Two Louis (Pronounced Lou eee): Mississippi Rebuilding

Recently work took me to Gulf Port, Mississippi. There is not a lot of news coming out of the Gulf Coast area about recovery after Katrina and Rita, but that may be because the news is still pretty depressing. (Katrina hit Mississippi hard and wind and water damage were devastating in most coastal areas.) Yes, there are homes being rebuilt, businesses being re-started. But there are a whole heck of a lot of people still living in trailers, experiencing post traumatic stress disorder, and trying to restart their lives. According to FEMA’s website there are still 5,000 families in Mississippi alone that do not have permanent housing.

The urgency of the housing matter has been stepped up since the President declared that federal temporary housing assistance will end March 1, 2009. This is both good and bad. Funding will be made available to step up home building and resettlement efforts, putting people into safer, permanent units so they can get back to the business of rebuilding their lives. The bad news is that there will be many families that slip through the cracks. And those families are generally the elderly or ones that have always been living with one foot on the steps of poverty. They have less access to information and social services and many of them have been uprooted from their communities and relocated to trailer parks.

We toured Route 90, the coastal highway connecting Pass Christian and Biloxi (and beyond), and found it to be largely untouched in the last several years. Debris has been cleaned up, but the road side is dotted by concrete pads where houses and business once stood. The road itself is under re-construction. And the beach too is fenced off in many areas for rehabilitation. There are still signs, broken and all but totally destroyed that still dot the highway for businesses that have long ago washed away. And some of the homes that appear to have survived still have boarded windows and doors.

The most obvious sign of growth are the couple of high rise condos that have been built and the casinos that have been rebuilt. The condos are a mixed blessing – they provide affordable housing. But they’ve replaced individual homes and are certainly not as photogenic as the original dwellings.

I visited a friend of mine in New Orleans several times after Katrina. There too it’s sad to see so many neighborhoods largely abandoned. Keep your eye on the news for stories of rebuilding. Or consider donating time and money to the cause. Volunteers have been instrumental in helping people rebuild their homes – often families can afford construction materials, but can’t hire contractors. Volunteers can help ease the burden.

Development on the beach