Tag: Gulf Coast

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News News Feature

Housing Authority

Bobby Hensley, executive director of the Biloxi Housing Authority, has known easier times. Before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi coastline, the former Memphian lived with his wife in a condo on the beach in East Biloxi near Beau Rivage casino. His building made it through the storm, but it was gutted, and now Hensley sleeps most nights in a FEMA trailer while his wife stays in Memphis in a house the Hensleys have been trying to sell for three years.

On August 29, 2005, the Biloxi Housing Authority had 36 employees. That number has since dropped to 18. “And we’ve got a lot more to do,” Hensley says. “We’ve got so much more to do than we’ve done before.”

A massive housing development for seniors is nearing completion in East Biloxi. Hensley is proud to say that when it opens later this year, it will be the first public construction project to be completed since Katrina.

“We had two larger seniors facilities that were completely wiped out, and we understand they’re not going to build back,” Hensley says.

The seniors housing project was built so quickly in part because the Housing Authority had access to qualified workers who lived near the work site. Most of the Bay St. Louis-based workers who lost their homes in the hurricane moved into a camp of FEMA trailers located a few hundred yards from the project.

The Biloxi Sun Herald has run a series of stories about how, in spite of lingering unemployment, many recovering businesses in the region have been having trouble finding employees. Though one University of Southern Mississippi professor claimed this was a preexisting condition exacerbated by the storm, most blame the phenomenon on the lack of housing and, more specifically, the lack of lower- and middle-income housing.

“Nobody is living in Waveland because there are no homes for them to live in,” Habitat for Humanity’s Wendy McDonald was quoted as saying. “Who’s going to work at Lowe’s or Home Depot or anyplace?”

“We’ve seen a lot of commercial growth [on the Mississippi Gulf Coast] but not much in the way of creating affordable or middle-class housing,” Hensley says, adding that inflated property values have compounded the problem. “There’s a lot of frustration with insurance companies [not paying enough to rebuild], and everyone knows that if they can rebuild, they’ll have to build their properties [higher]. It costs a lot more to build up in the air than it does to build on a slab.” Land prices reflect that frustration, as does a general sense that casino and condo developers plan to buy up East Biloxi.

The inflated property values have combined with newly inflated insurance rates to make Hensley’s job even more difficult. “Insurance just isn’t reasonable,” he says. “Federal flood insurance only covers up to $250,000, and since we’ve got four- and six-plexes that are worth more than that, we’ve got to take out additional policies. Flood insurance that cost $10,000 a year ago is $150,000 now.”

The Biloxi Housing Authority has approached Keesler Air Force Base about land to build affordable housing on, and it has looked into school-owned properties. “We’d like to go after public properties first and stay away from high speculative costs,” Hensley says. “Otherwise we’ll have to go north of the bay.”

Hensley says moving the bulk of Biloxi’s affordable housing north is doable but problematic for two reasons: It takes housing farther away from available jobs and moves it into an area that is currently lacking basic infrastructure.

“There’s no public transportation there,” he says. “No water, no sewer.”

Hensley is also discouraged that the federal government hasn’t come through with funding.

“We received $7 million in emergency funding from HUD, and that’s all,” he says. “We’ve heard a lot of promises, and I’m sure something will eventually be done, but right now there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Hensley believes that inflated land prices will eventually self-correct as people begin to understand that the casinos and condo developers can’t buy everything. He thinks it will take much longer to work out the insurance problem.

“This was a once-every-1,000-years storm,” he says. “And I think a lot of people have overreacted. I think FEMA has overreacted in some of the regulations for people who want to rebuild. Insurance companies have definitely overreacted with their prices.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

Coast Towns

CREDIT: Chris Davis

In February 2006, nearly six months after Hurricane Katrina cut a 200-mile gash across Mississippi, the Magnolia State still looked like a war zone. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

More than 65,000 houses had been destroyed, and the damage estimates had climbed to $125 billion. In Biloxi alone, three out of four homes sustained damage, and of those, nearly half were considered irreparable. Demolished neighborhoods were strewn with muddy toys. Furniture hung from trees like surreal fruit. Cars were still in ditches, piled on top of one another. The mangled skeletons of fast-food joints and gas stations decorated the beachfront. To anyone who hadn’t witnessed the digging-out process firsthand, it looked like Katrina might have hit the day before. Everyone I interviewed on that trip, from Biloxi mayor A.J. Holloway to the man on the street, expressed the same sentiment: Things are really bad right now, but there will be visible progress in the next six months. Some, like Holloway, were generally optimistic; others just seemed to need hope in order to press on in their unrelentingly primitive circumstances.

Chris Davis

Six months later, the Gulf Coast is showing some signs of improvement, although it would be a stretch to say that things appear to be much better. Tons of rubble have been carted away, but the area still looks like a war zone. Neighborhoods reduced to splinters by Katrina have been converted into sprawling trailer parks with temporary porches and plumbing. Communities where the damage was severe but not terminal remain as empty as an Old West ghost town, with gaping holes in the walls and ceilings of every home. In some areas, the rumble of earth-moving vehicles blends with the sounds of busy saws and hammers, but it seems like the exception rather than the rule. Little, red “For Sale” signs dominate the landscape.

On Thursday, August 31st, the sumptuous Beau Rivage casino reopened on the beach in Biloxi, creating nearly 4,000 new jobs and an atmosphere of renewed hope. Casino employees paraded through the street in front of dignitaries such as Senator Trent Lott and Holloway. Mississippi governor Haley Barbour hailed the event as a “milestone in the recovery of the coast.”

“[The casino opening] underscores an important message that Mississippi is again open for business,” Barbour said. “The private sector will determine the success of our efforts to build a Mississippi that is bigger and better than ever.”

Even with commercial growth and the steady rebirth of the Gulf’s tourist industry, unemployment throughout the region ranges from 10 to 15 percent. Chris Davis

Today

Chris Davis

Before

In spite of the obvious need for jobs, many businesses in Biloxi, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, and Waveland are unable to keep regular hours due to a lack of manpower, and “Help Wanted” signs are almost as common as the ones reading “For Sale.” Business owners, according to reports in the Biloxi Sun Herald, blame the situation on the area’s lack of housing.

Property values have soared as homeowners, frustrated by their inability to get insurance companies to pay a fair price for damage incurred and daunted by new building codes and inflated insurance premiums, are hoping to sell their land to casino and condo developers. This, along with the federal government’s failure to produce funding beyond an initial $7 million HUD emergency grant, has further hindered the development of affordable middle-class housing. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

The Gulf Coast may be less cluttered than it was six months ago, but the damage is no less shocking. And while there is no doubt that many aspects of Mississippi’s tourist industry are bouncing back, the human disaster can still be easily measured in the number of tents, trailers, and ruins that dominate the landscape. Mississippi may be “open for business,” but beyond the beautifully appointed casinos, it’s understaffed and keeps irregular hours. Reservations are advised. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

Although much of the rubble has been removed and

temporary fences have been erected, vast portions of the

Mississippi Gulf Coast are still in ruins.

Bay St. Louis’ historic downtown was wrecked by Katrina. Many buildings not demolished by wind and rain were made uninhabitable by human waste and black mold. The road separating downtown from the beachfront had been completely erased but is slowly being reconstructed. Some buildings that seemed unsalvageable are being rehabilitated, but much of the town still looks the same as it did six months ago. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

It’s difficult to measure the devastation in places like Waveland, where many neighborhoods were completely blown away. Many former residents have hung flags and signs to speak for them in their absence. Lower photos: In February, the Biloxi Community Center housed FEMA and a not-for-profit group called Midwest Help. It was also a relief station for National Guardsmen. Midwest Help was evicted in late February and FEMA has moved. On September 2, 2006, the building was open and empty.

Chris Davis

Today

Chris Davis

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Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

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Chris Davis

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Chris Davis

Today

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Dodging Responsibility

In movies and math, there’s a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. A wing flap anywhere in the world can alter everything in the universe. In the case of insurance companies and Hurricane Katrina, the relationship is tighter. A hurricane in New Orleans will affect premiums in New York, Florida, Maine, California, and elsewhere. It’ll take federal and state intervention to mitigate this problem.

Katrina destroyed homes along 70 miles of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And another storm’s been brewing there ever since: a set of lawsuits against five major insurance companies for shirking post-Katrina claims. The lawsuits, filed by famed litigator Richard Scruggs, cover 4,000 families, including Scruggs’ brother-in-law, Mississippi senator Trent Lott.

All that’s left on the plot of land that was Lott’s home is brown-twig lawn. His insurance company of 40 years — the nation’s largest insurer, State Farm — refused to pay for damage. As with other homes, State Farm contended the cause of the damage was flooding, something the company was not required to cover. That was despite Lott’s 34-year record of opposing corporate regulation.

State Farm didn’t value that record any more than Lott’s home, treating him like all policyholders: badly. This highlights one indisputable fact. Corporate America may generally discriminate against the less wealthy, but nature and insurance companies are equal-opportunity offenders.

Scruggs and other lawyers aren’t suing just about refusal to pay; the suits allege national, systemic fraud and consultant-concocted ways of shirking claims and stretching payment periods.

Scruggs also has evidence of collusion in engineering reports from firms used to evaluate homes for claims. The story goes: Give us (the insurance company) a report we like (that says we don’t have to pay), or keep coming back until you do. With tens of billions of dollars of unpaid claims at stake, it’s a strategy neither insurance nor engineering firms want illuminated in court.

Meanwhile, insurers pulled policies on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, increased deductibles and premiums, jacked up rates for late payments, and piled more risk on customers. State regulators allowed this because insurance companies moaned that reinsurance companies (which insure insurers but have zero responsibility to consumers) doubled their premiums and they need to share the cost.

The result of all this is that a disaster in 2006 or later will hit policyholders with greater losses than last year. Meanwhile, insurance company profits have nearly doubled, from $22 billion to $43 billion, in the past six years. Even with Katrina, the industry posted its largest surplus in 2005.

Attorney Pamela Stuart has a place in Vero Beach, Florida. Her premiums jumped from $1,300 to $3,000 in the past two years. She battles insurance companies for consumers and has helped neighbors decipher their policies: “I spent years as a defense lawyer. For a layperson, though, reading them is painful.”

Other problems linger. A glaring one in the Katrina suits is what constitutes wind damage versus flood damage. Blaming floods is the industry’s “get out of payment free” card. But for the decimated coastal homes, it’s a seismic leap to proclaim the cause was spontaneous flood rather than wind-caused storm surge.

Another dilemma is the lack of federal oversight of the industry, leaving states hostage to insurers. While many insurers pulled coverage from Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, remaining ones hiked premiums. When Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood commenced investigations after Katrina, insurance firms threatened to bolt.

It’s one thing when a senator has his house blown down. But, for lasting reform, we need more federal and state supervision and fewer leniencies with reinsurance and insurance-company price hikes and reneged claims.

Additionally, having the Federal Trade Commission regulate insurance companies alongside states would mitigate their power. Congress should pass the honesty bill to show support extending beyond Katrina. The role of insurance companies is to insure. Regardless of weather, they should be held accountable to that promise. That’s what the companies signed up for.