As Christmas approaches, about 90,000 coastal Mississippians displaced by Hurricane Katrina still occupy about 30,000 FEMA trailers or "candominiums." More folks are doubled and tripled up with family and friends.
Volunteers canvassing conditions in these trailers in East Biloxi this week found 80-year-old retired shrimpers miserable and cramped; a widow who must use an oxygen tank in a trailer that has a gas stove; a nearly blind man who lost everything -- 3 houses and a shack in the neighborhood.
For up to 10,000 low-income households inside the floodplain, things became a little brighter yesterday.
Yesterday HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson announced approval of $700 million in Katrina Grant aid to assist low and moderate income homeowners. In the press conference, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour praised the Steps Coalition an alliance of progressive advocacy groups for providing ideas to improve recovery relief for up to 10,000 very low-income, elderly, and disabled households.
Barbour on Wednesday praised the input of Coast nonprofit and community organizations in drafting and revising the Phase II program, primarily the Steps Coalition.
Steps represents more than 30 organizations "working for a just and sustainable recovery" on the Coast, and pushed for changes to help more of the most vulnerable South Mississippians, the poor, elderly and disabled, get rebuilding aid. Steps was instrumental in getting the grant cap raised from $50,000 to $100,000.
"This expansion of the program will be welcome news for homeowners who suffered flood surge damage and did not qualify for Phase I assistance," said Bishop James Black, board president of Steps Coalition. "These families will get hope for Christmas. As we celebrate, we must also remember the thousands of other families, including renters and those whose homes were severely damaged only by wind, whose holiday season will remain filled with uncertainty."
This coalition includes pre- and post-Katrina poverty and housing advocates at the local, state, and national level. Members include the local and state NAACP, Vietnamese American, Latino, disability, housing and environmental justice groups, like Bishop Black's Center for Environmental and Economic Justice, Turkey Creek Community Initiatives the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Oxfam America, and Mississippi Center for Justice.
Everyone in the Gulf Coast region engaged in fighting the delays and inequities in recovering and rebuilding our area has long passed the limit of frustration. Reports by NAACP and Oxfam America spell out the story. But progressive groups banding together here are making inroads.