NYT editorial re: lack of affordable housing being built in MS post-Katrina

[intheflow]

More Housing Woes in Mississippi

As the poorest state in the country, Mississippi should have no trouble finding low- and moderate-income homeowners to share in the more than $5 billion in emergency federal aid funneled into the state after Hurricane Katrina.

(snip)

The aid was channeled through the Community Development Block Grant program, which was set up by Congress in the 1970s to improve housing for the poor and provide a better quality of life and more economic opportunities. The law requires states and localities to spend 70 percent of the money they receive on projects that will clearly benefit low- and moderate-income people. {This was lowered to 50% after Katrina.}

(snip)

Low-income housing advocates were rightly uneasy about a second provision that allowed the Gulf Coast states to waive the income test altogether for some projects. They feared that the states would use waivers to reward cronies and boost pet projects. Indeed, Mississippi’s critics now claim that only about 20 percent of the money spent so far has gone to help low- and moderate-income families.

(snip)

Congress must revisit the waiver process to make sure that states aren’t using it to evade the income restrictions clearly laid out in federal law. And HUD needs to take a hard look at all aspects of the Mississippi program, and make sure that the remainder of the emergency aid money gets to the low-income families who are legally entitled to it and desperately need the help.

(more)

Congress relinquished oversight of how the CDBG funds were to be distributed in Mississippi, even though they still held oversight on how the funds are being distributed. You can see how well that's working for low-income Mississippians. :grr:

Related link:

RAND study: Affordable housing lags in Mississippi's post-Katrina recovery

[aquart]

1. A build-houses project would...I dunno...provide jobs?

Here? In America? I know. Weird concept.

[intheflow]

2. American jobs are for those who enhance corporate profits.

You radical, wanting the government for and by the people to actually help people! :sarcasm:

[aquart]

3. Yeah, my economic model includes jobs.

The business of America is business. But the purpose of America is to ensure the survival and prosperity of its citizens. All its citizens.

[Totally Committed]

4. It's intentional. They don't want those poor people moving back there.

They want a gentrified, Walt-Disney-ized New Orleans. No room for the poor.

TC

[intheflow]

5. This is Mississippi, not Louisiana (New Orleans).

People were not displaced in Mississippi like in New Orleans. In Mississippi, Katrina's water and wind destroyed over 70% of the housing stock across the Coast, but the water came in and went back out, it didn't stick around for a month like in New Orleans. Most low-income people who lost housing in Mississippi stayed in the area--there were no campaigns to help them relocate and rebuild lives outside the hurricane zone, as was afforded to displaced New Orleans' residents. As a consequence, most low-income Mississippians are living in formaldehyde-laden trailers, in FEMA trailer parks rife with crime, far from public transportation to jobs.

But you're right that the white power structure would be happy with only enough people of color to provide adequate cleaning and wait staff at the casinos and condos that are springing up all over down there.

[intheflow]

6. Correction to OP.

I wrote, "Congress relinquished oversight of how the CDBG funds were to be distributed in Mississippi, even though they still held oversight on how the funds are being distributed."

That should read, "Congress relinquished oversight of how the CDBG funds were to be distributed in Mississippi, even though they still held oversight on how the funds are being distributed in Louisiana."

Mea culpa! :blush:

Still makes me angry. :grr:

[tomreedtoon]

7. There's a lack of affordable housing EVERYWHERE.

What's the big surprise? I will never own a house. You probably don't, either, unless you had rich parents or inherited theirs. Most of us will live in rental properties until the economy crashes, then it's off to the refrigerator cartons for the luckiest of us.

And of course I don't expect the Republicans to care, but it's disappointing that the Democrats don't, either.

[intheflow]

8. Yes,

but the rental crisis is worse on the Gulf Coast. There may be oh-too-little affordable housing elsewhere, but what exists has not been scoured along a 500 mile path.

And, yes, it also sucks big time that the Dems don't care about housing, either. :(