Reports - Mississippi Renewal

THE GOVERNOR’S COMMISSION REPORT | 51and Louisiana, having a particularly devastatingimpact on low-wealth residentswho lacked an economic safety net.At the same time, the hurricane presenteda unique opportunity to correctdecades of inequitable development.Affordable housing and home ownershipare cornerstones upon which theregion will rebuild for the long term.Investments in housing strategies thattarget low-wealth residents will helpSouth Mississippi emerge as a stronger,more equitable region.The Destruction –A CloserLookHurricane Katrina wrought damagethroughout many counties in Mississippi.Regrettably, most of the preliminarydata to assess post-hurricaneimpacts are currently available onlyfor the three coastal counties that sufferedmajor flood and surge damage. Assuch, the Governor’s Commission hasinitially conducted its pre- and post-Katrina housing analyses solely withinthe counties of Hancock, Harrison andJackson. It is anticipated that future follow-onanalyses will include all countiesaffected by the hurricane.Most of the residential and commercialdevelopment in the three coastalcounties occurred near the coastlinewhere Hurricane Katrina’s coastal surgeand flooding occurred, as indicated inFigure 1. As one would expect, populationand housing unit densities weregreatest in the cities, particularly in partsof Long Beach, Gulfport, and Biloxi (inHarrison County) as well as Pascagoulaand Moss Point (in Jackson County), asshown in Figure 2.About two-thirds of the housing unitsin those counties were occupied byhouseholds with income below the U.S.median level (approximately $42,000 asof the year 2000). In Hancock and HarrisonCounties alone, almost 75 percentof the housing units were occupied byhouseholds living below the U.S. medianincome level. Across all three counties,about 12 percent of households