Neighbors sent objections to City of Gulfport when resident applied to make the cottage permanent.
Since beginning with MCJ on Monday, I have logged nearly 500 miles on my car—all by winding through the rebuilding neighborhoods of Mississippi‘s Gulf Coast. Partnering with new friends from the University of Chicago Law School—Caitlin, Yulia and Kyle, we set out to visit nearly 30 residents in the greater Biloxi-Gulfport area who received MEMA cottages after Hurricane Katrina. These originally were units issued (via lottery system to 2800 households) as a temporary fix to the local housing shortage, but in three years time, have begun to feel like home to many of the recipients here.
Hence, the reason for our visit. We were curious (as was MCJ for their ongoing fair housing advocacy work) what these residents faced these days with respect to their cottage. Had they rebuilt a new permanent residence on their property and so no longer needed the MEMA cottage? Or was rebuilding just too costly and so their best option is to keep the cottage? In that case, had they talked to MEMA about purchasing the cottage (for as little as a $300 in some cases) and what would need to be done to transition the unit from temporary (still on wheels and exterior pipes/electrical hookup) to permanent (solid foundation and wheels removed)?
While our core mission was to check out the cottages and meet the folks who lived there, our law school brains were churning with issues of property law, local ordinances and discrimination as we learned more about the MEMA cottages. Earlier in the week, Andrew Canter (MCJ attorney who leads much of the ongoing MEMA cottages work) briefed us on the unique challenges that cottage residents presently face—as MEMA looks to eliminate temporary cottages by the end of this year. That is, residents can buy the cottage and pay the costs to make it permanent or they can give it back.
With impending deadlines looming, most cottage residents are trying to navigate what to do next. The pressure is real. One resident, Mr. Elder, must move his cottage to a trailer park next week because it doesn’t meet neighborhood covenant restrictions; he will leave the land he has lived on for nearly 50 years. Even in March 2010, lives continue to be impacted dramatically by Hurricane Katrina and the evolution of its recovery effort. While many residents in this part of Mississippi received significant aid immediately following the storm, those solutions were never intended to be permanent—and so as infrastructure returns and city planning boards recreate neighborhoods, cottage residents are among those entering another phase of post-Katrina stress: fighting for a permanent residence.
Any predicament a resident faces with a cottage requires money and a certain amount of savvy—those who can’t rebuild may not be able to navigate the process to keep their MEMA cottage and thus, may face displacement once again. As you can imagine, those least able to rebuild and those most in need of keeping their cottage are the disabled, the elderly, those with children, etc. I could write volumes on this subject—but these are the folks who need representation the most and often those MCJ assists. Issues surrounding the misappropriation of funds, housing, jobs, education, and discrimination still pervade recovery efforts. While Katrina made all residents in this area incredibly vulnerable, only a portion has had the means to return to a sense of normalcy since 2005. There still remain a good deal more who are unsure what their future holds and thus, the work here on the Gulf Coast must continue.
Our work to understand the situation of MEMA cottage residents is only a portion of that. We (as part of the MCJ’s larger effort) want to know what can be done to help these residents achieve some sense of normalcy again. We have talked to these residents, heard their story and gathered data—all of which will be used in ongoing advocacy work by the MCJ, including a professional economic study being done on land values (with respect to the permanent cottages) and a short advocacy video (to be posted later this week). While 5 days is only a blip on the radar screen of post-Katrina recovery efforts, we certainly contributed in a small way to the work being done here.
Selfishly, this week has been incredibly indulgent for me as I get to see what public interest work can be. It is both humbling and challenging to go out to new places, hear the stories of the unrepresented and then think through how the law applies to their situations—what can be done to bring them more justice, and a bit more hope.
– Julia
