First off, it must be mentioned that the Charlotte Law gang defeated the U of Chicago team’s Tier 1 butts at trivia night. Despite the answers being rigged, it was nice to be cheering and seeing them sitting there in defeat.
As for Biloxi and the surrounding areas, this has been one of the most eye-opening experiences ever. We have all seen the scenes of New Orleans on TV and its aftermath. Slowly the MSM have forgotten about the people in the Gulf and the complete destruction of their lives after the storm. It’s close to 5 years later, and while attention still largely focuses on NOLA and their rebuilding and Super Bowl, nobody mentions Biloxi, Waveland, or Gulfport where a large part of the storm hit including the eye of Katrina.
Previous posts have discussed what MEMA Cottages are. They were essentially meant to be a temporary fix to the housing situation after Katrina destroyed people’s homes. MEMA has offered to let people purchase the cottages and permanently fix the cottage to the land. However, the city passed a series of ordinances that create loopholes and are very discriminatory towards cottage owners. This is what the MCJ and my group have been working on for the past several days.
Riding around Biloxi and the surrounding counties for the past 3 days we’ve seen some cottages that have been permanently placed or a new home built in its place. Outside of this there are still streets reduced to a house or two and multiple concrete foundations where the water tore the house away. In between, we’ve met cottage owners that have told us their stories of trying to keep their cottages. One man, a disabled gentleman, was told by the city he has until the end of the month to move his cottage to a trailer park outside the city limits where he will pay several hundred dollars a month to keep his cottage. He asked if he could keep the cottage on his brother’s property where it currently is or to move it to property he owns in another county and he was again denied. His disability interferes with his ability to work and the city wants him to move outside the city and pay money he can’t afford to live somewhere he doesn’t want to!
Another gentleman, had his cottage and was prepared to purchase it when he was told it would cost him $15,000 to raise the cottage about 3 inches. At the next cottage, a man, who successfully had his cottage raised, also said he was charged an outrageous price to have his cottage raised. This was after the contractor pocketed the money and ran off leaving the subcontractor to do the work for free! So now we have a case where the city is passing discriminatory ordinances and contractors are committing fraud.
The rabbit hole deepens when it’s discovered that some cottage owners are being forced to leave because of a 160 foot rule. In this case, all neighbors within 160 feet of a cottage could write in and just say I object to this cottage and it would have to be removed. Reading the objections, you see a lot of legalese in the letters bringing the assumption that a lot of these residents had help.
A lot of this experience has been very humbling. It’s also made me think very hard about whats been going on in Mississippi. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) allocated $13,348,427 to the State of Mississippi for activities benefiting persons who have recently become homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless. The state has issued several grants to housing developments including the Mississippi Development Authority which provides temporary financial assistance who would become homeless but for the assistance. Assuming these people who are on the verge of losing their cottages have no place left to go and will therefore be displaced and homeless it would make sense that ARRA money should go to helping these people find some stability.
This trip has been extraordinary and troubling at the same time. I wish I could stay and see our project through to the end.
–Rick
