Reports - Mississippi Renewal

56 | AFFORDABLE HOUSINGbe helpful. The state should coordinatefunding and oversee the independentassessment of housing needs, whichshould in turn be coordinated with allother data collection and analysis efforts.This should be initiated as soon as possibleand could be completed within sixmonths. Funding may be available froma combination of private and publicsources, including philanthropic organizationsas well as federal sources suchas HUD’s Partnership for AdvancingTechnologies in Housing, the Buildingand Fire Research Program in the NationalInstitute of Standards and Technology,and the Department of Energy’sBuilding American Program. Cost likelywould be around $500,000.Recommendation 3: Barriers Assessment.This study would analyze, at adetailed level, existing code and zoningprovisions within individual countiesand cities in the affected region in orderto identify potential barriers to thecreation of a sufficient supply of safe, efficient,and affordable housing. Specificfindings could indicate a need for legislativeaction at the state level, such as, forexample, requiring all counties and municipalitiesto embed certain provisionswithin their zoning ordinances. Stategovernment should coordinate fundingand oversee the independent assessmentof housing needs, which then shouldbe coordinated with all other data collectionand analysis efforts. Private andpublic sources, including philanthropicorganizations and federal sources suchas HUD’s Partnership for AdvancingTechnologies in Housing shouldfund this assessment at a likely cost of$500,000.Pilot EffortsMany participants in the Commission’sdiscussions on housing urged thatQ:How will the poor anduninsured afford to returnto their homes? Who willhelp people withoutinsurance bridge theaffordability gap—especially when mostsources of capital are riskaverse, and governmentaid programs are slow tomove? How will renterswho have lost all of theirpossessions rebuild theirlives?In order to create a moreequitable region, rebuildingstrategies must answerthese questions andprovide people with thetools necessary to acquireand preserve assets.progress be made swiftly. One way toachieve near-term success with new andinnovative ideas is to create pilot projectsto test ideas quickly, create familiaritywith different processes, and putplans to work more rapidly. Currently,the Enterprise Foundation is workingwith Enterprise Corporation of theDelta and NeighborWorks America tolaunch several pilot projects using privatefunding sources. Accordingly, theGovernor’s Commission recommends aseries of possible pilot efforts.Recommendation 4: Mixed-Use onHUD Site Pilot. A former HUD housingsite that was destroyed during thehurricane should be developed into anew high-density, mixed-use affordablehousing project. Rather than rebuildingonly HUD housing on thissite, public and private partners wouldjoin together to design and implementa mixed-use neighborhood. The pilotproject would combine best practicesfrom recent HUD projects along withrelevant Smart Growth or new urbanismelements. The HUD Hope VI programmay be an ideal candidate for sucha program. According to the MississippiHUD multi-family housing office, over3,000 subsidized rental units were damagedby Katrina. These rental units providedhousing for the poorest familieson the Coast, including elderly, disabled,and other renters on very small fixedincomes.Most of these units are ownedand managed by local housing authorities.The Waveland Housing Authority,for example, owned and managed 75units that were destroyed. These damagedunits must be rebuilt with a combinationof grant funds and loans madeto the local housing authority. To developlong-term solutions that will providethe local housing authority withsufficient funds to make improvements