Alabama's Gulf Coast, Three Years After Katrina

by Stephen Stetson

Published March 18, 2009 @ 12:22PM PT

Many homes in Trinity Gardens have simply been abandoned.

The tiny coastal hamlet of Coden is over 3 hours from the Alabama state capital, Montgomery. It’s nearly 1,000 miles from Washington D.C.

But highways are only one way to measure distance. Hurricane Katrina hit Coden over three years ago. For a lot of people, that feels like a lifetime ago.

The details of the policy world are difficult to explain to someone who once had a house on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, but now, three years after the storm, lives in a trailer with relatives. It’s hard to explain a footnoted response to a HUD memo to someone preoccupied with their medical bills or a crying baby. And it’s tough to articulate why the government continues to deny them assistance because they missed a one-week deadline for relief during the hectic days after the storm.

How does one explain the details of a possible Congressional breakthrough to someone who still, after over three years, has a frayed blue tarp on their leaking roof? After all this time, is there reason for Alabama’s Katrina victims to place faith in the work done by the Equity and Inclusion Campaign, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Oxfam America and PolicyLink? We must believe that there is.

These groups submitted a set of recommendations last month to HUD, the Senate Banking Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, and the Senate and House Appropriations Committees.

Among the problems they outline:

• Deadlines on Disaster Vouchers and Temporary Housing Assistance.  Families served by FEMA and DHAP assistance programs have faced numerous expirations that threaten eviction and homelessness, averted by last minute decisions that promise short extensions. Yet program end dates are not tied to timing of permanent housing coming back on line. The lack of systematic case management systems hinder the movement of people from temporary housing programs to affordable homes coming on line.
• Stalling of rental home replacement due to economy and program rules. The stalling of rental recovery programs due to both statutory barriers and the national economic and credit crises that have meant as little as a tenth of lost rental homes have come back on line.
• Redirection of disaster monies away from low-income hurricane victims.  CDBG funds designated for low-income Katrina and Rita victims have been redirected to wealthier segments of the population; for example Mississippi’s waiver of the requirement that at least 50 percent of its disaster allocation serve low-income victims.  Mississippi also diverted $600 million from low income housing programs to port expansion.
• Funding gaps for homeowner repair and rebuilding grants. Thousands of homeowners lack sufficient resources to rebuild their homes. Grant formulas In Louisiana based on assessment values rather than damages mean more than 58,000 homeowners have an insurmountable average shortfalls of $35,000; in Mississippi, over 35,000 homeowners were ineligible for any funds to repair their wind-damaged homes.
• Lack of plan for replacement of lost federally assisted housing stock. The HUD-assisted housing stock serving households below 50 percent of AMI—including Project Based Section 8 homes, Section 202 homes for seniors, and public housing—constitutes a critical loss across Gulf States.  The loss of thousands of public housing units is particularly critical in New Orleans. While GO Zone Low Income Housing tax credits were allocated for repair and replacement of multifamily homes, they do not serve the same population of people below 50 percent of AMI, and these projects are also stalled due to tax credit financing challenges during economic downturn.
• Increased homelessness for families, individuals and returning veterans. As failures to rebuild housing in the Gulf Coast persist, an increasing number of individuals, families, and veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are become homeless.  The resources to address bricks and mortar and permanent supportive housing services and subsidies remain mismatched.
• Discrimination by local governments in coastal Louisiana, and Mississippi. Local government resistance to the rebuilding of affordable rental housing is resulting in zoning restrictions and building permit moratoria without intervention by state and federal officials.
• Lack of funding to rural and unincorporated areas. Many rural, unincorporated and tribal areas have not received any recovery resources three years after the storms. Alabama assessments show the state’s unmet rebuilding needs in these areas as high as $500 million.

Is this news to someone who is trying to repair a leaky roof or eradicate mold from their home? Does this bring comfort to someone who once worked for a now devastated Alabama seafood industry? Maybe not, but the national advocacy groups have been clear about what is needed:

• Extend Assistance. Authorize and appropriate funding to extend the temporary housing assistance programs (the Disaster Housing Assistance Program, recently extended to August 31, 2009; and the  FEMA trailer and hotel program, recently extended until May 1, 2009) until  new and repaired affordable units and homes come back on line in sufficient numbers. Establish case management system to match people in programs with homes coming on line.
• Reexamine use of funds. HUD should conduct a comprehensive review of CDBG plans waivers it has granted to determine the impact on low income families, including the waiver of the traditional, in-depth public comment processes. Waivers that increase inequity should be rescinded immediately.
• Replace all pre-storm federally- assisted homes. HUD should articulate a plan and identify resources to provide one-for-one replacement of all pre-storm federally-assisted homes that serve people below 50 percent of AMI. This should include a process for creating high quality, mixed-income developments on former public housing sites; that reassigns Section 8 contracts from buildings that will not be rebuilt to new developments; and that match Section 8 with tax credit developments to ensure deeply affordable homes.
• Re-introduce, support and sign the bi-partisan Gulf Coast Multifamily and Assisted Housing Recovery Act. First introduced in the 110th Congress, and cosponsored by then-Sen. Obama, this bill would authorize $125 million for additional Section 202 elderly housing and $75 million for additional Section 811 housing for people with disabilities, creating almost 1,500 new Section 202 and 811 units in the region; $4 million to cover gaps in reconstruction costs for damaged Section 202 properties being rebuilt in Louisiana. Amend it to address Gustav and Ike-created needs for extremely and very low income households.
• Reduce homelessness. Authorize and appropriate increased funding for the creation of more permanent supportive housing units and the number and funding for Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) vouchers to ensure stable housing for returning veterans.
• Close resource gaps. Provide sufficient additional funding to allow homeowners to rebuild modest homes. Refuse approval of any CDBG plans that allocate money intended for housing recovery to other purposes. Authorize support for construction management to victims of contractor fraud. Remove statutory barriers hampering small rental repair programs.  Address recovery needs of rural and unincorporated communities, including $100 million for unmet Alabama losses. Prevent Discrimination. Tie municipal and county receipt of CDBG or FEMA funds to federal requirements to remove barriers to affordable housing and discourage discrimination.  Engage the Attorney General in investigating building permit moratoria and zoning prohibitions.

Recently, Rep. Maxine Waters of California has begun working on a bill similar to H.R. 1227, The Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery Act of 2007. Waters’ staff says they would be receptive to, and appreciative of, recommendations for the new legislation. They’re currently working with the Congressional Research Service to determine which provisions of H.R. 1227 are still relevant, and what additions should be made. This would be a promising opportunity to seek further reform: We could ensure transparency of the CDBG program, require an unmet needs assessment test for the grants, examine one-for-one replacement, guarantee the right of return of public housing residents who were living in HANO housing, and  authorize the appropriate sums to fund these programs.

Yet the question remains whether “Katrina fatigue” has undermined political support for assisting a region that is still far from being made whole after a natural disaster. Obama recently appointed Shaun Donovan to run HUD. Donovan's Senior Policy Advisor, Fred Tombar, has promised Alabama advocates that the battle is not over. Then again, many on Alabama’s Gulf Coast have heard that sort of reassuring rhetoric before.