HUD finally approves $350 million housing plan, thank you Bennie Thompson

It has been a long three years for the working poor of south Mississippi. Solid, working-class families saw their lives turned upside down by the massive storm surge of Katrina. Homes and jobs were gone for many in the blink of an eye. Some have been able to escape to the refuge of relatives or friends out of town, yet many have remained trapped in FEMA trailers tainted with poisonous fumes, or if lucky a FEMA cottage. In fact according to Bennie Thompson in testimony to a House subcommittee, there are still over 5,000 Mississippians still living in temporary housing as a result of Katrina.

After watching Haley Barbour align support for hijacking $600 million in HUD funds intended for lower income housing it was good to read this today in the Sun Herald.

On Wednesday Steve Preston, the secretary of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, accepted a $350 million plan from Mississippi to build thousands of affordable housing units for working families.

The project, titled Mississippi's Long-Term Work Force Housing Plan, will provide grants and loans to local communities, nonprofit organizations and private developers to build 12,000 affordable homes in Hancock, Harrison, Jackson and Pearl River counties.

I want to thank Bennie Thompson for his most diligent work on getting real justice for the forgotten victims of Hurricane Katrina. As long as Bennie Thompson is in Washington, those 5,000 Mississippians without a home will have a voice.

New York Times Editorial: "Mississippi's Misplaced Priorities"

Today's editorial in the New York Times read like a Cotton Mouth post with a more eloquent use of the English language. The Times stands solidly behind Bennie Thompson in his opposition to the diversion of HUD funds for a port expansion project. Congressman Thompson was on the right side of this argument when he suggested that maybe the thousands still living in temporary housing should be looked after (which is the original intent of the appropriation) before any projects such as the port expansion are attempted.

The original law requires states and localities to spend 70 percent of the money they receive on projects that clearly benefit low- and moderate-income people. Recognizing that the disaster had affected people of all incomes, Congress lowered that requirement to 50 percent after Katrina and allowed the Gulf Coast states to waive the income tests for certain projects.

Mississippi was quick to take advantage of that flexibility.

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Congress must use its power to ensure that any remaining Katrina money goes to low-income households. It can start by barring Mississippi from using the block-grant funds for the Gulfport project. It must also close the loopholes in the block-grant law to ensure that future disaster aid goes to those who truly need it.

Congressman Bennie Thompson Takes On Barbour On Housing And Recovery

Families displaced by Hurricane Katrina need our continued help. As of last Friday, there were still 5,741 Mississippi families living in FEMA provided temporary housing units.

One of the major obstacles in providing housing for disaster victims has been the reluctance of Mississippi’s leaders to provide assistance to those who need it the most. Last September, the Governor stated that “housing is, and will continue to be, the most pressing issue facing Coastal recovery.” Despite that statement, the Governor requested and received permission from HUD to reprogram $600 million intended for the construction of low and middle income housing for a port expansion project.

In response to this I, along with eleven other Members of the House, have sent a letter to the Appropriations Committee asking them to prevent the State from using these funds to expand the port. This is a question of priorities. Economic development is critical to the recovery of the coast, but how can the state justify moving forward when low and middle income families are being forced to move out-of-state because there are no locally based affordable housing options?

In addition, the National Deficit and Reduction Act of 2005 provided Mississippi with $700 million to help restore health care in the disaster area and provide the State with the ability to match Federal grants for hurricane relief. Somehow, these funds wound up going to the State’s general fund, where the Governor tried to use them to raise judicial salaries. To make matters worse, the Governor attempted to divert additional hurricane relief funds to improve a highway in north Mississippi that leads to a Toyota plant.

It is a question of priorities. Apparently providing affordable housing solutions to the victims of Hurricane Katrina is not high on some priority lists.

In better news, the Committee on Homeland Security along with the Financial Services Committee joined forces on Wednesday to pass H.R. 6276, the Public Housing Disaster Relief Act of 2008, that I cosponsored with Congressman Childers (D-MS) and Congressman Cazayoux (D-LA). This will streamline federal funding to help repair public housing units that receive damage during future disasters.

The Committee on Homeland Security has also held several hearings exploring the high levels of formaldehyde in FEMA supplied travel trailers - we have to make sure that we provide health care for those that FEMA may have put in danger. In response to this, Congressman Barrow (D-GA) and I introduced the Travel Trailer Health Registry Act. This will require FEMA to work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a health registry of those who lived in travel trailers, provide health screenings to these individuals, and track their health status as we move into the future.

We must hold Federal agencies accountable for their mistakes, especially when their mistakes endanger the health of disaster victims. As we move forward, I pledge to work with any and all Members of Congress who share my priorities--to hold FEMA and HUD accountable and rebuild the Gulf Coast.

- Homeland Security Committee Chair Congressman Bennie Thompson (MS-02)

Childers manages first bill on floor

Congressman Childers took up HR 6276 today. The bill would allow FEMA to give money to assist the rebuilding of public housing after a natural disaster. As we know from what's happened on the Coast, re-building public/affordable housing is a huge issue after a natural disaster.

From a press release earlier today:

Congressman Childers to manage first bill on House floor
today

Washington, DC – Congressman Travis W. Childers will manage a bill on the floor of the House of Representatives for the first time around 12:00 P.M. Eastern Time today.

The legislation that Congressman Childers will manage is styled H.R. 6276, the "Public Housing Disaster Relief Act of 2008", which removes Section 9 (K) of the United States Housing Act of 1937. H.R. 6276 strikes that section of the Housing Act in order to reduce red tape for public housing authorities to get natural disaster relief assistance from FEMA.

"Basically, this legislation removes bureaucratic red tape," Congressman Childers said about the bill. "And, it also eliminates a sense of ambiguity between two federal agencies who are putting fingers at one another, which is the last thing they should be doing in the event of a natural disaster."

To date, Section 9 (K) has never been funded, and FEMA has continually cited this section for the reasons why they are not allocating funding to rebuild Public Housing Authorities that have been destroyed by a natural disaster. The Housing Act is statutorily written such that the Department of Housing and Urban Development has authority under section 9 (K) to disburse funds to public housing authorities in the event of a disaster; however, no money has ever been appropriated for Section 9 (K) since it was authorized into law.

Congressman Childers is managing the legislation as part of his responsibilities of serving on the prestigious Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the costs of H.R. 6276 will be zero over 5 years, meaning the bill conforms to PAYGO rules which Congressman Childers staunchly supports.

The Demon Barbour of Mississippi

From Campus Progress:

Two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf region, states like Mississippi are still struggling to provide relief for their residents. [MSNBC]

For example, in Mississippi, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is asking for another $39 million in the new budget to help the elderly and disabled who were forced from their homes after Katrina.

And after he was elected to take outgoing Sen. Trent Lott’s place last month, new Sen. Roger Wicker promised, “It’s not unrealistic to think that the Congress will provide another billion dollars, that’s billion with a ‘b,’ for additional appropriations involving the coast.”

Waaaaait. What about the tons of money the state has already received to help victims of the storm, you ask?

Gov. Haley Barbour is spending it on lots of other, non-Katrina stuff. Two weeks ago, for example, he took $600 million from post-Katrina relief funds and decided to spend it on improvements to the state’s port.

Today he wants to take another $25 million of recovery money to build a new four-lane highway to help a Toyota plant 300 miles away from the Gulf (and located nowhere near the storm zone.) [MSNBC]

A little more about this money:

After the storm hit, the federal government told Mississippi it would pay some of its Medicaid bills so the state could take the money they’d normally spend on the program —about $368 million—to make a Katrina fund.

So Barbour took the money from Medicaid… yet didn’t spend it on Katrina aid… and now wants to build Toyota a new road.

Reilly Morse, with the Mississippi Center for Justice: “Taking money from Medicaid and putting it into a road? Is there no low-income need so sacred that Gov. Barbour won’t rob it?”

It’s not like the program that provides medical assistance to the poor is exactly flush with cash. The state’s Medicaid program is now broke, broke, broke. The state faces a $90 million shortfall between now and June 30 and a whopping $170 million shortfall next year.

Check it out at Campus Progress!

Katrina funds will likely be diverted

Despite the best efforts of the people along the Gulf Coast and national media, HUD funds for rebuilding homes destroyed by Katrina will likely end up in a $600M port project.

From MSNBC today:

“It’s just insanity, true insanity,” said Sister Martha Milner, a Catholic nun and board member of the Steps Coalition, the loudest voice on the Gulf Coast against the diversion of the funds.

The article, like all the others, tells the very disturbing story of an unchecked Governor only working for the interest of big business. The lies and deceit are unending.

Mississippi, with the highest poverty rate of any state by several measures, already had won HUD waivers of rules that require the funds to benefit low- and moderate-income residents. Critics see the waivers as a product of the unparalleled influence with the Bush administration enjoyed by Barbour, a former Reagan White House political director, Republican National Committee chairman and legendary fixer who continues to receive checks from the Washington lobbying shop that still bears his name.
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Barbour’s current position that part of the housing grant pool was always intended for the port is at odds with his March 2006 testimony before a Senate committee, in which he emphasized that the CDBG money was mostly committed to housing and sought new funds for the port. A year later, Gray Swoope, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority, did not mention port funding in testimony before Congress about the use of grant funds a few months before the new port master plan was adopted.

Another sad day in Mississippi. Thousands of people are still in FEMA trailers or other FEMA housing and deserve a chance to have a real roof over their heads.

Cindy Singletary of Living Independence For Everyone, one of 50 nonprofit, religious and social advocacy groups that make up the Steps Coalition, sees the move to divert the housing funds as a bait-and-switch maneuver. “I have nothing against the port itself,” she said. “The main thing I’m against is the priority of it. … We have jobs on the coast. There’s ‘help wanted’ signs everywhere. But we don’t have homes, we don’t have apartments. … That, to me, should be the No. 1 priority for Mississippi.”