BILOXI - Ten minutes and a mile or so from the jangling slot machines of the pristinely restored row of gaming casinos, you come upon the post-Katrina wasteland of East Biloxi where working-class neighborhoods stood two years ago and now, block-after-block, just gaping holes.
That's the painful dichotomy of the Mississippi Gulf Coast "recovery." Some of our leaders like to say it's going well, and that we just need to be patient.
Sure, the casinos are up and running again, maybe better than before Katrina. Happy crowds pour into them, eager to part with their money. Conventioneers go on with their meetings and luncheons, oblivious of the wrath left not far away by a monster storm.
East Biloxi is dramatic evidence of the crying need yet facing the Coast if genuine recovery is to come: HOUSING, HOUSING, HOUSING. Not just any housing, but decent, storm-safe housing that families of shrimp fisherman, store clerks or hotel/casino/restaurant workers can afford.
Saint Michael's Catholic church with its roof resembling a seashell that stood as a landmark at Biloxi's east end, (and survived Hurricane Camille), now lies gauntly vacant, gutted by Katrina. Several blocks inland, the close-knit Vietnamese community has somehow refurbished its Catholic church. Poetically, a spanking new Buddhist temple stands next door.
When you drive along streets leading off U.S. 90 to Back Bay at the city's east end, you see little sign of human activity and only spotty evidence of construction to replace wiped-out neighborhoods of what were mostly pre-1980s houses, many rented out by families of the original owners.
Where have the former residents gone? Perhaps most are cramped in FEMA villages elsewhere in another part of the city. Or gone to live with in-laws. Or never coming back.
With the help of hundreds of volunteers who have streamed into East Biloxi since the storm, several dozen houses have been rebuilt, led by controversial Biloxi councilman Bill Stallworth.
It's known that some now-vacant lots in East Biloxi are being bought up by casinos for some unknown future "development." But the high cost of insurance (coupled with still uncertain elevation standards) is believed a big reason many former residents are not rebuilding.
Water had come from Mississippi Sound on one side and Back Bay on the other, to cover the entire east end of the Biloxi peninsula after Katrina hit. Here some 10,000 residents lived, a high percentage of them low-income households.
Of Biloxi's entire 6,400 housing units, 5,130 suffered extensive or catastrophic damage, according to a Rand Corp. study last year.
You wonder why in the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world, our governmental leaders have instituted no massive reconstruction program resembling the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II to make housing on the stricken Gulf Coast whole again after a monstrous August 2005 natural disaster.
Dr. Marianne Hill, senior economist for the state's Center for Policy Research and Planning, makes an intriguing assessment of Mississippi's post-Katrina situation. She says that the $5 billion in federal funds that have been made available to Mississippi for housing actually could amply cover the cost of rebuilding or repairing the entire 39,000 coastal area homes and rental units that received major damage.
Using pre-Katrina values of both owner-occupied units as well as rental units, Hill estimates that the cost to rebuild or repair should not exceed $3.5 billion.
So with the desperate need to provide hurricane-safe affordable housing in the coastal area and available federal aid being channeled through Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, why hasn't more genuine recovery progress been made other than the renewed glitz and jangle on Casino Row?
