The Mississippi housing victory: Reilly Morse talks to Bryan Parras

by: Jeremy Burton

Mon Nov 22, 2010 at 13:40:23 PM EST

Last week I mentioned the huge victory in Mississippi for  advocates to secure $133 million for low income recovery after Katrina.  While this story was noted in the national media, folks have been asking me what it's all about. 

Reilly Morse of the Mississippi Center for Justice sat down with Bryan Parras (one of our Gulf Coast Fellows for Community Transformation)  and Ada McMahon and gave an interview to the Bridge the Gulf project. In part:

Q: Why will this be more inclusive than the initial housing assistance programs [created after Katrina]?

A: The initial programs would not help folks who had hurricane wind damage.         

You have historically racially segregated neighborhoods, and then you have a railroad which separates them, functions as a racial dividing line; And then you have a tidal surge that causes a lot of the damage, and if you’re not touched by the tidal surge because you are on the wrong side of the tracks, you end up with no assistance.
So there were clusters of unmet housing needs, that were wind-damaged.  They were predominantly low-income, they were predominantly African American.  They’re now going to be assisted.

But the other advantage of this is, this is not purely a racialized outcome, this is helping low-income folks of any form or description that need the assistance.