Habitats Mission

This past week Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter, and Habitat for Humanity have been doing a rebuilding blitz along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I was hoping that this blitz would alleviate some of the problems with affordable housing. Before Hurricane Katrina, apartments and rental houses could be found for around $400 a month. After Hurricane Katrina, those rents tripled.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast Hurricane Katrina story has largely been ignored by most media. I have the statistics from the Red Cross posted on my sidebar. What they don't show is that in addition to the 65,000 homes destroyed and the 35,000 that had to be demolished, the Mississippi Gulf Coast also lost 20% of its rental apartments and housing. Families and friends opened their doors to those who needed shelter until the FEMA trailers started coming in. Some people had no option but to live in tents until a FEMA trailer was in place. Today, the Sunherald is reporting FEMA trailer parks in Biloxi will be closing June 1.

Each time one of the parks is closed, many have no place to go. From my photography walks along the beaches, I find the number of homeless increasing each time. Many of those still in the trailer parks are the elderly and disabled. Some are drug addicts and alcoholics as well, but their numbers are very small. Those that are in the trailer parks cannot afford $600 a month for housing, if they could, they would have already had some place to go. Many have applied for Section 8 housing. The problem in the 2 1/2 years after Katrina is that many owners of rentals find it more profitable not to go that route and so there are fewer houses and apartments and rental houses available to those that qualify.

In an interview with WLOX, Jimmy Carter stated that those who will be moving into the Habitat for Humanity being built during this weeks blitz will be paying a $600/month mortgage. This is the problem for me, affordable housing before Hurricane Katrina meant finding a place to live at $400 to $500 a month. The $200 and $100 difference may seem slight but for those whose median income is between $25,000 and $30,000, it can be huge.

And what of those, who for whatever reason(mainly lack of education)r? There are few options available.

And Jimmy Carter is very artless in making statements. Just as he chooses words that are extremely insulting, untruthful, and very damaging when discussing Israel, he couldn't help himself in dissing Mississippi:

It's like a reverse cancer," Carter said in an interview with the Sun Herald. "It spreads from one block to another, and eventually, everybody is trying to put their homes in better condition. When we go back six or seven years later, that community has been, in appearance at least, gentrified. That doesn't mean that rents have gone up, but everybody is beginning to say that if Habitat folks who are poorer than I am can have that house looking like a mansion, I'm going to make my house look like a mansion too."

Most people who live in the areas where the Habitat homes are going up take pride in them. They are neighborhoods where people know one and another and help another. And to describe them as close to being slums lacks statesmanship that a past president should have.

The wonderful volunteers who are down here, building side-by-side with homeowners are the true story. They keep coming and they keep giving us a shoulder to lean on. It is their smiling faces and their willingness to tear out sheet rock still saturated with mold 2 1/2 years later that continues to uphold the resolve the people of the Mississippi have shown since August 29, 2005. We looked and saw the destruction and said "We'll rebuild", and we have been doing so together. The volunteers help keep that resolve going. And I thank them.