For five years, disputes have been pending about rebuilding housing for low-income residents who lost their homes due to Hurricane Katrina. Recently, the matter was settled; and perhaps that settlement will be helpful in the aftermath of future disasters in the U.S. Katrina Victims in Mississippi Get More Aid. NY Times, Nov. 16.
Federal and state officials and housing advocates announced on Monday the creation of a $133 million program to address housing problems that remain for poor Mississippi residents five years after Hurricane Katrina.
The announcement comes after months of negotiations by officials from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Mississippi governor’s office and housing advocates on the coast, and could bring to a close a long-running dispute about the state’s spending of federal grant money after the hurricane.
It seems that both parties had to change their positions to resolve this dispute equitably. Hopefully, in the future it will not take five years for residents to know what their living arrangements will be, after a major disaster.
Related Articles
- Katrina Victims in Mississippi Get More Aid (nytimes.com)
- Mississippi Housing Advocates Praise Katrina Recovery Settlement with HUD and Mississippi (eon.businesswire.com)
- A Victory for Some of Katrina’s Poorest Victims (theroot.com)
Recovery Diva 
Good point Toney. Also, the well-to-do casino interests exerted a lot of pressure and managed to acquire some choice real estate. Not sure that will happen in many places.
The problem here is expectations. This type of funding takes place in a disaster zone where there was a tremendous amount of media coverage but in other disaster areas, people who lost their homes may received the max grant award (currently $30,200). We will have more questions than answers in the next (pick one) state disaster unless the same program with funding is made available to our citizens equally across the board.
I am glad that families are continuing to get assistance to move their lives forward to a “new normal” after Katrina, but when we will stop calling them victims? If they are alive they are definately “survivors”. To be still working,after five years,toward living in the community they call home we owe it to them to call them “survivors”!