Housing a crew? Hammond, Merrillville, Crown Point, and the counties allow construction trailers or offices on a job site, and none of them says workers may live in them. Crew rules and housing
FEMA lists Lake County, Porter County, and LaPorte County under Individual Assistance for this disaster. Households there apply for FEMA help at DisasterAssistance.gov; FEMA set October 25, 2026 as the deadline to apply in Indiana. For Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties, official updates come from the Lake County Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Lake County Storm Info Hub, Porter County Emergency Management, LaPorte County Emergency Management of Homeland Security, LaPorte County 8/11/26 Storm Damage Assessment form, and Indiana Department of Homeland Security.
Checked against the sources above as of . For current information, go to the source.
What the official county, city, state, and FEMA pages stated when we read them. Each line carries its date and links its source.
Not stated on an official page. Anything not listed here was not stated on an official page we read. Ask the county emergency management agency for the latest.
Whether a trailer can stay on your lot is decided by your city or town, or by the county or township outside city limits, and by your HOA if you have one. Here is what each one’s own code or official page says, in short. Our parent brand covers the residential RV rules for Northwest Indiana in detail.
Where your city or county does not allow a trailer on the lot, ask its planning office what it does allow during repairs. The LaPorte County joint ordinance, for one, lets the Building Commissioner place a manufactured home on the lot of a burned home for up to six months; it does not cover a travel trailer or storm damage.
That depends on your policy and your adjuster. When a carrier approves the trailer, we can bill the carrier directly, so you are not fronting the cost. Our parent brand explains the claim side on 1st Choice Living’s Northwest Indiana page. Once the placement is arranged, the trailer, delivery, and service are ours.
Every size arrives furnished, with real beds, a full kitchen, a bathroom with a shower, and heat and air conditioning. If the work on the house runs into the cold months, read winter care and freeze protection before the first hard freeze. More on a trailer on your property while you rebuild.
We work with any temporary housing company. If one is handling your housing, ask them to place you with Temporary RV Living, or with our parent brand, 1st Choice Living, for a trailer on your own lot in Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties. They send us the placement, and we deliver, set up, and service the trailer.
For restoration, roofing, tree, utility, and response crews working in Gary, Hammond, Merrillville, Crown Point, Valparaiso, Portage, Michigan City, La Porte, and rural Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties. Bring the housing to the work. We deliver travel trailers to the site, or as close as the ground allows, and set up and connect them the same way we do in a driveway. A two-person crew fits one trailer. A full crew takes a cluster, and the Workforce Bunkhouse sleeps six or more per trailer, with a kitchen and a bathroom the crew shares. One point of contact runs the placement, it lands on one invoice billed directly to the company, and we handle the LOA, COI, and compliance paperwork your office or your client requires.
No code we found in these three counties lets a crew live in trailers on a job site. Ask the planning office for the site before delivery, with the address and how long the crew expects to stay; the trailers can also go on land zoned for them nearby. More on crew housing.
Water, sewer or septic, and electrical connections are completed by licensed, insured contractors from our preferred vendor network, so you do not hire an electrician or a plumber. We look at how far the trailer will sit from the water, sewer, and power it will use, and confirm the site with you on the call before the trailer rolls.
Electric service in Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties comes from the utilities below. Each posts its own outage updates.
Septic: Indiana's residential onsite sewage rule defines a dwelling as any place used for seasonal or permanent habitation or sleeping, and requires a written permit from the local health officer before an existing onsite system is added to or altered. We found no county rule written for hooking a trailer to a home's septic system, so call the county health department before connecting. Source: Indiana Administrative Code 410 IAC 6-8.3 (residential onsite sewage systems)
Call the office for the city or town where the trailer will sit, or the county or township office outside city limits. Ask whether a travel trailer may be used there, for how long, and which permits the hookups need.
Answer a few questions in the request form and a rep calls you back with a written quote, or call (214) 493-1515.
Our sister brand LossMap covers documenting a property from the air for a claim, on LossMap’s Northwest Indiana page.
Not under the codes we found. Hammond and Merrillville bar living or sleeping in a trailer on a residential lot, and Crown Point bars living in a trailer anywhere outside a licensed tourist camp. Gary's new development ordinance and Lake County's ordinance state no RV rule either way, and none of these has a storm or rebuilding exception, so ask the city or county before anyone moves in.
Valparaiso allows one trailer on the lot of an occupied home for up to two weeks with a special permit from the county health department, no more than twice in 12 months, and otherwise limits a trailer to 48 hours outside a trailer camp. Portage bars living in a parked RV except a visitor's RV for up to 15 days in a row and 30 days a year. Unincorporated Porter County says an RV shall not be used as living quarters.
Michigan City, La Porte, and unincorporated LaPorte County share one joint zoning ordinance, which says travel trailers and camping trailers may not be lived in outside a lawful mobile home park or tourist camp. It lets the Building Commissioner place a manufactured home, not a travel trailer, on the lot of a burned home for up to six months. Ask the planning office before anyone moves in.
Not under any code we found. Hammond allows a trailer for up to 180 days as an office, security post, or construction shelter, and Merrillville, Crown Point, and the counties allow construction trailers or offices, but none says workers may live in them, and Porter County says its contractor offices may not contain sleeping facilities. Ask the planning office for the site before delivery.
We deliver, set up, and service trailers nationwide, and have since 2004. Put the address in the request form and we confirm the site with you on the call.
Official pages and official code hosts, checked October 17, 2026. Rules can change after a storm; the office that wrote the rule has the final word.
For your family or a crew, answer a few questions and a rep calls you back with a written quote.
