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Gulf Coast residents decry grant process
JACKSON (AP) — Some 200 Gulf Coast residents held a rally at the state Capitol Tuesday to criticize the governor’s Homeowners Assistance Grant Program, saying it has failed to help renters and low- to moderate income people get back into their homes.
The rally was organized by the Amos Network, an organization of congregations, associations and individual households that is working to negotiate government and private sector agreements on the post-Hurricane Katrina coast.
Gov. Haley Barbour’s grant program is a two-phase project designed to assist residents as they rebuild or renovate property destroyed by Katrina two years ago.
The program is overseen by the
Mississippi Development Authority, but is funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant funds.
The first phase of the program provides up to $150,000 each to homeowners who lived outside the federal flood plain but lost their houses to Katrina’s water after the
storm struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005.
The second phase, to cover low-income and working poor homeowners, provides up to $100,000 for people who had storm surge damage to their primary residence regardless of whether they were insured or whether the property was in a flood zone.
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