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after Katrina, but thousands still need homes
By ANITA LEE
calee@sunherald.com
A shortage of housing for low- to moderate-income residents existed before Hurricane Katrina and will continue to challenge the Coast, but the hurricane resulted in innovative programs and collaborations that should help ' ‘ in the future, housing advocates say.
“I think there’s been a sea change in attitudes,” said Gerald Blessey, housing-re-covery director for the Mississippi Development Authority, which administers federal Community Development Block Grant money for Katrina housing programs. “Realistically, to have a healthy economy, your work force has to have affordable housing.”
Under one post-Katrina housing plan, The Renaissance Corp. was formed to partner with businesses, offering home buyers downpayment assistance and low-interest loans. The program involved private banks, government funding and nonprofit counseling. Local governments such as the Gulfport implemented similar programs.
Blessey, a Biloxi native and former mayor, said the Coast had an affordable-housing problem prior to Hurricane Katrina and continues to struggle with the issue..He said 3,500 to 4,000 Katrina survivors still have unmet housing needs.
Blessey said data on the
“I think if we keep our hands on the wheel, all the remaining Katrina housing problems will be resolved before the sixth anniversary.”
Gerald Blessey, housing-recovery director for the Mississippi Development Authority
remaining cases is being gathered and analyzed to develop plans for addressing the needs.
“I think if we keep our hands on the wheel, all the remaining Katrina housing problems will be resolved before the sixth anniversary,” he said.
The Mississippi Center for Justice, which has advocated housing solutions for low- to moderate-income residents, believes the state should spend more of its remaining federal Katrina funding to meet the needs, MCJ concludes in a report released for the five-year Katrina anniversary: “Right now, well over5,000 Mississippi households lack permanent affordable housing, due to unjust decisions by Mississippi policy makers, irrational interpretation of federal audit, elevation and environmental rules, and discriminatory zoning decisions by
local governments.”
From 2006 to 2008, a federal report found, Mississippi reduced federal Katrina spending on direct housing needs from 63 to 52 percent of money received. During that same time Louisiana increased federal Katrina money for housing, from 77 to 86 percent.
In Mississippi, CDBG money has helped rebuild public-housing units, provided rental assistance and been awarded for developments that offer work-force housing. Also, 28,000 homeowners received about $2 billion in direct assistance to repair damaged properties or relocate.
However, MCJ concludes, 7,300 Coast residents with only wind damage failed to qualify for the grant program, with a concentration of damaged homes most notably remaining in historically black neighborhoods north of the
SUN HERALD
New houses are being built in South Mississippi, like those in this subdivision in north Harrison County, but the cost has gone up with the price of materials and labor. Those buying hoses are buying them farther away from water as a result of the storm and the rising costs of construction and insurance. The question remains: Is housing affordable for lower- and middle-income families?
railroad tracks in Gulfport and Moss Point.
MCJ and other housing advocates have criticized Gov. Haley Barbour’s office for directing $570 million of the CDBG money to an expansion and elevation project at the Port of Gulfport.
However, Blessey believes
the port project is vital to generating the jobs and economic development that will drive housing construction, and in the future, fuel programs such as Renaissance that are aimed at providing affordable homes, defined as costing no more than 30 percent of the occupant’s
income.
Mississippi housing programs developed after Katrina have been held up as models for other states. For example, FEMA partnered with the Mississippi Case Management Consortium to assist residents in 5,000 travel trailers and government mobile homes in finding permanent housing. MCMC spokeswoman Michele Baker said only 300 cases remain
—	a better performance than experienced in other Katrina states. Of those 300, she said, solutions are in the works for 200 cases. A further 100 involve homes that still need some repair. She said repair problems would have been resolved at much less expense had direct assistance been provided — preventing, for example, a leaking roof from leading to a mold-infested home.
MCMC allocated money from FEMA to 14 agencies that provided case managers to work with clients. Many of the remaining cases involve residents with multiple issues, Baker said, including advanced age, mental or emotional handicaps, a poor education or all of the above.
Nobody, she said, is happy about being without a permanent home for five years.
“It’s just not working out for them,” Baker said. “We’re talking about our friends, we’re talking about our neighbors we’re talking about our family members. They just need a little more time and help tc get back on their feet.”
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