Mississippi's Misplaced Priorities Hamper Katrina Recovery

[Louisiana1976]

Four years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, cities and towns across Mississippi are still trying to recover, but recovery efforts are being hampered by what community advocates call Mississippi's misplaced priorities.

A new study by the Steps Coalition, an alliance of Mississippi nonprofit groups, found that the state has lowered its commitment to housing and helping low-income residents recover.

As the Coalition explains in its new report:

At the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the harmful consequences of Mississippi's misplaced priorities have become clear, and perhaps irreversible. The State has reduced its allocation for housing programs, lowered its forecasts for key affordable housing programs and abandoned plans for a full housing recovery. Between 2006 and 2008, the State reallocated over $800 million away from housing towards other purposes.

As Facing South has reported, following Hurricane Katrina, Congress approved $5.4 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant funding to aid in Mississippi's recovery. Portions of the federal funds were meant to go toward programs to help low-income homeowners who suffered losses in the storm. Barbour, in diverting $570 million in hurricane recovery housing funds to port expansion, claimed the state's programs were on target to meet set goals and that existing programs would fully address the housing crisis. But housing advocates have long pointed out that there remain critical unmet housing needs in the state, and that thousands of Mississippians remain displaced four years after the storms...

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more: http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/08/mississippi-misplaced-priorities-hamper-recovery.html

[ixion]

1. "other purposes"

you know, like port, golf course and casino development. :puke:

[erehwon2]

2. No shit

This is one of the most fucked up episodes of our entire history, and don't even get me started on Barbour..

I'm from "there", south MS, and NOLA was my refuge for many a year.

It's still gone after all these years, mile after mile of nothing but nothing on the MS coast. Last year I was back in NOLA for the first time in many a moon, and it's turned into an island of commercial candyland surrounded by fucked up misery. Gone.

My college band got back together on account of Katrina, and if this works you can see some raw footage you've never seen before. I don't know if will embed well here, so if this message disappears I'm just going to repost with a link

Key line:

"I'll be fighting for Exxon, I know they'd fight for me"

1979, and our man Patrick was right.

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OK, the embed didn't work, kicked me out of DU to boot, so here's one of the songs, relates more to Blackwater, and scroll up to "Service with a Smile" for the Exxon thing. Sorry that it might take a minute to load into QT.

http://www.bonningtontruce.com/mp3/BenYoung-Gunrunner.mp3

[erehwon2]

3. With all due respect

This does deserve some attention.

One-half billion misallocated on the Gulf is no trivial issue. Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula need people who need a place to live. That's what the money was for.

My main concerns right now remain health care and getting out of our hostile occupations of foreign countries, but dammit, the money's there for people on the coast who need it and are not getting it, it deserves some attention.

My family got hurt badly, so it's kind of personal. But I'd feel the same way if it were in Idaho.

Make some noise, y'all.