Excuse Me, It’s Illegal

Peter Whoriskey writing in the Washington Post tells us that Biloxi’s recovery shows post-Katrina divide

BILOXI, Miss. – Nowhere has the rebound from Hurricane Katrina been gaudier than along Mississippi’s casino-studded coast.

Even as the storm’s debris was being cleared, this city’s night sky was lighted up with the high-wattage brilliance of the Imperial Palace, then the Isle of Capri, then the Grand Casino. More followed, and so did vacation-condo developers.

Yet in the wrecked and darkened working-class neighborhoods just blocks from the waterfront glitter, those lights cast their colorful glare over an apocalyptic vision of empty lots and scattered trailers that is as forlorn as anywhere in Katrina’s strike zone.
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Now, long-standing resentment over the way the state has treated displaced residents has deepened over a proposal by the Barbour administration to divert $600 million in federal housing aid to fund an expansion plan at the Port of Gulfport. The port’s recently approved master plan calls for increasing maritime capacity and creating an “upscale tourist village” with hotel rooms, condos, restaurants and gambling.

The way it works with FEMA money is that it can only be used to replace what was lost; it can’t be used to make improvements. This was one of the reasons offered for rejecting the claim for reimbursement from the aquarium in New Orleans, the bureaucrat said they didn’t simply replace the fish that were lost, they caught more fish who could have been younger and better than what was lost. FEMA money is also restricted as to use. Just because you may come in under budget for rebuilding a fire station, doesn’t mean that you can use what’s left over to make repairs to the sewage treatment plant.

Trying to shift housing money to port improvements while people are still living in FEMA trailers isn’t simply a bad idea, it’s a violation of the laws governing the money. The proper course for FEMA is to take back the $600 million, since Mississippi doesn’t seem to need it for housing according to the governor.