WASHINGTON – The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave a holiday reprieve yesterday to roughly 150,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees, saying the vast majority will not lose government subsidies for the hotel rooms where they have been living until January 7.

A week ago, FEMA warned hurricane victims living in every state except Louisiana and Mississippi that it would stop paying for their hotel rooms by December 1, which it said was an attempt to encourage them to find permanent housing. But the announcement sparked widespread protest from state and local officials and housing advocates, who said the huge number of evacuees in hotels could not find permanent housing in 15 days.

The agency reversed course yesterday. FEMA’s acting director, David Paulison, said the 10 states housing the bulk of the evacuees – including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia – would be able to keep them in government-paid hotel rooms until January 7 as long as they provided federal officials with long-term housing strategies.

Other hurricane victims, who are scattered around the country, would have until December 15 to find apartments, for which they would receive as much as $2,358 for three months’ rental assistance and the possibility of as much as a 15-month extension.

“Let me be clear: We are not kicking people out into the streets. We are not stopping the flow of money,” Mr. Paulison said in a telephone conference call with reporters. “We just don’t want to be paying for hotels and motels anymore.”

Nearly 50,000 families uprooted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are now living in hotel and motel rooms nationwide as part of a $300 million program, Paulison estimated. FEMA is paying about $60 a day for those rooms. For evacuees who move into two-bedroom apartments, by contrast, FEMA is paying an average of $786 a month, which saves the government more than $1,000 a month.

Officials in Georgia and Texas, where tens of thousands of evacuees are in hotel rooms, said they welcomed the move but remained concerned that FEMA lacked a comprehensive approach to coping with the current housing crisis.

“It at least allows people to have a roof over their heads and heat from the cold for the next few weeks,” a Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokesman, Ken Davis, whose state is housing about 17,000 evacuees in nearly 7,500 hotel rooms, said. “We’re pleased with what they’ve done, but ultimately when it comes to housing, providing disaster assistance for eligible recipients is FEMA’s responsibility. We’re waiting to see that long-term plan.”

FEMA has been widely criticized for missteps in its effort to manage the largest national housing crisis since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The cost and management of other programs to place evacuees on cruise ships and in mobile homes and trailers have drawn the anger of lawmakers and housing advocates.

Texas tops the list of states harboring evacuees, according to FEMA, having billed an average of 18,157 hotel rooms between November 3 and 16. The other states qualifying for the January 7 extension are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Nevada, and Tennessee.