Reports - Mississippi Renewal

52 | AFFORDABLE HOUSINGlived below 150 percent of the federalpoverty level (FPL) and thus were eligiblefor various federal assistance programs.For a four-person household inthe year 2000, this would correspond toan annual income of less than $25,575(in 2005, the income for a family offour at 150 percent FPL is $29,000 peryear).In Harrison County, the proportionof housing units occupied by householdsliving below 150 percent FPLwas 14 percent. The spatial distributionof these low income households can beseen in Figure 3.Across the three counties, 62 percentof the housing units were owner-occupied,with overall home-ownership inHarrison County slightly lower at 56percent (see Table 2). Figure 4, however,shows that the lowest home-ownershiprates – less than 42 percent – occurredin coastal communities of HarrisonCounty, namely Gulfport and Biloxi(Figure 4).The majority (62 percent) of housingunits across the three county area wasbuilt before 1980 (Table 2). As Figure 5shows, the greatest shares of these oldervintage homes were located in Gulfport,Biloxi, and Pascagoula.Based on this information, it wouldappear that Gulfport and Biloxi andPascagoula and Moss Point present thegreatest challenges for rebuilding.First, these areas contained a largerpercentage of older homes that wereprobably not designed to modern codes,and thus more likely to suffer wind-and water-related damage during severeweather.Second, these cities contained a largerpercentage of lower-income householdswith limited ability to invest in the rebuildingefforts themselves, and private,for-profit landlords may see little incentiveto reinvesting in the areas.A preliminary estimate of the damageresulting from Hurricane Katrina canbe derived from information regardinghousing units that were exposed to thestorm surge and potential flooding. The