The Braintree-based development firm that owns the Massachusetts Mills complex in downtown Lowell is offering to temporarily house up to 10 displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina in its unused apartments for $1 per month.

Officials from Joseph R. Mullins Co., known as the Mullins Company, yesterday said they would make unused apartments available at the 282-unit Mass Mills complex in Lowell and the 525-unit Kimball Court complex on the Woburn-Burlington line.

Five families can be housed at each site, in one- two- or three-bedroom apartments.

“In developments like this, you always have a certain amount of vacancies,” said Michael Mullins, the company's vice president for development.

He added that he has seen reports estimating that as many as 350,000 homes were destroyed by Katrina and subsequent flooding in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region and said that is likely to lead to a drastic housing shortage in that area of the country.

“There's not enough hotel rooms, empty houses and apartments in the whole Southeast to try to fill that all,” Mullins said.

“I don't know that people are going to permanently relocate, but my sense is that people will need a few months to process insurance claims, get their kids into school and locate permanent housing. We're hoping we can fill that need.”

The company has posted its offer on the New Orleans section of the Craigslist.org Website, at http://neworleans.craigslist.org/sub/95945366.html.

Mullins said the company has gotten some requests for information about the rentals but no applications yet.

“We'll just take them on a first-come, first-serve basis, and we'll screen them like we would any new resident coming into one of our buildings,” he said.

Mullins Company manages 807 apartments in Greater Boston.

Anyone interested is encouraged to e-mail Meg Murphy at meg@jrmco.net.

Michael Lafleur's e-mail address is mlafleur@lowellsun.com.