Katrina Is Still Harming Coastians

Almost four years after Hurricane Katrina kicked the crap outta the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and the residents are still suffering from its effects.  First it was the extreme damage of property loss and lives lost.  Then it was the unscrupulous contractors.  On to FEMA trailers that were tainted.  A/holes that were defrauding the government even to include some government officials. And now, there is the possibility that an esstential of the rebuilding, drywall, may be dangerous.

The drywall in question has come to us from the country of lead paint, bad dog food and such, China.  A company named,  Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., Ltd.

Some of the indications of bad or tainted drywall, the people the have used it have complained of respiratory problems, electronic devices inexplicably breaking down and a strong odors in their homes that smell like rotting eggs, which is due to the release of sulfur;  the sulfur smell is usually present, along with black deposits in bare copper wires, black deposits on the HVAC copper, changes to finishes on mirrors, pitting of chrome and other objects, as well as light switches that pop or have visible discharges.

Sadly, Katrina has continued to effect the lives of the Gulf Coast for years after the event and seems will continue that tact for many years to come.

A Plea For Cottages–An Editorial

A Sun-Herald Editorial:

Some officials are still contemplating the fate of Mississippi cottages long after the need for these housing units has been established.

As Gerald Blessey, the Gulf Coast Housing Director for the Mississippi Development Authority, put it in a column on Thanksgiving Day, “over 1,100 families are still living in Mississippi cottages in the 12 coastal cities. Under their leases with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, cottage residents face mandatory eviction, some as early as January 2009, and all by March 31, 2009… .

“Cottage residents are in a race against time. Cottage residents and their case managers need to know soon whether qualified cottage residents can remain on their own property and whether other options may be available.

“In our prayers of Thanksgiving, let us plea, on humanitarian grounds, to city leaders to allow as many families as reasonably possible to stay on their own property in cottages. After placement on a permanent foundation, these cottages meet all current building codes. Permanent placement is the least costly, most practical and humane housing solution for most cottage residents, especially elderly and disabled citizens on a fixed income. Staying in place helps bring back neighborhoods and the diverse fabric of our coastal society.”

That “fabric” needs the “thread” of cottages.

The boards of aldermen in Pass Christian and Waveland have the cottages on their agendas again today. We urge aldermen in both cities to permit cottages to be part of the solution to the housing needs of their constituents.

The Mississippi Stockpile

FEMA is spending $28 million a year to store travel trailers and mobile homes at five Mississippi sites while the agency determines whether they’ll be reused or sold as scrap.

The work is not very far along and could run through 2011, based on renewal options for leases on the land. The cost covers land leases, utilities, security, operational costs and training at five South Mississippi sites, four of which are full and on “caretaker” status. Trailers are still being hauled to the fifth site, Hickory Grove, a hamlet near Hattiesburg.

The trailers will be auctioned by the General Services Administration, the agency charged with management of government property, on its Web site, gsaauctions.gov. GSA planned to launch sales this past week of trailers from two of the sites, Carnes and Lumberton, but no trailers had appeared on the auction site as of Saturday afternoon. A GSA spokesman, Gary Mote, said the agency does not know how much money the scrap trailers might fetch.

Katrina Kids And Illness

Children of displaced families from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are struggling with serious health problems, according to a new report released today by the New York-based Children’s Health Fund and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

The report focused on the medical records of 261 of the poorest children displaced by the hurricanes. These kids and their families were moved into a federally funded Baton Rouge trailer park until the park closed in May 2008. This is the first in-depth review of children’s medical and mental health after the storms in 2005 that struck the Gulf Coast and displaced thousands of families.

Forty-one percent of children under 4 years of age were diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia–twice the rate found in children in New York City homeless shelters and more than twice the Centers for Disease Control’s rate for high-risk minority populations. More than half the kids had behavioral or learning problems. And 42 percent had respiratory infections and disorders that may be linked to formaldehyde and crowding in the ramshackle trailers supplied by the government.

The study made many urgent recommendations. Among them: FEMA must provide contact information for these children so their medical needs can be treated and an extension in funding is necessary so these kids can receive further medical attention. Redlener told Newsweek that he’s optimistic that funds will be extended at least through mid-2010, since all that will require is “a stroke of the pen” from the new administration.

Katrina Fraud Nails Police Chief

Lumberton Police Chief Maurice Hammond has been indicted on eight charges involving false claims he allegedly made to FEMA and the Small Business Administration for Katrina disaster assistance money, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced today.

The indictment alleges that Hammond, who is from Poplarville, filed a false claim for disaster assistance, made false statements to FEMA, stole government funds, and committed wire fraud. The indictment also alleges Hammond made a false statement to the SBA.

If convicted of each count, Hammond faces up to 105 years in prison and up to $2 million in fines. Hammond has been released on bond and ordered to appear Dec. 1 for arraignment in U.S. District Court.

Habitat Homes Unoccupied

In four states along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, Habitat for Humanity came with a mission to build hundreds of homes during a spring blitz so people pushed into poverty after Katrina would have the chance to own a home.

Many of the dozens of completed houses in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama are occupied or will soon be dedicated. But not in Mississippi, where only six of the 30 homes are filled.

Potential homeowners are having a hard time meeting the program’s requirement to save about $3,500 in an escrow account for a year’s worth of taxes and insurance, said Chris Monforton, chief executive officer for Habitat for Humanity of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

And most of the account would be for insurance, with just $500 going toward taxes, said Duane Bates, spokesman for Habitat for Humanity International.

But Hurricane Katrina, which hit in 2005, has exacerbated the average challenges homebuyers face.

The storm nearly wiped out Mississippi’s Coast, taking with it affordable housing. That is compounded by some insurance companies, scared off by the hurricane risks, greatly increasing their rates and others pulling out of the region altogether.

Habitat houses are never sold for the appraised value but usually for thousands of dollars less. Along with the financial obligation, low-income families must invest hundreds of hours in sweat equity that can be earned by attending home-buying classes and helping to build other houses.

And families need to raise some money to cover some fees, which have turned out to be less in the other three states where the homes were built. Homeowners’ insurance rates skyrocketed after Katrina in other Gulf Coast regions as well. But Habitat affiliates differ in the amount and structure of their escrow accounts, Bates said

LA: House Turned Into Rubble Before Appeal

Delores Jones called the city of New Orleans frantically this week when she heard that a demolition crew had arrived at the Central City house she and her husband have owned since the early 1970s.

The 73-year-old woman had in her possession a letter, dated Oct. 1, saying she had 30 working days to challenge a plan to raze her two-story rental house at 2401-03 La Salle St. on the grounds that it was in “imminent danger of collapse.” But Wednesday, just 16 weekdays after the date of the letter, Jones’ house was turned into a pile of rubble by Dynamite Demolition, a city subcontractor.

The property became the latest casualty of confusion and procedural troubles in the city’s demolition program, which has come under heightened scrutiny since a post-Hurricane Gustav executive order temporarily wiped away reviews for certain historic properties targeted for demolition.

There have been several reports of demolition errors recently, and the signs of trouble keep mounting. For example, a list of properties declared in imminent danger of collapse — one step in the demolition approval process — and posted on a city Web site Sept. 29 includes 1720 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. That is the address for the fully renovated Ashe Cultural Arts Center, a main gathering place for Central City residents.

Nagin’s executive order allowed the city for two weeks to bypass the Neighborhood Conservation District Committee and immediately demolish any properties the city administration deemed an imminent health threat, about 170 properties in all

An angry Jones said health problems had prevented her from making headway with her property since Hurricane Katrina. But she said she had recently withdrawn $30,000 from her retirement account and had hired someone to carry out structural repairs to the rental house, which isn’t part of any historic preservation district.

She said that if she had been given the 30 days as promised in the letter, she could have saved the building. “I just wish they could carry out their business with a sense of compassion and realize they’re dealing with people, ” she said

LA: Recovery Housing Still Lacking

Public officials say they have made progress on an alternative housing program in the seven months since Gov. Bobby Jindal stripped the project from the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency and gave it to the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

But through two governors, two contracts with the same builder and a change in the state agency responsible for oversight, none of the projected 500 or so Louisiana Cottages have been built; and there are no groundbreakings scheduled for Louisiana’s $75 million share of the $400 million pilot program that Congress authorized in 2006.

In Mississippi, despite negative attention last week for a few hundred of their alternative trailers being condemned for Hurricane Gustav damage, the state Emergency Management Agency has placed 2,800 Mississippi Cottage units; 300 more await delivery to nonprofit agencies that will provide them to disadvantaged Mississippians.

MS: One Bad Apple

From the South MS Sun-Herald:

Can one bad apple spoil an entire barrel?

The question is being pondered these days by housing activists and volunteer organizations here after allegations of fraud were filed against a group whose principals collected millions to help rebuild hurricane-stricken homes, then allegedly went on extended personal spending sprees and left recovery jobs undone.

Long-range ramifications from the sad story of Camp Coastal Outpost remain unclear at this point, but some in the non-profit sector don’t expect good things.

And that’s a distinct possibility. Camp Coastal Outpost’s principals, Mike Sweeney and Sandy Molenhouse, enjoyed a lot of flattery before their operation was slapped with allegations of fraud and a cease-and-desist order from the Mississippi Secretary of State on Aug. 29. Their finer moments included a 2007 appearance on network television news and a laudatory proclamation from the state Legislature.

Camp Coastal Outpost received $5.6 million in donations, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. She said with all those millions, Camp Coastal Outpost built only about 112 homes.

Of that number, some were considered substandard, she said, adding, “We think there are 20 or 25 that have some major work left to be done.”

The debacle occurred at a crucial time for nonprofits. Three years have passed since Katrina, attention has shifted to other disasters and purse strings are tightening for Coast volunteer-recovery efforts.

LA: New Housing Strategy

Fearing that federal recovery dollars for Hurricanes Gustav and Ike won’t fully cover residents’ crucial home repair needs, Louisiana officials are devising a new state strategy for housing relief.

Their fundamental concern: making sure that billions of dollars already spent on homes damaged by Katrina and Rita in 2005 won’t go to waste.

Nothing akin to the state’s massive Road Home recovery program for Katrina and Rita exists for Gustav and Ike. Victims of this month’s storms have their private insurance, but named storm deductibles of 2 percent to 5 percent are sure to leave gaps for those facing major repairs

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has stepped forward with more extensive home repair aid than it offered after Katrina and Rita, but it’s capped at $28,800 for each household and is designed only to make houses or apartments livable again. The FEMA process will, however, assist property owners in applying for low-interest Small Business Administration loans, which are designed to restore homes to pre-storm conditions.

That program, funded by about $10 billion channeled through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, was supposed to combine with private insurance settlements to recover the value of owner-occupied homes destroyed or badly damaged in the 2005 storms. It has paid more than 117,000 homeowners, but the unprecedented effort took more than two years to pay the bulk of the applicants and three years on, tens of thousands are still waiting for payment, in many cases having appealed an earlier decision.