Katrina Recovery in MS Goes to the Rich, Not the Poor

Two years later the color of the federal government’s hurricane rebuilding efforts in Mississippi is decidedly black and white. Which, if you think about it, probably does more to explain the 6 Days’ Horror in New Orleans that we all got to watch on television as the government hemmed and hawed and dragged its collective feet, FEMA denied entry to relief organizations from Red Cross to Baptist Conferences, and the FoxNews androids made excuse after excuse, day after day, for the obviously racist response. Which cost lives.

The Congress was not so slow in allotting billions for federal grants to help low-income residents trying to recover from the storm in the Gulf states, yet Mississippi still has not spent half of its share. Many of the homes and buildings damaged have yet to see any repairs at all.

Meanwhile, reports The New York Times, $1.7 billion in federal money has been spent on programs that have benefited relatively affluent residents and big businesses. This money has gone to compensate middle to upper income homeowners, utility companies and to bail out the state’s insurance system.

Just 10% of the federal money has been spent on programs designed to help the poor, and most of that through small grants to lower-income homeowners. Highlighting the skewed demographics, 23% of the total federal allotment is planned to be spent on aid to the poor, while 37-40% of the actual residents living near Mississippi’s coast are poor.

How did such an obviously unfair situation come about in Mississippi, while Louisiana and Alabama’s recovery efforts have been much more equitable? Well, it turns out that George Bush’s administration – that’s the White House, not the Congress – arbitrarily waived the written-in rule that 50% of Community Development Block Grants must be spent on programs for low-income communities. The administration says that’s because the state (Gov. Haley Barbour & Co.) asked for the waiver.

Of course, Barbour & Co. claim they don’t discriminate by race or income when handing out aid to storm victims, but the figures don’t lie. Officials claim they want to help the poor with some of their unspent federal billions, but they’re having trouble thinking up projects to actually help the many whose homes and businesses haven’t seen a single repair since the storm.

That might be because the state decided to exclude homeowners who were too poor to have regular homeowner’s insurance, and anyone living in a rental house or apartment. Rather than federal help, the poor and black in Mississippi must look for help from churches and organizations like Habitat for Humanity to make their homes livable again. If ever.

Looks from the outside like Apartheid is still alive and well in Mississippi. That’s a shame.

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