U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

34–676 PDF 2007

SOLVING THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING

CRISIS IN THE GULF COAST REGION

POST–KATRINA, PART II

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 23, 2007

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 110–6

(

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, 

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

TIM MAHONEY, Florida 

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RON PAUL, Texas 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

ADAM PUTNAM, Florida 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota 

PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois

JEANNE M. ROSLANOWICK, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

AL GREEN, Texas 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

PETER T. KING, New York 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

February 23, 2007 ............................................................................................ 1

Appendix: 

February 23, 2007 ............................................................................................ 57

WITNESSES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2007

Bender, Lillie D., Unity Homes Project ................................................................. 38

Bounds, Dr. Jeffrey K., representing Mayor Brent Warr, Gulfport, Mississippi 10

Bynum, William J., Chief Executive Officer, Enterprise Corporation of the 

Delta ...................................................................................................................... 41

Clark, Rodger, Executive Director, Paralyzed Veterans of America ................... 49

Collier, Diane, tenant .............................................................................................. 43

Evans, Derrick, Executive Director, Turkey Creek Initiative .............................. 46

Jamieson, Gil, Deputy Director for Gulf Coast Recovery, Federal Emergency 

Management Agency ............................................................................................ 20

Jopling, John, Mississippi Center for Justice ........................................................ 40

Mackenzie, Jason, North Gulfport Community Land Trust ................................ 36

Robinson, Delmar P., Chairman, Board of Commissioners, Biloxi Housing 

Authority ............................................................................................................... 23

Sanderson, Brian, Gulf Coast Business Council ................................................... 44

Sanford, Donna, Director, Disaster Recovery Division, Mississippi Development Authority ..................................................................................................... 21

Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative in Congress from the State of Mississippi .................................................................................................................. 7

Wilder, H. Rodger, President, Gulf Coast Community Foundation ..................... 39

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Bender, Lillie D. ............................................................................................... 58

Bounds, Dr. Jeffrey K. ...................................................................................... 60

Bynum, William J. ............................................................................................ 66

Hensley, Bobby ................................................................................................. 74

Jamieson, Gil .................................................................................................... 77

Jopling, John ..................................................................................................... 86

Sanderson, Brian .............................................................................................. 107

(1)

SOLVING THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING 

CRISIS IN THE GULF COAST REGION 

POST–KATRINA, PART II 

Friday, February 23, 2007

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND

COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY, 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m., in the 

Good Deeds Center, 15101 Madison Street, Gulfport, Mississippi, 

Hon. Maxine Waters [chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Waters, Cleaver, Sires; Biggert, and 

Neugebauer. 

Also present: Representative Taylor. 

Chairwoman WATERS. This hearing of the Subcommittee on 

Housing will come to order. If we can get you to take your seats, 

we will move this hearing very quickly and give all of our witnesses an opportunity to share information with us. 

Thank you, very much. I see that we have our colleague with us 

at the witness table this morning. Congressman Gene Taylor, we 

are pleased to be in your district. Thank you for having us, and I 

am going to turn the microphone over to you. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Chairwoman Waters, thank you very much for coming. I know all of you have your own districts to be looking after 

and I am just very, very honored and grateful that you have taken 

the time to come to south Mississippi. I know you have had a brief 

tour here, and for some of you, it is your first trip here, for others, 

it is your second or third. 

As you can see, a lot of progress has been made, but there is still 

a heck of a lot to do, particularly with regard to housing. We have 

an inverse situation of what you saw yesterday in New Orleans 

where about two-thirds of the folks in Mississippi own their own 

homes, as opposed to New Orleans where about two-thirds were 

renters. Most of the homes that could be saved have been saved, 

so the challenges now are replacing the public housing, replacing 

the apartment complexes that have been lost, and replacing the individual homes that were reduced down to a slab, which is going 

to take an enormous effort. 

We are going to need your help with things like Section 8, and 

public housing using HUD. We still have a lot of schools that need 

to be replaced and we need to straighten out, as I mentioned last 

week, some of the FEMA rules where a school may be 49 percent 

2

destroyed, and under the FEMA rules it would not be replaced. But 

you run into issues where, if you are going to save that old building, what about the asbestos in it, and what about the fact that it 

was built before the Americans with Disabilities Act so it may not 

be handicap accessible? 

And lastly—we will talk about next week up in Washington, and 

I very much appreciate your help and support on—is that insurance has become a huge problem. Number one, they did not pay 

people who, I think, filed legitimate claims, and then they turned 

around and said, if you rebuild, we are going to quadruple your 

rates or we will not cover you at all for wind. And so, as you know, 

we have introduced legislation to allow people to buy all natural 

perils insurance as an extension of their flood insurance program. 

And we know that under the Pay-Go rules that we passed since the 

Democrats took over Congress, it has to pay for itself, it will not 

be funded by all the taxpayers; it will be funded by the ratepayers. 

It really does affect every American who lives in a coastal community, and the census folks tell us that is 53 percent of all Americans, who are now at risk of some sort of natural catastrophe, and 

so we want to make this available for the folks from California, 

from Washington State, from Massachusetts, and from Texas. We 

think it is important; it is certainly an impediment to the rebuilding of the coast. 

You have probably noticed where there were 4,000 and 5,000 

square foot houses, people are putting up a 1,000 square foot 

house, and that is a combination of not being paid on their insurance and then being told it is going to be a heck of a lot more expensive. 

So I do not want to monopolize the time. You have put together 

a great panel and I cannot express again my gratitude. Words cannot adequately thank all of you for giving up the time that you 

could be spending with your families and your constituents, but 

you are here in Mississippi, and I am just very, very grateful for 

that. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Well, thank you very much, and of course, 

we would like you to join the panel and continue to help us focus 

on these issues that you are helping to bring to our attention in 

Washington. So please join us and continue your statement in just 

a few minutes. Thank you very, very much. 

I would like to introduce the members of the Subcommittee on 

Housing and Community Opportunity who are here today. I am 

Maxine Waters, chairing the subcommittee, and I am from California. And we have our ranking member from Illinois, Congresswoman Biggert, and also with us representing a district in Missouri, Congressman Cleaver. And from Texas, Mr. Neugebauer, and 

from New Jersey, Mr. Sires. 

So the Chair will recognize herself for a 5-minute opening statement and then we will move right into statements from the other 

members who are here. 

Again, I would like to thank Ranking Member Judy Biggert and 

each member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity who has joined me for today’s hearing. 

We gave a title to this hearing, ‘‘Solving the Affordable Housing 

Crisis in the Gulf Region Post-Katrina’’, and we raised a question 

3

about the progress and we are trying to figure out the obstacles to 

success. 

I am very pleased that we could hold today’s hearing in Gulfport, 

Mississippi. This is one of the hardest hit areas in the Gulf region 

and people are still having a hard time recovering from Katrina. 

People are suffering because many individuals and families want 

to return to their homes. Unfortunately, there is very little, if any, 

affordable housing to which to return. The housing stock has virtually disappeared in some parts of this region. Where there is 

housing, it is in such short supply that the price is unaffordable for 

many working families, the elderly, and the disabled. 

We know that Hurricane Katrina destroyed or severely damaged 

8,600 rental units in Mississippi, 95 percent of which were located 

in Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson Counties. Many homeowners 

have decided to rebuild, but some cannot make the decision to rebuild because the sums they are receiving are not adequate to rebuild. There are still many homeowners who have lost everything 

and have yet to receive grants from the State of Mississippi for 

damaged or lost homes, although the reconstruction or repair of 

their homes was funded through the Federal Community Development Block Grant Program, funds that the Congress appropriated 

last year, $5.5 billion to Mississippi since January 2006. And of 

course, it is very important for everyone to know that we responded 

as quickly as we possibly could with that appropriation, and we 

certainly intend for it to go to the people and to be distributed in 

the best way possible. 

One of the major efforts undertaken in Mississippi to make 

homeowners whole again is the Mississippi Homeowners Grant Assistance Program. Under the program, the State of Mississippi will 

pay a one-time grant up to $150,000 to eligible homeowners who 

suffered flood damage to their primary residence by Katrina. To 

date, 17,654 applications were taken by the State and 84 percent 

of the applicants who decided to repair or rebuild have been paid. 

As of February 2, 2007, 10,247 applicants have been paid a total 

of $681,456,000, which means that 72 percent of the applicants 

have received checks. 

I have to tell you, we just came from Louisiana, and I have to 

applaud the State of Mississippi for its progress in assisting homeowners. I would like to determine whether there is more that we 

can do to help the State with each of these homeowners who are 

still in need of assistance, but Louisiana is far behind Mississippi 

in distributing the dollars in their Road Home Program, so what 

appears to have been done here is a lot greater than what was 

done over there. 

Unfortunately, the response of the Federal Government to the 

housing needs in the Gulf region still can only be described as temporary. Interestingly, on September 1st, there was some representation that was made by HUD that got changed and it caused a 

lot of concern. But we think that the appropriations that we have 

made can go a long way toward assisting all of those homeowners 

and renters who need to be assisted. We just have to make sure 

that not only are the programs being implemented in ways that 

will get all of this money out, but we want to know where the soft 

4

spots are. We want to know where the problems, where the obstacles are. 

HUD approved an action plan to address the needs of the five public housing authorities in 2006. Under the plan, up to $100 million could be used by the public housing authorities that suffered 

damage to their facilities. There were 2,695 rental units pre-storm, 

2,534 were damaged or destroyed, and 906 are currently unoccupied. According to HUD, the grant allocations have been based on 

the percentage of individual public housing authority dollar damages to the total damages for all five public housing authorities. So 

while the level of damage to the public housing stock does not 

equate to the situation in New Orleans, there is still a need to address the lost public housing stock in the public housing authorities 

in Mississippi. 

We have many questions for today’s witnesses and I hope that 

the testimony today will answer many questions related to the rebuilding process in the Gulf region. Members of this subcommittee 

and the people need to be sure that in moving forward, the Federal 

response to the affordable housing crisis in the Gulf region, to the 

extent it exists in Mississippi, is a measured one. 

Let me just take a moment to compliment the State and the region for the tremendous job that has been done in removing the debris and cleaning up following Katrina. This is the second time 

that I have been in this area and the job that you have done is absolutely tremendous. But also let me just say that on my first trip 

here, I noticed that the work that had been done to get people into 

trailers was work that was to be commended, that more people had 

received immediate assistance here in Mississippi than certainly 

had taken place in Louisiana. 

In addition to that, in the conversations we had today with our 

representative of one of the public housing authorities, I was just 

very pleased to see the very positive attitude about rebuilding and 

even expanding the number of units that would be available to people who desperately need affordable housing. And so while we are 

going to ask a lot of questions here today, it certainly appears that 

a lot of work has been done, that some considerable progress has 

been made, and that the spirit is good here and people are moving 

forward and we are here to see if we cannot even do better than 

we have done in helping you to move the agenda. 

With that, I would like to call on the ranking member of this 

subcommittee, Congresswoman Biggert. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I want to thank 

you for putting together this hearing to focus on the housing needs 

of the Gulf Coast region. I would also like to thank you and HUD 

for arranging our visit to many of the devastated areas around 

New Orleans, and now here in Mississippi, and the Governor’s Office for giving us their time to really give us the background on 

what is going on here. I think this will help us so much to understand the task at hand and how we can best assist in the effort. 

I would also like to recognize and welcome today’s witnesses: my 

colleagues from the House; the local, State, and Federal officials; 

the volunteers; the businessmen and businesswomen; and, most 

importantly, the residents of this region. Thank you for being here 

today, for your testimony, and for showing us your neighborhoods 

5

and homes and for sharing with us your difficulties in rebuilding 

and revealing your hopes for the future. 

Certainly, by all accounts, Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive and costly natural disaster in the United States. It has 

destroyed housing and infrastructure on such an unprecedented 

scale. I think that the task of recovery and rebuilding in Mississippi and the whole region continues to be a monumental one. 

We are 18 months removed from the hurricane, yet the challenges 

still seem to be unending. 

But I have to say, and I would agree with the chairwoman, that 

in visiting here in Mississippi, we have seen such a remarkable recovery in comparison to New Orleans. And I think that really is 

due to the community, and I think one of the differences is that 

this seems to be from the locals up and has really provided—I 

think the people have really provided the progress, the plans, and 

obviously, effective coordination. And I really believe that rebuilding starts from the ground up; it starts at the local level. I think 

that is what is happening here, so I really do commend everyone. 

One thing that is certain, though, is that disasters will continue 

to happen. We need only to look at a recent tornado in the New 

Orleans area and recent storms in Florida as reminders. We, in 

Congress, need to learn from our mistakes in the Gulf Coast. We 

have to ask the difficult questions about how the Federal money 

has been spent in these localities. Should it have been spent in a 

more efficient and cost-effective manner? What accountability 

should there be, what Federal organization should be in charge of 

the national government response, what should be done about uninsured losses, and what should be done about insurance? These 

are difficult questions but we have to figure out how to get it right 

and we need to do it soon. It has been 18 months and people’s lives 

are deeply affected by this. 

Clearly the availability of affordable housing is critical to the 

partial recovery after such a storm. And if there is no housing, 

there is no business; if there are no businesses, there are no jobs; 

and without jobs and businesses, the residents who have not yet 

come back to provide the economic base that will spur the economy 

for this region. But I think just traveling through today, we saw 

so many businesses that have opened, and looked very viable, very 

clean, and very happy. And again, I do commend you for the 

progress that has been made. 

But I hope today’s hearing will shed light on specific issues that 

we still need to consider in order to better plan for future disasters 

and how to improve the capabilities of all levels of government in 

response to disasters effectively and whatever we can do further to 

help the people of Mississippi. 

So I thank the chairwoman for holding this meeting and look forward to the witnesses. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Now I will call on Representative Sires from New Jersey. 

Mr. SIRES. Good morning. First of all, I want to thank the chairwoman for putting this together. 

This is my first time ever in this region. I had seen the devastation on television and I wanted to put a face to what I saw. And 

I have to tell you, it is incredibly moving. I give the people of this 

6

region a lot of credit. You are building back this region, you have 

worked so hard, but I am troubled by the differences between one 

region and the other and how you are putting everything together. 

My district in New Jersey is across the river from the World 

Trade Center and one of the things that I always observed after 9/

11 is the emergency response and the coordination when there is 

a catastrophe. And I think in this area, there has been a great effort after the disaster to put the lives of people back together 

again. 

So I am just here to get the facts to understand, to get to know 

the people of the region, and in a small way see how much I can 

help you bring your lives back again. 

I also want to compliment your Congressman. I know he cares 

a great deal about the district and the region and I certainly am 

here to help as much as I can. Affordable housing and housing has 

always been an issue that is very, very important to me and I hope 

we can work together. 

So thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Neugebauer. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and thank all of you for being here today to show your interest. 

I want to compliment your Congressman, Mr. Taylor. He has 

been a great voice, because not only does he represent the people 

who are in the room, but he, in fact, experienced the full effects of 

one of the most devastating national disasters in the history of our 

country. And he has been a great voice, and really kept our committee updated on a lot of the important issues in this process as 

we go along. 

I think one of the things that hopefully will come from these 

hearings that we have had, both in Louisiana and Mississippi, is 

that we are trying to make sure we finish this process, but also 

making sure that in the future we do better. Because if we do not 

do better next time, and hopefully—I mean obviously none of us 

want a next time, but what we know is that the probability is that 

there will be future disasters in our country in the future and that 

we do this better. And one of the things that we talked about yesterday was the fact that FEMA, you know, how do we in the future—FEMA is a disaster response, it is kind of a first responder. 

And so how do we pass that ball off to the agencies that can start 

working more quickly with our communities to start rebuilding 

those communities, because when you have the kind of devastation 

that we have seen over the last 2 days, you recognize that if you 

do not quickly put those communities back together, people have 

to make choices to relocate other places because, as was mentioned, 

either housing or jobs or economic opportunity. And so it is very 

important that we have these hearings both to finish this process, 

but more importantly to me is that we also make sure that in the 

future we have a better pass-off of whose responsibilities are what. 

I commend this community. We had a little bit of a tour this 

morning and began to see a lot of the things that are coming back. 

There is still a long way to go, but—and we hopefully can hear 

some things today that possibly will help speed up that recovery. 

7

So it is a pleasure to be here on this beautiful day in Mississippi. 

The only problem is that we do not have an ocean view from where 

we are here, but thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for holding this 

hearing. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Mr. Cleaver from Missouri. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Madam Chairwoman, thank you for your effort to 

keep Washington connected with the problems resulting from the 

record flood that devastated this part of the country. 

I do not have an opening statement. I would like to also thank 

my colleague, Congressman Taylor, Gene Taylor, for your relentless 

pursuit of some redress for the people in this area. You have certainly kept Congress sensitive to this issue, so we appreciate your 

effort very much. 

Thank you. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

The Chair now recognizes the first panel. Our very first witness 

is our colleague, Congressman Gene Taylor, for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and again, I want 

to thank all of my colleagues for coming down. I was remiss in my 

opening statement that I thank you for your time in being here. 

What I failed to thank you for was the incredible generosity that 

the Congress, all of you, extended to the people of south Mississippi 

in the wake of Katrina. Within a week, the Go-Zone legislation had 

been passed and by the week of Christmas, the approximately $4 

billion that was going to ride to the aid of the people of Mississippi 

passed Congress probably about 3 a.m. as a part of the Defense appropriations bill that passed that week. We are very, very grateful 

for every penny of it and at no time, please do not ever doubt that 

we, just like the rest of our fellow Americans, want to make sure 

that it is spent properly and none of it is wasted, that it goes to 

the right place. 

So a couple of suggestions based on what did happen: 

You might remember about a year ago, our colleague Mel Watt, 

offered an amendment to the National Flood Insurance Program for 

those people who had homeowners’ insurance, who were told they 

lived outside the flood plain and did not need flood insurance, but 

subsequently flooded and then their homeowners’ insurance said 

that they would not pay. It was going to allow them to buy into 

the homeowners’ insurance program retroactively, sign a contract 

saying they would stay in it forever, so that this would not happen 

again, and then file a claim as if they had been in the program. 

That went on to become the Community Development Block 

Grants, and again, we are grateful for every penny of it. I happen 

to think that Congressman Watt’s plan would have been quicker. 

And what I really saw after the storm was people who were having 

trouble making the decision, they found themselves in an unforeseen situation and I was very much afraid that people would have 

to sell their houses, walk away from their mortgages, and lose evVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 May 31, 2007 Jkt 034676 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\34676.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
8

erything they had because something they never expected happened to them. 

We are grateful for the CDBG program, but there are a couple 

of flaws. 

One is that it took way too long. Even in Mississippi, where we 

did better than Louisiana, on the anniversary of the storm, only 

about 200 people had received their checks. Now we passed that 

money through Congress Christmas week, the check was in Jackson, Mississippi, our State capitol, by March and yet towards the 

end of August, only about 200 people had received their checks. 

And I think if we had done it the way Congressman Watt wanted 

to do it, using the existing bureaucracy, it would have been a lot 

faster. So that is the first suggestion. 

The second thing is, one of the unpleasant things that came out 

of this is that we actually had some State elected officials do business with the program. And as someone who asked for that money, 

and as someone who promised my colleagues that money would be 

spent properly, since the State allowed that to happen, I would 

suggest that we, as a Nation, pass some rules saying that is not 

going to happen in the future. I want my colleagues in Congress 

to know that should this ever happen in Mississippi again, or in 

Los Angeles or in Texas or New Jersey, that the money is going 

to go to the citizens and not somebody who is using their elected 

office to try to get a few bucks out of the deal. 

The third thing is that transparency is a good thing. A lot of 

these local communities actually publish their monthly expenditures in the paper. Whether they are buying a lawnmower, or getting a police car fixed, it is published in the paper, and transparency is a good thing. One of the things that I would hope in the 

future is that the amount of money that is distributed is transparent, because again, most of you may come from other small 

communities where people know what happened to the Jones, people know what happened to this family over here. And the best way 

to ensure that the checks were given out properly and fairly is selfpolicing of the citizenry. They are going to know which houses were 

gone, which houses were flooded, and which houses only lost a few 

shingles. And so I think transparency is a good thing. If we, as a 

Nation, are looking for transparency from Bechtel and Halliburton 

and all of them, then it ought to be transparent all the way 

through. So that would be a suggestion for the future. 

In the case of the trailers, we are very, very grateful for them. 

There are a few folks in the back of this room who worked for 

FEMA in delivering those trailers and at one point we had 40,000 

Mississippi families living in those tiny trailers. They are designed 

for up to a family of four. One of my neighbors who used to play 

ball for one of our colleges here in Mississippi, the guy is about 260 

pounds, and he has two 280-pound sons. You put his wife in there, 

and that is a lot of people in one of those little trailers. So again, 

maybe in the future, you ought to take that into account. 

And there are some issues that have only recently come out. We 

had just yesterday, in our local paper, a front page story about a 

lot of congestive problems that are coming from the people living 

in these trailers. They were really made for a weekend. Now we 

have had people—and again, thank goodness—we have had people 

9

who have had an opportunity to live in them for 18 months because 

they lost everything. The President has extended that to 24 

months, but they are finding some respiratory problems because 

the materials in these trailers, among other things, contain formaldehyde. Again, if you are only going to spend one weekend a 

month in it, no big deal. If you are spending 18 months every night 

in it, it does become a big deal, so that is something that I would 

encourage you to look into. 

A lot of the initial contracts were cost-plus, non-compete contracts. And I will point to the trailers again, and I want to make 

it really clear that we are grateful for the trailers. It did take too 

long to get them on people’s property but it was a cost-plus noncompete contract to an outfit called Bechtel, and it turns out that 

when you put a pencil to it, it was about $16,000 per trailer just 

to haul them from about 70 miles from here, take them to somebody’s yard, hook them up to a garden hose, hook them up to a 

sewer tap and put in what those of us in the construction trade call 

a 200 amp pole. That is way too much money. 

In the beginning, it was chaotic down here. There was a lack of 

fuel, no electricity, you had to bring in food for your employees, you 

had to bring in a portalet for your employees, and you had to bring 

in a shower and a cot for your employees. So obviously in the first 

month or so, everything we did was very expensive. But that was 

not the case after the fourth month or the sixth month. And so 

again, maybe we need to find a good balance between responding 

to the initial emergency and then as things get a little bit more 

normal, rebidding those contracts, giving the local guys a better 

shot at bidding for them, because a heck of a lot of the contracts 

went to outfits like Ashford out of Florida, Bechtel out of California, and the locals felt left out. And then what also happened, 

in the case of the debris, the debris removal contract was fairly 

generous, it was about $21 per cubic yard in some of these counties. Well, then someone would come along and rebuy that contract 

for $19 a cubic yard. Someone else would buy it for $17, or $15, 

and so it ends up that the guy who is actually hauling debris is 

getting about $9. And again, we, as a Nation, should have been in 

a position to say, you know what, if that price is going to end up 

around $9, maybe that is what the Corps of Engineers ought to be 

issuing and not the $21. 

The good side was, because there was a lot of money to be made, 

it almost looked like the gold rush to get debris out of here, because people knew that every time they put a yard of debris in 

their truck and got it to the dump, they were going to get a check 

for that much money. So it moved things along quickly, but I think 

it certainly could have been done in a more cost-effective manner 

that gave more of the local folks an opportunity to compete. 

Again, I do not want to monopolize your time. I am incredibly 

grateful for everything our Congress has done, and I am particularly grateful for you being here. God bless you all. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

I am very appreciative, and we all are very appreciative that we 

have elected officials who have come to be with us today. We have 

Supervisor William Martin from District 4; Council Member Bill 

Stallworth from Ward 2; Council Member Barbara Nalley; the ElecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 May 31, 2007 Jkt 034676 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\34676.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
10

tion Commissioner from District 4, Christine Brice; former City 

Council Member for Gulfport, Jimmy Jenkins; Council Member 

Jackie Smith; and Councilwoman Ella Holmes-Hine from Gulfport. 

Thank you very much for coming today. 

With that, I would now like to call on the representative who is 

here from the Mayor’s office. I understand that the Honorable 

Brent Warr could not be with us today, but he has asked Dr. 

Bounds—I could not see that lettering on your identification tag 

there. Thank you very much for being with us, Dr. Bounds. Please 

go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JEFFREY K. BOUNDS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FOR MAYOR BRENT WARR, GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI 

Dr. BOUNDS. Thank you for having me. First, I would like to 

apologize on behalf of Mayor Warr, who had a previous engagement and could not be here. The Mayor asked me and my colleague 

Linda Weil, another planner, to be here, partly because, I think, of 

my somewhat unique experience. I am a local native to the area, 

I grew up here, so I know the area from that perspective, and I experienced Katrina not just from the perspective of a resident who 

is suffering through it, but also as a volunteer. 

Shortly after Katrina, or a few months after Katrina, I went to 

the City of Gulfport and volunteered to help with the management 

of the building department, so I got some exposure to the perspective as a city staff employee. And then lastly, I have served as a 

planning consultant with the Cities of Gulfport and Pass Christian 

and several other cities on the coast in the adoption of the planning 

reform efforts that the Governor’s Mississippi Renewal Forum pioneered in October of 2005. 

So in my comments, I would like to say first that I am extremely 

appreciative of all the efforts that the Congress, and Congressman 

Taylor, in particular, and the Federal Government has expended in 

terms of support and recovery for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. 

In what I say next, though, you may notice a little bit of frustration and I am largely going to be talking about the negatives. I do 

not want that to be construed as a lack of appreciation for State, 

local, or Federal officials because basically wonderful things have 

happened and have been done, but I do think that we can do better 

in many regards. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Excuse me. Could you speak up a little bit 

louder so everybody in the back can hear you? 

Dr. BOUNDS. Yes, ma’am. 

I would like to start with two comments about the goings on in 

the city and then to basically make four specific points about the 

recovery efforts as far as affordable housing goes. 

First, the extent of housing damage in the City of Gulfport is 

something that is sort of difficult to put a specific number to. The 

fact of the matter, and one of the things that I learned when I volunteered to work with the City is that one of the most frustrating 

aspects of the recovery has been that the local governments, city 

and county, do not actually possess the staff and resources to address a lot of the challenges of the recovery. 

So for all the funding that has been provided, little or none has 

actually gone to help local governments obtain the staffing and adVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 May 31, 2007 Jkt 034676 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\34676.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
11

ministrative support that the recovery requires. The building department, I think, in the City of Gulfport was an early example for 

me. They essentially have to permit every single repair or building 

replacement that happens and this is a building office that normally handles a fairly sleepy number of additional buildings that 

are constructed every year. But at this point, fully a third of the 

structures in the city had to essentially have some work done on 

them. As you can imagine, that really overburdened the resources 

the City had. 

Essentially every department in the City of Gulfport has been 

strained to the breaking point, and are generally unable to hire 

sufficient staff due to housing constraints. It is very difficult to 

move new people into the area, and essentially coast-wide, there is 

a huge employment shortage, which makes it very difficult to get 

staff. 

As a result, the City has not had staff available to provide the 

data collection that would be necessary in order to obtain useful accurate information on the actual number of destroyed, required, or 

even in-service housing units that are on the ground at this time, 

or to put numbers to the shortfall of affordable housing in the City. 

That is sort of a fundamental requirement in terms of knowing 

where you are so you can know where you need to go. And essentially, I think most of the cities across the coast are just unable to 

do that and some assistance would essentially be very, very helpful. 

Based on that, I would like to make the recommendation that 

funding for additional administrative staffing for local governments 

is really an important thing after a major catastrophe. FEMA’s 

model of providing national food insurance staff to help local building officials with answering flood questions is a great model, I 

think, for the way that that can work. It was a little on the insufficient side in the amount of help that was actually needed, but it 

was a brilliant idea and it worked really well in the towns where 

it was used. 

I think in general that short and longer term support is needed 

for administrative tasks from damage assessment to housing evaluation to building code and engineering staff. 

The second point I would like to make, or issue I would like to 

address, is just talking about the City of Gulfport’s repair and rebuilding experiences after the storm. Gulfport is an entitlement 

city with home and CDBG funds administered by the Community 

Development Division of the City’s Urban Development Department. After Katrina, existing entitlements in the amount of about 

$800,000, including CDBG and home funds, were reallocated for a 

hurricane emergency repair program that was fashioned as a direct 

response to the catastrophic destruction of a large number of 

homes by City staff. That required a large number of waivers on 

the part of HUD, and to their credit, HUD actually came through 

with the waivers, but it took a very, very long time for that to happen and part of the problem was no doubt the fact that there was 

not a good communication channel between local staff on the 

ground and higher ups. And so it became somewhat difficult to 

make clear the nature of the situation and the fact that the waivers were needed. 

12

What the City did with that $800,000 of reallocated funding was 

to essentially team up with local nonprofit groups. The nonprofit 

groups provided the labor to do emergency repairs on houses that 

were damaged for people who could not afford to otherwise repair 

them. The City provided the materials and provided local housing 

in the National Guard Armory for some of the volunteers to make 

that happen. 

Chairwoman WATERS. I am going to have to ask you to wrap up. 

We are going to ask you questions and get to some more of this 

information. 

Dr. BOUNDS. All right. I would like to touch really briefly then, 

if I can, on two issues or one issue in particular and that is the 

flood hazard. As a planner, one of the things that I think is easily 

lost in looking at recovery is the bigger term questions of how we 

make sure this doesn’t happen again and how we avoid the mistakes that we made. One of the things that we see happening, especially in the City of Gulfport is an enormous amount of development that is happening is happening in the flood plain. Unfortunately a tremendous part of the high and dry and probably safest 

ground in the City of Gulfport is actually only about a mile north 

of the beach in older parts of town, which are in-fill. And essentially what we found is an awful lot of the federally funded programs to produce affordable housing take no account of that, provide us no reasonable mechanism for redevelopment of in-fill areas, 

and essentially programs like the tax credit programs which are intended well and which have made some efforts to accommodate the 

needs of cities, in fact are falling woefully behind in terms of the 

requirements. So we actually need, in particular, mixed use, mixed 

income, and mixed ownership types. Those are really sort of the 

critical things that are needed in order to make affordable housing 

work in the community. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Bounds can be found on page 00 

of the appenidx.] 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

We would like to ask a few questions now. First, let me say to 

my colleague, Congressman Taylor, you and I had a conversation 

some time ago where you indicated your concern about conflicts of 

interest and you alluded to it again today. And I am not sure that 

I remember the details of that, but I do remember walking away 

from the conversation feeling that this was very serious and it 

sounded as if some elected officials had been the beneficiaries of 

our appropriations because they had businesses that they were 

able to get to do certain kinds of work. And it certainly did not 

seem as if it is the kind of thing that we would support. 

So would you explain to us again exactly what is it that concerns 

you and what should we do, what ideas do you have to correct it? 

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Chairwoman, the State of Mississippi, in 

the State Constitution, Section 109, has a very strong conflict of interest section that says in effect that a city councilman cannot do 

business with the city or a county supervisor with his county. You 

cannot even recuse yourself from a vote. You simply cannot do 

business. 

Because the CDBG money came out of Washington, the State 

Ethics Department ruled that was Federal money. And even 

13

though it flowed through the State of Mississippi, it was Federal 

money and, therefore, a couple of State reps and a State senator, 

or vice versa, were able to start a corporation. Now in their defense, they were the low bidder and the substantially low bidder, 

but it still gives off the appearance of impropriety. And again, we 

are asking for your generosity and we do not want anyone to think, 

5 years from now, should this happen in Mississippi again, and I 

go to my colleagues again, I do not want my colleagues saying, 

‘‘Well, wait a second, you gave that money to a bunch of legislators.’’ 

So I would ask that the rules be changed to just make it very 

clear that anyone who is going to handle this money in an official 

capacity cannot bid on this money, and that is whether it is a trailer delivery contract, whether it is debris removal, anything of that 

sort, we need a good clear—because again, the State has a very 

good law, a well-intended law, but I think the Ethics Commission 

came up with a bad ruling on that. So that is the situation and 

that is why I think it needs to be addressed. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. I thank you for 

bringing that to our attention, and certainly, I think we can write 

into our legislation something that would prevent that from happening in the future. 

Let me just ask, is it Mr. Bounds? 

Dr. BOUNDS. Yes, Dr. Bounds. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Dr. Bounds, you mentioned that the City 

did not have a lot of support and you needed personnel—here you 

are in a crisis and you need to do some management. Now am I 

to understand that you did not get any of the CDBG money that 

we sent to the State to help offset your costs at the City level? 

Dr. BOUNDS. The CDBG money actually was forthcoming but in 

programs, to my familiarity, that essentially were not—certainly 

were not available to the City immediately after the storm when 

the staffing crisis first happened. And, you know, that is not intended as a criticism of that program, just that I think some other 

mechanism is probably needed in order to ensure that when a catastrophe hits an area comprised largely of very small towns, which 

in many cases have a single building official and nobody else in the 

department, that some kind of support is going to be needed in 

order for at least the very obvious case of rebuilding. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Well, as I understand it, the CDBG money 

that we sent to the State could have been used to assist the local 

communities in expediting whatever programs they needed to expedite in order to help the citizens. 

Secondly, if I still have a minute here, you alluded to public 

housing and the replacement of public housing, I believe. And I 

was not clear what you were saying. 

Dr. BOUNDS. My concerns were actually directed to affordable 

housing in general, not just public housing, but my concerns are 

that what we see locally is that probably 95 percent of the reconstruction is actually happening in the flood plain, and the concern 

being, in my opinion, that there is a real issue with whether you 

are doing anybody any favors by locating those who are least able 

to handle the financial consequences in harm’s way. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you. 

14

Now I do not know if you are able to answer this question, but 

I just heard some information that was not clearly explained to me 

about residents who are being asked to do long-term leases rather 

than purchasing. Are you familiar with that? 

Dr. BOUNDS. No, ma’am, I am not. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right. Thank you, very much. 

With that, I will turn to my colleague, Ranking Member Judy 

Biggert. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

Congressman Taylor, thank you so much for all that you are 

doing for your constituents. And I notice that in the Wall Street 

Journal today, there is an editorial which you are in, along with 

Senator Trent Lott, and both of you talking about the flood insurance and I know that you have been working very hard on that. 

I understand that you are introducing a bill that will address 

this issue, at some point? At least that is what they are saying 

here. What I wanted to ask you is if that is similar to—there was 

a bill that was introduced in 2007, it was called the Multiple Peril 

Insurance Act, and Congressman Boustany had this bill, and it was 

to amend the National Flood Insurance Act to provide for the National Flood Insurance Program to make available multi-peril coverage for damage resulting from wind storms or floods and for 

other purposes. Is the legislation that you are proposing similar to 

that? 

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, ma’am. Two things. Number one, the only industry in America that is exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act 

is the insurance industry, and I will give you some examples. If a 

storm had just hit, and people had holes in their roofs, and the 

local roofers all got together and said, let’s all bump our prices by 

$100 a square because we have a captive audience, then they they 

would go to prison. If just before a hurricane, people are trying to 

get out of town and there are only three gas stations and the three 

gas stations all look at each other and say, you know, we have a 

captive audience, so let’s charge $5.00 a gallon, then they would go 

to prison. 

But it is perfectly legal for State Farm to call Allstate and to call 

Nationwide and say, let’s raise our rates or, what I suspect they 

did in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they said let’s not pay 

claims. If you, Allstate, do not pay claims, then there will not be 

pressure on me, State Farm, to pay claims, and then Nationwide 

will not have to pay claims. It is wrong, but it is legal. 

And if you think about it, we have laws that say you have to 

have insurance. You have to have insurance to drive. If you have 

a federally backed mortgage, you have to have insurance. So we are 

telling the people on one hand, you have to have insurance; on the 

other hand, we are telling them that you are exempt from the antitrust laws and there is zero Federal regulation of the insurance industry. 

The all perils insurance—one of the phenomena that happened 

is the few people who got justice from the insurance industry that 

I saw early on were eyewitnesses. Even though the satellites told 

us the storm was coming, even though the hurricane told us, even 

though the sheriff’s deputies went out to all the churches that 

morning and said, you cannot have any more services, tell your 

15

congregation to get the heck out of here, some people did stay behind. Some died as a result of that. But the ones who lived were 

the ones who could say yes, I saw my house fly apart before the 

water got here, and they got paid by the insurance industry. The 

ones who were not eyewitnesses because they did what they should 

have, which was to get the heck out of here, all they know is that 

they have come home to a slab, and they have an insurance company who is holding the checkbook and they are saying they do not 

see any sign of wind damage, so they are not going to pay. 

So the purpose of the all perils is that if you built your house 

to Code, if you have built it high enough that—the Federal Flood 

Insurance Program tells you how high to build it—you have built 

it to Code, you have paid your premiums, and you purchased an 

all perils extension to that policy, then it does not matter if it got 

hit with a microburst, if your neighbor’s house flew into it, if a 

shrimp boat went through it because the water got so high—it does 

not matter. And stuff like that really did happen to a personal 

friend. It does not matter, if it happened and you paid your policy, 

you are going to get paid. And you do not have to stick around—

I really have heard a lot of my constituents say next time, I am 

staying with a video camera, and I am going to have evidence to 

show those sons of guns and they will have to pay me. And remember, 53 percent of all Americans live in a coastal community. So 

whether it is New Jersey, whether it is California, whether it is 

Texas, or whether it is Maine, 53 percent of all Americans are affected by this and I would certainly, for the interior States, if they 

want to be included, extend that to tornados and wildfires. But I 

am not going to force it on those communities. We want to make 

it available should they choose to participate. 

But that is the intention, that is why we are doing it and quite frankly, the same year that the industry made $44 billion in profits, in 2005, the flood insurance program lost $20 billion, and the 

reason I think that happened is that the citizens got stuck with the 

bill that should have been picked up by Allstate, State Farm, Nationwide, and others. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. I realize how passionate you are about this, but 

I do think that you are correct that people should not remain behind to video the disaster. I think the smarter people still were the 

ones who left, but thank you for all that you are doing. 

I yield back. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Allow me to share this. Congressman Watt, who chairs our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, will be having an oversight hearing next Wednesday in Washington on insurance, on precisely what you are describing now about what happened here. So 

it is because of you that this is the number one issue on the agenda 

for that subcommittee and this overall committee and additionally, 

support from this subcommittee. 

Thank you very much, and I will turn to Mr. Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

I am stuck on CDBG and I do not think I am going to get 

unstuck any time soon because I think that there is some legislation needed in the event—not in the event, when we end up in another tragedy—it is going to happen. 

16

The CDBG requirements for, as my colleague, Mr. Sires and I 

know, both of us have served as mayor, requires a community 

meeting, a public hearing on the spending of those dollars. That 

was waived in this process and as I understand it, the community 

was told that they could send in letters, which probably means that 

the majority of the people in here now never sent in a letter. Those 

public hearings are designed so that the public can participate in 

the decisions on how those dollars are going to be spent, and that 

is an annual event for cities that receive the Community Development Block Grant, the CDBG grant. 

Do any of you believe that process needs to be addressed or do 

you think that even though it was waived, that things worked out 

okay, and that the community is satisfied even though they did not 

have the opportunity to participate? To some degree, I am begging 

the question, but was that process acceptable? Does the community, as far as you know— 

Mr. TAYLOR. If you do not mind—and we also want these folks 

to speak—to a very large extent, as I was riding around the first 

couple of weeks after the storm—remember, the first week we were 

not in session, the second week we were, but I felt it was important 

to stay. And really, within days of the storm, as I am riding around 

checking on people, people were coming to me, tears in their eyes, 

policy in their hand, saying, ‘‘Gene, I live 25 feet above sea level, 

and I was told I did not need flood insurance because you only had 

to have flood insurance if you had a federally backed mortgage and 

you lived in the flood plain.’’ So in some instances the FEMA maps 

were wrong, but in many instances, the unthinkable happened, 

places that had not flooded in the 300 years that people have lived 

here flooded. So people were coming to me saying I have a 

$150,000 policy, but I am not going to get a dime. I am going to 

lose everything. 

So to a very large extent, the way it was written in the expedited 

process was at my request, because I wanted to get money in people’s hands. It was pretty easy to spot that problem. Congressman 

Watt offered that plan as an amendment, it failed by a vote or two 

in committee, but Senator Cochran picked up the ball and God 

bless him for doing so, and did it through CDBG program. But basically took that plan, to cover someone up to the amount of their 

homeowners’ policy, up to $150,000, for the amount of the damage 

or the amount of the policy, whichever was less. So if a guy only 

had $20,000 worth of damage, he got a $20,000 check and not a 

$150,000 check. 

So a lot of that was waived to get things going because of—really 

because of the situation, as universal as the situation was and the 

fear that people would give up hope and sell out short to the 

sharks. And the sharks were circling from day one, coming around 

saying, ‘‘Okay, you have more mortgage than you are going to get 

homeowners’ policy or you are not going to get any money. I will 

give you 10 cents on the dollar for that piece of property.’’ We did 

not want people to lose their houses and we wanted to give them 

hope. 

And again, it is one of the things that we did, I think, better 

than Louisiana. We got our plan going quicker. It was not perfect, 

but at least by Christmas time, people knew that help was on the 

17

way. So that is why we waived some of those rules. I understand 

your concerns, but it was to give people some hope right away that 

they did not have to lose their properties. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, that is the only 

question. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Mr. Neugebauer. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, very much. 

Congressman, I want to kind of go back to what you were talking 

about with the insurance. I agree with you wholeheartedly. We 

have to have a centralized policy process so that people do not have 

to guess what perils they are insured for, that they know if they 

have a loss, that they are covered. 

I think one of the things that will be an interesting part of that, 

and I wanted to get your thoughts on that is, is that a coastal rider 

that the private sector is going to make actuarially sound? Because 

obviously we do not want to start—you know how I feel about the 

government being in any kind of business, I get concerned about 

that. So can you kind of walk me through some of the thoughts 

that you have on that? 

Mr. TAYLOR. Sure. And I very much appreciate the question. 

If you go back to the 1960’s, in the late 1960’s, we started the 

National Flood Insurance Program because the private sector did 

not want that business. They thought it was a bad investment on 

their part and so rather than tell people who live in the flood plain 

of Texas or the flood plain of Ohio or the Mississippi Gulf Coast 

that they cannot live there or they cannot get insurance, the Nation stepped up and created the Federal Flood Insurance Program. 

And to this day, it covers about 53 percent of all Americans, those 

who live in a coastal community or the folks who live on the Great 

Lakes, who live on the Mississippi River, etc. 

What we have seen since the storm, and I followed it closer than 

most because it is so personal, is that on a State-by-State basis, the 

insurance industry has pulled out of coastal America. Just last 

week, Ms. Waters told me that, I believe, Nationwide, pulled out 

of the State of California. A couple of weeks ago, last week, State 

Farm said, ‘‘We are out of Mississippi.’’ A couple of weeks before 

that, in Congressman Joe Bonner’s district down in coastal Alabama, one of the majors said, ‘‘We are out of here.’’ And we actually 

have a map of coastal America where, on a State-by-State basis, 

company by company, they are pulling out. So there is a void there 

that the private sector does not want or, I will play devil’s advocate, maybe it is a marketing ploy. Because remember, they are exempt from the antitrust laws. So they really are the only businesses in America who can turn to their competitors and say, ‘‘You 

say out of Mississippi, you stay out of Alabama, I will take Florida.’’ Maybe it is a game for them to pull out for awhile, wait until 

a couple of weeks before hurricane season, come back into the State 

and say, ‘‘Okay, we are back, but we are going to charge you 5 

times more money.’’ Either way, that is wrong. 

So if they do not want the business, and 53 percent of all Americans live on the coast, I do then see it as something that our Nation should step forward and do as long as it is done in a cost-effecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 May 31, 2007 Jkt 034676 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\34676.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
18

tive manner, and under the Pay-Go rules, we cannot pass anything 

that is not going to pay for itself. 

It is not just Mississippi. I guarantee you, if you take a look 

around Texas, you will see that many of your big carriers have 

pulled out. It was the biggest issue in the Florida gubernatorial 

race this year, and the Republican winner is now trying to deal 

with that in a special session. 

As you notice, the co-sponsors of this bill are the folks from Louisiana, the folks from here, and Walter Jones from coastal North 

Carolina. This is a national issue and that is why I think we 

should step forward. I understand your concerns about taking 

something from the private sector. I feel very confident in saying 

this is business the private sector does not want, so we are either 

going to leave those people out there exposed or our Nation is going 

to step up and provide that coverage. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Well, I think one of the things that maybe we 

need to do with the private sector, Congressman, is just kind of sit 

down with them and say, how do we make this—obviously if you 

have 53 percent of the American people living in a coastal area, I 

have to believe that it is going to be tough for them to try to make 

a living off of the 47 percent of us who do not. So I think one of 

the things that we may have to look at is what is the issue that 

is causing the private sector not to—and obviously when you have 

a catastrophic event like we have had where it was a major—and 

in some of those areas of Florida that have had repetitive losses. 

I mean I understand the business model of you keep paying out, 

you keep paying out. 

So I look forward to working with you in that respect as we look 

at ways to see if we can induce or entice maybe is a better term 

that private sector participation. 

Thank you. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Sires of New Jersey. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Congressman, I could not agree with you more on the fact that 

most people live along the coast. New Jersey is a time bomb waiting to happen. Millions of dollars have been invested in my region. 

But I certainly agree with you that we have to hold these insurance companies’ feet to the fire and we have to come to—it is just 

not acceptable that you have a region like this and they have a 

process not to help the people but it seems they have a process to 

make as much money as they want. 

I have a question for the planner. You made a recommendation 

that some of the functions, I guess, that you have to do after you 

have this devastation, like inspectors, and administrators, you said 

the smaller communities cannot handle the magnitude of it. What 

is your suggestion, what should we be looking at? Do you want a 

regional approach, do you want it to be part of the emergency program afterwards? How much power are you going to give these people when they come into this region and say, you know, the inspectors, because I have dealt with inspectors all my life, I was a mayor 

for 12 years. Some of them are good, some of them are not so good. 

So what is your suggestion? 

19

Dr. BOUNDS. Actually, I would say that probably the best thing 

that could be done would be sort of a three-tiered program. And 

that would be first, for immediate services part of what is needed 

is just—and perhaps it could be provided through FEMA, but essentially just on the ground groups of people doing even very basic 

administrative tasks, probably not inspections or anything like 

plan approval because that is really not what happens. But sometimes just getting bodies in these smaller towns is important. 

A second part of that would be in the longer term, what would 

have been helpful and what is essentially not allowed by the CDBG 

program is for cities to have used the CDBG money for—at least 

the way the program was administered—for staffing needs or to 

even hire short term consultants to alleviate some of the issue. And 

I think that would alleviate some of the problems as well. 

And lastly, and I think perhaps most importantly, that what we 

found locally and I think across the coast was that nonprofits, 

working with local governments have essentially been able to multiply the capabilities of what the local governments could do. And 

in many cases, much more cost-effectively than the governments 

themselves were able to do. 

So I would urge that CDBG funding be aimed at existing nonprofit infrastructure so that essentially those are basically people 

who were there, they are frequently very knowledgeable and, you 

know, generally you can get a lot for your money that way. 

Mr. SIRES. One of the problems that we heard when we were in 

New Orleans was the fact that some of the buildings—some people 

said that they should be torn down, and some inspectors said that 

they needed to be torn down; while other people said that they 

should—they had an engineer there from MIT saying that these 

buildings could be saved. You would not come into that situation 

by having a regional approach, so I just want you to think that 

over, because sometimes it is not as easy as just— 

Dr. BOUNDS. I think you are right, clearly for the larger decisions. But I think what we found overwhelmingly was it was not 

even these big decisions that were overpowering the local government, it was just volumes and volumes of residents coming in saying, ‘‘What do I do? Where can I go for emergency assistance? I 

need to do something, I have to patch a hole in the roof of my 

house, do I need a permit?’’ Really very basic stuff in many cases. 

Mr. SIRES. I guess what I am getting at is that region by region, 

we really have to take a look at what is in the best interest of that 

region. 

Dr. BOUNDS. I think that is true. I think that the nonprofit approach has the advantage that generally, you know, local nonprofits are pretty aware of the circumstances on the ground. I 

think that is a real opportunity going forward. 

Mr. SIRES. And Congressman, I want you to count on my support 

on anything that you are doing with insurance. I think it is just—

I felt like I was back in New Jersey when I heard some of these 

people getting into the insurance business. 

Thank you. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. I would like to 

thank you for your participation today. And Congressman, feel free 

to join us here if you would like, or at the table where you are. We 

20

are just delighted to be here and thank you for all that you are 

doing to educate us about what we can do to have better assistance 

from the Federal Government. 

With that, I will call the next panel, panel two. Mr. Gil 

Jamieson, Deputy Director for Gulf Coast Recovery, Federal Emergency Management Agency; Ms. Donna Sanford, director, Disaster 

Recovery Division, Mississippi Development Authority; and Mr. 

Bobby Hensley, executive director, Biloxi Housing Authority. 

And while they are coming to the table, let me take a moment 

to thank Ms. Valerie Hill and the Good Deeds Center. Where is Ms. 

Hill? Thank you, Ms. Hill, so very much for hosting us here today. 

We really do appreciate your kindness and the generosity of the 

Good Deeds Center. 

All right, we will call on our first witness. I think we are just 

about settled there. We have a familiar face, Mr. Gil Jamieson, 

Deputy Director for Gulf Coast Recovery, Federal Emergency Management Agency. Anything we did not ask you yesterday, we will 

ask you today. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF GIL JAMIESON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR GULF 

COAST RECOVERY, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

AGENCY 

Mr. JAMIESON. It is good to see you again this morning. Good 

morning, Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Biggert, and 

other distinguished members of the panel. 

As you know, but others here do not, my name is Gil Jamieson, 

and I am FEMA’s Deputy Director for Gulf Coast Recovery. My 

current position was established to ensure that FEMA’s programs 

are consistently and effectively administered throughout the Gulf 

region. I am very proud to say that to help me do that, we have 

established transitional recovery offices in all four States in which 

I am responsible. We have been here on the ground since the early 

days. We have a presence in Biloxi, and we have a presence in 

Jackson. Throughout the AOR, we have over 3,300 people, which 

is, in fact, larger than the size of FEMA in its headquarters region 

itself. In Mississippi, that number is 1,000 folks and I am very 

proud to say that 70 percent of that number are local folks who are 

working to assist in the recovery of their communities. 

Madam Chairwoman, I know yesterday—I am trusting that you 

have a copy of my full testimony and I would ask that it be submitted for the record. I will summarize my remarks very quickly. 

Essentially, FEMA has declared emergencies in 44 States and 

the District of Columbia to assist in this response and recovery effort. We have reimbursed over $750 million in shelter expenses; we 

have provided approximately $6.3 billion to over one million households through FEMA’s Individual and Household Program; we have 

provided more than 120,000 households with travel trailers and 

mobile homes through FEMA’s Direct Housing Assistance Program, 

and we have provided over $7 billion of public assistance funding 

throughout the Gulf region. 

FEMA is authorized, as you know, to provide temporary housing 

assistance and a point that I continue to make is that it is important to note that FEMA’s Temporary Housing Assistance Program; 

and our authorities were not designed to provide long-term housing 

21

solutions, but rather to provide eligible disaster victims with temporary accommodations. 

Just very, very briefly, under our Financial Assistance Program, 

we have provided over $2.1 billion in rental assistance to over 

700,000 households, and 35,000 households continue to receive 

some form of rental assistance payment. 

Under our Home Replacement Program, we are authorized to 

provide up to $10,500, and we have provided $300 million to over 

30,000 households. 

For the Direct Housing Assistance Program, which I know is a 

concern of the committee’s, we have, over the last 17 months, provided 120,000 households with travel trailers and mobile homes. 

That number has decreased and we are now down to 28,000 here 

in the State of Mississippi. The good news here, as it was in Louisiana, is that a good number of those units are on private sites 

where people are actually working to build back their homes. 

Congressman Taylor mentioned that the President has extended 

the deadline for housing assistance for an additional 6 months, 

which gives us 24 months. That is important because it is additional time, not only for disaster victims to be in temporary housing assistance, but for us to work with HUD and our other partners to find permanent housing alternatives. 

On the mitigation program, I cannot emphasize how important 

I think it is to build this community back stronger. There was a 

good deal of discussion this morning about insurance, about mapping, and about advisory base flood elevations which are guiding 

the elevations levels. Building back smarter and stronger is clearly—there is a rich opportunity here in the State to ensure that we 

do that. 

We have, through our Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, $433 

million that will be available to the State to assist them with elevation of structures and what-have-you. The National Flood Insurance Program has paid out here in Mississippi $2.4 billion; 18,600 

claims in Mississippi, and I am very pleased to say that over 99 

percent of those claims have been settled. 

An issue for many on the panel, I know, is the issue of contracting and I am proud to say that here, as well as in Louisiana, 

all of our new contracts now are competitively bid contracts, with 

significant thresholds in there for locally owned and minority 

owned firms. 

One thing that I would like to focus on over here is that Congress did, as part of an emergency supplemental, pass $400 million 

to FEMA for our pilot program. Madam Chairwoman, just the Alternative Housing Program, I think perhaps in question, it would 

be important that we address that, and I will conclude my testimony however. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jamieson can be found on page 

77 of the appendix.] 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Our next witness is Ms. Donna Sanford, director, Disaster Recovery Division, Mississippi Development Authority. 

22

STATEMENT OF DONNA SANFORD, DIRECTOR, DISASTER RECOVERY DIVISION, MISSISSIPPI DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY 

Ms. SANFORD. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you 

for being here and welcome to Mississippi. 

I think you kind of hit on our highlights with our members earlier and I would like to update those for you. I would like to remind 

you that over 30,000 homes in the coast area received flood damage 

and our homeowners assistance programs were directed to those 

who received flood surge damage. We have a $3.2 billion plan that has been approved by HUD. I 

also would like to point out that plan was approved on April 1, 

2006, but we did not receive a release of funds until July of 2006. 

That was because there was a question from the mortgage industry 

as to whether or not we had appropriately addressed environmental issues. 

In our Phase I Homeowners Program, we have received 17,750 

applications. We have deemed that 14,300 of those are potentially 

eligible and we have notified 13,770 that they are eligible to close 

their grants—12,660 homeowners have closed their grants and as 

of Tuesday, we have paid 11,100 homeowners. This is 78 percent 

of the potentially eligible applicants and we have issued checks for 

$738.2 million. It also interesting to note that 84 percent of these 

applicants have indicated that they would repair or rebuild their 

homes here on the coast. 

In July of 2006, we began taking applications for our Phase II 

Homeowners Program. This included residents who were either inside or outside the flood zone and regardless if they had structure 

insurance. There is an eligibility requirement that the home be 120 

percent of area median income. To date, we have received 7,100 applications for this program; in addition, the 3,450 Phase I applicants who did not qualify will be rolled into this program. That 

brings us to 10,550 applications that we are currently working, and 

we have begun damage assessments and title work on all of these. 

With both of these phases, we are working with 24,850 applicants. This represents 83 percent of the 30,000 homes that received 

flood damage on the coast. 

In addition to this part of our Homeowners Program, we are of- fering $30,000 elevation grants to those homeowners who wish to 

elevate and are a part of Phase I and Phase II. We have provided $5 million for the local governments for inspectors. We have issued 16 grants for a proposed 85 additional inspectors on the coast. We provided $5 million to the State auditors office for the Katrina fraud and investigations team. This team investigates fraud in the application process and also contractor 

fraud related to rebuilding. 

In addition to the CDBG monies that we have utilized for homeowners, $390 million in mortgage revenue bonds have been issued, 

and $157 million of this is Go-Zone. These issues have assisted 400 

families on the coast. This provides low-interest rates for these 

homes and also a 3 percent closing cost, which does not have to be 

repaid. 

As you said, there were 8,600 rental units on the coast that were 

destroyed or severely damaged, and about 8,200 of these were located in the coastal counties. $38 million is allocated annually in 

23

2006, 2007, and 2008 in low-income tax credits in the Go-Zone. To 

date, 2,627 units have been funded in the coastal area. This represents 32 percent of the destroyed or severely damaged units. It 

is estimated that these income tax credits will provide a total of 

5,000 rental units in the lower six counties of Mississippi. 

A draft plan was submitted to HUD earlier this week to address 

assistance to small rental properties to increase the availability of 

affordable units. This plan allocates $250 million for this program. 

Approximately 2,500 rental units, with less than nine units, fall 

into the FEMA serious damage category. Small rental units for this 

plan is defined as 10 or less units for the owner, with the ability 

for the State to expand to 40 units, depending on funding availability. This program is open to both new and existing rental units. 

In exchange for assistance, the owner will agree to accept limitations on rent and income levels of their tenants. 

Our next witness is here and he is Delmar P. Robinson, chairman, Board of Commissioners, Biloxi Housing Authority. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

STATEMENT OF DELMAR P. ROBINSON, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF 

COMMISSIONERS, BILOXI HOUSING AUTHORITY 

Mr. ROBINSON. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member Biggert, and other members of the panel. We appreciate very 

much the Biloxi Housing Authority being invited here to give testimony regarding the aftermath of Katrina. Katrina hit us in Biloxi 

and hit us hard. 

Prior to Katrina, we were prepared to move into an additional 

100 units of our HOPE VI project, but on the 29th of August, 

Katrina visited us. We lost 700 affordable homes and apartments 

with 1,500 family members; 172 of our units were completely destroyed. 

After a day or so of individual recovery and staff recovery, we 

went to work. Since that time, we have partnered with volunteer 

organizations in gutting out our units. With small sums of monies 

from HUD, $7.8 million and insurance funds, we have been able to 

rehab our units, where by the end of the summer, we will have 400 

of these 700 units on line. 

We could not have accomplished this without the support of 

America Corps and Hands on America USA who assisted in this recovery process. Last month, our Mayor Holloway targeted the 

Housing Authority for the City of Biloxi as the lead agency in affordable housing recovery for the City. And we have accepted that 

challenge. We have had support and we interfaced and have for 

about a year now with Living Cities, with the Enterprise Community Partners, and with Fannie Mae to begin this process. 

We unveiled a 5-year plan last week for 1,500 affordable units— 

that is, public housing affordable housing and mixed income homeownership houses. We feel confident that over the 5-year period, 

that we will be successful, however, we need your support. 

We presented a proposal to our Congressional delegation in 

Washington on the 30th of September 2005 of our needs. We did 

a needs assessment, and it was there by the 30th of September. We 

met with our delegation on the 18th of October 2005. You appropriated the funds I believe, the CDBG funds, in December of 2005. 

24

Yesterday, we were able to meet with our partners here in the 

State of Mississippi, who outlined the process for us to use in receiving those funds. We do need assistance in expediting the funds 

that Congress appropriates. I know red tape and I know bureaucracy—I served 34 years for the Federal Government, and then I retired. However, we are dealing with flesh and blood. 

I have four specific proposals: 

We have a 44-acre site in the City of Biloxi which is now under 

Keesler Air Force Base. They no longer will be using this site for 

housing. We need it. We need it transferred to the Authority. 

We need Congress to continue funding many of the proven community development programs that have been crucial in our ability 

to provide housing to address the needs of not only residents in Biloxi but all residents throughout the United States. 

We also urge Congress to extend the placed-in-service deadline 

for projects funded with Go-Zone low-income housing tax credits. 

The Mississippi Home Corp’s final round is in 2007. We need at 

least 2 years from that date in order to get them placed in service. 

Insurance—major issue. And to be more specific, we will complete a 76-unit senior citizen complex within the next few months. 

The insurance increase has been from $5,400 to $8,000 per unit. 

We would have only received 76 percent of that $5,400 insurance 

need from HUD because they said that we are not going to be funded at the level that we should. 

The Biloxi Housing Authority appreciates the support we have 

received from our elected officials. Senators Lott and Cochran, Representatives Taylor, Governor Barbour, and Mayor Holloway. And 

with your continued support and action on the items we have outlined, we will be able to replace the housing that Katrina washed 

away. 

[The prepared statement of The Biloxi Housing Authority can be 

found on page 74 of the appendix.] 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

I will yield myself 5 minutes for questions. Where do I start? 

Mr. Jamieson, I do not want you to take up the entire 5 minutes, 

but I want you to again just tell us, for all of the people who are 

still in FEMA trailers, what are your plans? 

Mr. JAMIESON. Madam Chairwoman, as we spoke yesterday, the 

deactivation rate of those in trailers is now almost 300 a week, so 

a lot of those folks are finding permanent housing alternatives. We 

are working with the voluntary organizations here to, for those who 

were in Section 8 housing and public housing before, as units become available, we are sharing lists back and forth so folks can occupy those units. 

Here in Mississippi, we also have the Alternative Housing Program, which I mentioned at the end of my testimony, and that was 

where Congress was asking us if there is a better way to do business than mobile homes and travel trailers. Mississippi did benefit 

from the awards of the Alternative Housing Program and so in conversations right before this hearing, we think that a good number 

of those folks, given the rate of folks returning to their homes as 

well as those that may be available to occupy some of these alternative housing programs, we think there is a good path there to 

25

certainly interim, and in some instances permanent, housing solutions for those folks. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right, thank you very much. 

Mr. Robinson, I would like to ask you to clarify for me some of 

what you just testified to in relationship to the rebuilding and the 

replacement of the units that were lost as a result of the hurricane. 

Am I to understand that you have been doing this without assistance, with CDBG money or without the HUD allocations? Would 

you explain to us again? 

Mr. ROBINSON. We received $7.8 million in emergency funds from 

HUD for the rehabbing of facilities. Our facilities were insured, not 

to full capacity, but we did receive these funds. We received capacity building grants from both Fannie Mae and from Enterprise 

Community Partners, and a tremendous amount of volunteer work. 

Now the funds that have not been forthcoming are for the completely destroyed— 

Chairwoman WATERS. What are they telling you about— 

Mr. ROBINSON. We have been told that we are to receive $41 million for the replacement of units that were completely destroyed. 

Chairwoman WATERS. When is that supposed to be forthcoming? 

Mr. ROBINSON. It is to be forthcoming when we submit the papers that were delivered yesterday. 

Chairwoman WATERS. I thought that was what I heard in your 

testimony, that you had just heard a response yesterday. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes, ma’am. 

Chairwoman WATERS. It seems to me that it is commendable to 

have all of the volunteer support that you have had, but it was 

clear to me in listening to you that you have not gotten the money 

for the replacement from HUD. I do not know why it has taken so 

long. That goes to the top of my agenda to check out. When I go 

back to Washington, I will call Secretary Jackson and I will ask 

him to help speed up the funds so that you can get the work done. 

And I thank you for working hard to get the replacement units for 

poor people who probably have no other place to live. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. We are dealing 

with flesh and blood; we are not dealing with widgets. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you. Do you have any other recommendations for us to help your agency? 

Mr. ROBINSON. I had better write them down. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right, thank you very much. 

Let me just ask very quickly, Ms. Sanford, you are responsible 

for all of the CDBG money and you gave us those wonderful statistics and the data on what you have been able to do. You have a 

second round and in the second round, you are funding people who 

applied in the first round that you did not fund. And it looks as 

if the second round is not eligible for $150,000, they are eligible for 

something less, $100,000. What is the difference? 

Ms. SANFORD. They are actually eligible for $100,000. In the first 

round, the $150,000 is capped by the amount of insured value of 

the home because in round one, they were required to have structure insurance and be outside of the flood zone. 

Chairwoman WATERS. No, stop one moment. To get CDBG 

money, one of the requirements was that you had to have had flood 

26

insurance. What about people who did not have insurance, were 

they the ones who needed it most? 

Ms. SANFORD. They are included in Phase II, and the 3,450 who 

did not qualify in Phase I, basically 50 percent of those were inside 

the flood zone and they had applied and the other 50 percent did 

not have a structure insurance. So that is why they are covered 

under Phase II. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right. Under this Phase II, you are 

saying that they are eligible for the same amount of money, 

$150,000? 

Ms. SANFORD. They are eligible for $100,000. 

Chairwoman WATERS. For how much? 

Ms. SANFORD. $100,000. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Is that less than in the first phase? 

Ms. SANFORD. Yes, ma’am, the first phase— 

Chairwoman WATERS. Why is it $50,000 less? 

Ms. SANFORD. That was the amount of money that we set aside. 

Chairwoman WATERS. But is there not a problem about—I mean 

could somebody not go to court based on equal protection under the 

law and say you gave them $150,000, and now you are telling me 

I only get $100,000. What is wrong with this picture? 

It just seems as if something is wrong with that. I do not know. 

You could maybe get sued, I do not know. Why are you doing it 

that way? 

Ms. SANFORD. That was a policy decision that was made. But I 

would like to point out that in Phase I, we changed policy as we 

went through and calculated grants. Originally they were capped 

at their insured value. We found that the insured value in most 

places, they were underinsured, so we added an additional 35 percent to that. We also went, instead of a percentage of damage, we 

went to a straight damage estimate. We gave them the benefit of 

the doubt and used an SBA estimate which was more. So there is 

a possibility that changes will be made. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Okay. Well, let me tell you what we are 

looking at. Despite the fact that you have done a reasonably good 

job, there are several things that we are looking at with this recovery program. Number one, Congress evidently somehow supported 

a waiver from what we normally do with our CDBG funds and it 

is, what 70 percent—what is the rule. The targeting requirement 

normally for CDBG is 70 percent and it can be reduced to 50 percent in this kind of a crisis, and it was waived, everything was 

waived for Mississippi. Is that right? 

Ms. SANFORD. We received a waiver for the homeowners program. Each waiver we received was for the specific— 

Chairwoman WATERS. Yes, but see, what I am worried about is 

that you received that waiver and then you gave money to people 

who were already insured, which appears that the people who may 

have been a little bit better off, because they had insurance, were 

getting the assistance that they needed and you had done the waiver that precluded you from spending the lion’s share on the people 

who were less well off. 

Ms. SANFORD. Their grant was reduced by the amount of insurance proceeds that they received. So if a home was damaged and 

27

the estimate was $100,000, and they received $50,000 from their 

structure insurance, then their grant was $50,000, not $100,000. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Yes, but I am not—at this time, I am not 

focusing on the amount of the insurance, we know that both in 

Louisiana and Mississippi, that you deduct basically, I guess, the 

amount of the insurance that they get. What I am focusing on is, 

first of all, a criteria that says if you already had insurance, you 

get at the head of the line and somehow you get taken care of. 

Even if it is for something less than the maximum, $60,000, 

$50,000, $40,000, $30,000, or whatever. And then also included in 

that policy, there is no targeting of the neediest or the low income 

or the moderate income. And I am just asking about this, because 

as we take a look at trying to help fix our CDBG program for this 

crisis, whether or not we need to direct how this is done, so that 

we can make sure that we take care of everybody. It appears 

that—I do not know if this is true—it appears that what you have 

left over is now what you are making available to perhaps the people who needed it the most. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Would the gentlewoman yield? 

Chairwoman WATERS. Yes, I will certainly yield to the gentleman 

from Mississippi. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Chairwoman, again I would just remind 

people that the program that we did pass was a hard sell. And if 

you recall, Congressman Watt’s amendment did not pass Financial 

Services, it was voted down on almost a party line basis unfortunately. And it really was the good work of Senator Cochran in his 

capacity as chairman of Appropriations that made this happen. 

What I found in going to bat for folks is that there was very little 

sympathy in Congress, collectively, for the folks who did not buy 

insurance. We could make the case for the folks who bought insurance, who thought they had taken all the precautions and were denied, out of what I thought was a really flimsy defense on the part 

of the insurance companies, but they were denied. And so it was 

the best case we could make, the one that seemed to resonate with 

the majority was look, these folks took all the precautions that you 

as a homeowner have taken, and something unbelievable happened 

to them, so we ought to try to make them whole. 

So I understand your frustration with what Ms. Sanford is telling you, but it was the will of Congress and again, even that bailout did not pass through the House. It really was Senator Cochran 

in his capacity as chairman of Appropriations over in the Senate, 

who made it happen. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Well, thank you, very much. 

There are further concerns around this issue that perhaps you 

can help me with. It is my understanding that those decisions were 

not the decisions that were made by Congress, but rather by the 

State, relative to—except for the waiver. We know that the Senator 

helped out a lot in doing that waiver. 

Mr. TAYLOR. And you helped out a lot. Unfortunately, you were 

not on the winning side of that vote. But you know, your heart was 

there, but the majority was not there. The majority has since shifted in Congress. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Not on the waiver, we were not a part of 

that, that took place, I think, over on the Senate side. 

28

Mr. TAYLOR. Again, the original proposal was for the people who 

had homeowners’ insurance. Even the proposal that Congressman 

Watt brought up last year was for the people who had homeowners’ 

insurance because everyone agreed that was just an unforeseen occurrence. It has since been expanded to help some other folks, and 

rightfully so. 

Chairwoman WATERS. But Congressman, let me just ask this. On 

the question of flood insurance, I do not know if it is true in Mississippi or not, but over in Louisiana, there were people who were 

given mortgages, who were told they did not need flood insurance, 

because they were not even in the flood plain. So people were given 

mortgages by the bank that did not require them to have any flood 

insurance. They did not know that they were even in the flood 

plain and then all of a sudden, they are at the back of the line for 

getting some help. And that is what I am trying to understand. 

How do we fix that for the future? 

Mr. TAYLOR. If I may, the flood maps were woefully inadequate. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Okay. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The flood maps were mostly designed, in a nutshell, 

to take care of rain coming down, streams flowing out, never envisioned water coming in. You saw where my house used to be. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Yes. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I was not in the flood plain as determined by 

FEMA. Now I had flood insurance, because if I could see the bay, 

I figured something might come see me one day. 

But legally, I did not have to have it. And some of my neighbors 

actually were burned that way. So now, that is being changed. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Well, that is good, because we do not want 

people penalized because we have bad maps and the banks will extend the mortgage and not require them to have such insurance. 

Then when we have a disaster, we tell them, well you go to the 

back of the line because you didn’t have flood insurance. 

So with that, let me just move to our ranking member. I have 

taken up much too much time. Mrs. Biggert. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. Sanford, a couple of things, and maybe Mr. Jamieson, and 

I am not sure about Mr. Robinson, this would apply. When we were 

in New Orleans, we found that one of the problems of trying to get 

out of this cycle of where you start to address the issue was that 

there is a lot of property where there was not a clear title and people were not available and people actually had, you know, the property had kind of just passed down generation to generation. And 

so in order to start doing something, that has to be addressed. It 

does not look to me like that is such a problem here, but if you 

could address that. 

And also, as we drove by on the coast today and by the beach 

areas, there are so many houses that, you know, all you see are 

some cement stairs and a slab left of those. One of the concerns, 

I guess, is the elevation levels and you talked about the $30,000 

that might be applied to that. But in order for people to really 

begin to rebuild and to make sure that they are within those levels 

which will be set, it seems like this has to move forward. Do you 

have any idea when this will be? And it applies, does it not, to all 

the coastal areas, I mean California, Texas, Florida and whatever, 

29

New Jersey. And it seems to me that this is really an impediment 

to people being able to rebuild. 

Ms. SANFORD. First to address the title situation. We have the 

same situation in Mississippi that they have in Louisiana. We basically have performed 17,750 real estate transactions, and title 

searches were done on all of those. We are adding another 7,100 

with Phase II. This has been accomplished with the help of the 

chancery clerks, through much overtime and working weekends. 

And again, it is just a real estate transaction, is the issue that we 

have dealt with many times on an individual basis with the applicant. 

As far as the elevation grants, we have patterned our program 

after the NFIP ICC grants. We have submitted to HUD a request 

to allow this to be a compensation program. We provide $15,000 for 

the permit to elevate and then $15,000 for the certificate of compliance, just like the ICC program. We have not received a response 

from HUD, we are waiting on that. Again, we want to do it as a 

compensation program so that we do not have to do environmental 

assessments on every home that is included. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Jamieson, could you— 

Mr. JAMIESON. Yes, I cannot improve on the title answer that 

you got there. I would like to address just the mapping issues very 

quickly. Congressman Taylor is exactly right, the maps that were 

down here did not reflect the true risk in many instances. What 

FEMA has done immediately following the disaster is that that we 

offered these advisory base flood elevations which is actually reflecting the flooding that did occur, the wave heights they did experience. So as people begin to rebuild, they have some perspective 

in terms of what those elevations might be. 

These are not part of the National Flood Insurance Program. The 

preliminary maps for this area will be out in approximately the August time frame of this year, that will be engineered studies, if you 

will. We call them preliminary because they then have to go to the 

community and there is actually an adoption of those maps, if you 

will, that serve as a basis for land use. 

So there are advisories out now. The preliminary maps will be 

available in the August time frame. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. So if there are preliminary maps in August, those 

would not be the final, and then would there be a comment period 

and whatever goes into it? 

Mr. JAMIESON. There would, that’s exactly—we call them preliminary because they go in and they are reviewed by the community in terms of the science and the zoning that occurs, velocity 

zones that are there along the coast, and other levels of deep flooding that may exist. And so many times there are local contractors 

who look at the hydrology of those and disagree and so there is the 

process, due process, if you will, before the adoption occurs. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. So can you give an approximation for a final decision on those? 

Mr. JAMIESON. It’s a contentious process and, you know, it can 

go into a deliberative phase and sometimes it can take 6 months 

and sometimes it can go quicker than that. But there is—you 

know, in the areas where the Congressman lives, there is obviously 

deep flooding there and those are hard decisions in terms of, you 

30

know, how—when you are talking about 14 feet and 15 feet and 

18 feet elevations in those areas. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. So people who would want to rebuild and let us 

say they took an estimate and it turned out to be several feet short 

of what is recommended or what is the elevation, then what would 

happen? 

Mr. JAMIESON. If they rebuilt based on our advisories? 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Yes. 

Mr. JAMIESON. They would be grandfathered into the program as 

having provided protection that was equivalent to what we would 

eventually recommend. And that is the case, as the Congressman 

and many of you probably know, in many instances, you know, we 

are grandfathering homes in to what becomes new science or new 

elevations. 

I think what is very, very important here is there is a rich opportunity as the community rebuilds to build back stronger and smarter to avoid damages the next time out. 

And I was just also advised by folks here that those preliminary 

maps do become effective, regardless of any appeals, within 12 

months after the preliminary map is issued. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you. 

Chairwoman WATERS. We will turn now to Mr. Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

My concern is why is it that Bechtel and Halliburton always 

show up, whether it is a flood or a war or a circus? I mean, whatever it is, they always show up. What is it about their company 

that allows them to be so multi-faceted? 

Mr. JAMIESON. Congressman, I am not in acquisition, but I will 

give you my best shot on an answer on that. I think, again, as Congressman Taylor well knows, and using a baseball as an analogy, 

FEMA was clearly caught on the short hop when this disaster occurred. We were in the process of doing a competition, but that 

competition had not concluded. Those contracts were not definitized, and many of them are still not. But at the same time, we 

needed to get a resource out there as quickly as we could to be responsive in terms of the rebuilding process and hauling and installing mobile homes, and what-have-you. I do not make apologizes for 

that, I do not make excuses for that. It was wrong, it was more 

costly than it needed to be. 

But I think under the competitive process that FEMA goes 

through, and we now are going through for those contracts, we 

need a capacity to deal with a catastrophic disaster in terms of 

what we have experienced here. We are not saying that it is one 

company or another who necessarily qualifies, it is a competitive 

process under the A&E process, and nationally any firm has the 

basis to respond. 

What we have done in both the pre-existing contracts that you 

spoke of and the new ones, is that we have put very high thresholds in there for subcontracting to minority owned firms, to disadvantaged firms, to locally based firms, so that those large contractors who can do the supervision, are drawing on the local economy for their workforce, to get the work done. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Yes, I appreciate—you and I talked about this yesterday—I appreciate the way things have been corrected and the 

31

reason I am concerned about it and appreciate the new direction 

that FEMA has taken is that, you know, if the public doesn’t trust 

the government to do the fair thing, it damages our ability to help 

because people come in automatically assuming that they are going 

to get the short end of the stick unless they are the wealthy, the 

connected. So I do appreciate that. 

The other issue is for me, and the gentleman representing the 

Mayor’s office is not here, I do not think, but it seems to me that 

if the State always handles these disasters, that the local community and the locally elected officials are, to some degree, frozen out 

of the process. And I know that as a former municipally elected official—actually three of us up here have been elected from a municipality—we always challenged anything, whether it was the 

COPS grant or whatever, where the money went directly to the 

State, because we always believed that we lose and we also are the 

people most able to understand the local needs. 

This is already a done deal now, so I am not—there is nothing 

we can do about it. But should this happen again, I would really 

be interested in hearing from local folks whether or not they believe they could address the local problems better than the State. 

Okay, thank you, thank you very kindly. 

It is rambling. I mean I am always interested in the local community dealing with problems as opposed to the State. That is just 

part of who I am. So there is no need for a response. The Mayor 

would probably have a better response. Thank you. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Mr. Neugebauer. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I thank the chairwoman. 

Mr. Jamieson, I think my colleagues probably expressed the frustration for all of us is that, you know, when we, Congress, stands 

up and allocates what we think is going to be the resources needed 

to address problems of the American people and then when we 

have these issues where things are—the $500 commode seats in 

military aircraft, I mean those kinds of things make it difficult for 

policymakers to go back home and say well, we did the right thing, 

we just did not do it very smart. 

But, I understand the issue of all of a sudden you wake up and 

you have millions of people displaced, and you have debris, billions 

of tons of debris maybe. I guess the question is, and as my friend 

from Mississippi was saying awhile ago, could you actually get 

some of these companies that have the resources to respond to that 

magnitude? Would they have come in and said look, all we want 

is a 1-week contract until we can bid this out to local contractors? 

Would they have given you—or one month? I mean how do we 

bridge between being able to meet those needs now and then being 

able to move to where we can, you know, go to a bid situation? And 

what has FEMA learned, I guess, through this process is that hopefully we do that a little better in the future. 

Mr. JAMIESON. Thank you, sir, I appreciate the question. And at 

the risk of Congressman Taylor making my hair shorter than it already is, I think FEMA has learned from that experience. It is in 

no one’s interest to not employ the local workforce and to jump 

32

start the economy as part of the recovery effort. So let me speak 

of debris and say what FEMA has done there. 

I think that part of what we do as an option is that we offer the 

local community the ability to use the Corps of Engineers if they 

cannot contract themselves. The Corps of Engineers has also 

brought in some large contracts to do that. But we are putting a 

significant emphasis this year to not only offering the option for 

local governments to contract with their own resources to do this, 

but to also offering, as opposed to saying if they cannot do it, go 

to the Corps of Engineers, to provide force packages and technical 

assistance to step in with the communities and help them contract, 

so that we can better engage the local workforce. And we have also 

established a system where—unfortunately every time there is a 

disaster, there are a lot of bad folks, quite frankly, who come along, 

and so what we are trying to do is establish a reference system, 

if you will, of reputable contractors that a local government could 

use that have worked with us before and that we know are good. 

So, you know, we have learned from some of those lessons. I will 

also tell you that as part of what we are doing now throughout the 

competitive process, the contractors here in Mississippi, for instance, that are doing the maintenance and deactivations of the 

mobile homes that are there, there are some 10 of them that are 

there, five of them are 8(a) and minority owned businesses, there 

are also women owned businesses and 8(a) contractors that are 

there. So of the 10 that are there, all of them are represented either locally or through minority owned businesses. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Just a follow-up question then. What is the—

obviously you bought a lot of trailers. So then the question is now, 

as these trailers are being deactivated, what are FEMA’s plans for 

those trailers? 

Mr. JAMIESON. Sir, we did buy a lot of trailers and FEMA took 

a lot of hits because we bought a lot of trailers. I think that if I 

may, I think some of that is a little overstated, because part of the 

slowness that was here on the front end was the fact that we had 

to award contracts, we had to wait for those units to be produced 

to roll them onto sites. So the fact that we bought a little bit more, 

as a guide, an operational person on the ground does not bother me 

a whole lot, because I think having a certain amount of them in 

reserve to offer a quick response is a good idea. 

Of those travel trailers that are here on the ground, those that 

we can refurbish and use and return to an inventory, we will do 

that. But we are also looking to excess those units, to donate those 

units. In Louisiana, we have already started the donations policy, 

and to sell those units themselves to folks who want to buy them 

and use them as a form of housing assistance. In other words, they 

would move off our caseload of our supporting them and they 

would use them as permanent housing alternatives. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Mr. Sires. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mr. Jamieson, what is the actual number of families in trailers? 

I keep getting all these different numbers. 

Mr. JAMIESON. Sir, in Mississippi, it is approximately 28,000 

folks. 

33

Mr. SIRES. 28,000? 

Mr. JAMIESON. Those are units, incidentally, those are not people. You know, the average size of a family is three folks, so those 

are 28,000 units. 

Mr. SIRES. This question, I guess, goes to Mr. Robinson. Mr. Robinson, you stated before that you had 700 units that were wiped 

out by Katrina. 

Mr. ROBINSON. We had 172 that were completely destroyed. The 

others were rehabbable. 

Mr. SIRES. So you have rehabbed about 400? 

Mr. ROBINSON. We will have 400 rehabbed and ready for occupancy, all of them by the end of the summer, although we do have 

people moving in the end of this week, because we schedule the 

construction where as soon as it is completed we can move the people in. 

Mr. SIRES. Have you made an effort to identify the people living 

in the trailers who will want to come back or maybe who lived in 

those places? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes, we have. The first priority is for people who 

were living in those units. That is the first priority. 

Mr. SIRES. What happened to your senior population in those 

places, are they in trailers? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Sir? 

Mr. SIRES. Your senior population and your disabled. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Okay, I did not address that at the outset. We 

made provisions as much as we possibly could to relocate people to 

other housing complexes in the State and outside of the State, the 

farthest away was Tennessee—Memphis and Chattanooga. We do 

make every effort to stay in contact with our tenants and this is 

why I indicated earlier that we are dealing with human beings, so 

those people who left have first priority in the units when they return. 

Mr. SIRES. So you keep track of them and you do offer to let 

them come back to their homes? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes. In fact, they contact— 

Mr. SIRES. Well, I commend you because I have not heard that— 

Mr. ROBINSON. They contact me at my home at night. 

Mr. SIRES. I did not hear that in New Orleans, let me tell you. 

They are still trying to put a list together. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I live in the community. 

Mr. SIRES. Great job. Thank you. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Thank you. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you very much, panel. Before we 

leave, I just want to make sure that I understand very clearly from 

Ms. Sanford how your two phase program works. 

In your first phase program, the significant criterion is that you 

should have had insurance, and in that program, you could get up 

to $150,000. In your second phase program, you have additional 

criteria, that is you have to be 120 percent of median, which means 

here that would be about what, $30,000? 

Ms. SANFORD. For a family of four, that is $57,000. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Okay, about $57,000. Your money is handled a little bit differently in the second phase. You have to have 

34

counseling and you have to go into a disbursement system, which 

means that you do not get the money, but the money would get 

paid to the contractor or the person providing the service, is that 

right? 

Ms. SANFORD. No, ma’am. The money would be put into a disbursement account in the name of the applicant. They would be 

able to draw that money as they achieve certain permits through 

the local permits department. It will not be paid to a contractor. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Is that the same—did you have that requirement in Phase I? 

Ms. SANFORD. No, ma’am, we did not, it was a compensation 

plan. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Why is there a difference in the two 

phases? 

Ms. SANFORD. One of the differences is that this is inside the 

flood zone and we felt that the destruction— 

Chairwoman WATERS. I cannot hear you. 

Ms. SANFORD. We felt that the destruction was greater inside the 

flood zone and this will assure that those houses are hardened and 

that we have affordable housing stock in that area. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Okay, let me ask you, because it worries 

me a little bit, in that if you have flood insurance, you are eligible. 

What if you make $70,000 a year, so two people are working, you 

are making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 a year, you are not—you did 

not have flood insurance. You could not get in the first phase and 

now you are not eligible for the second phase. What happens to 

that hard-working, middle income American who does not fit in either of these phases? 

Ms. SANFORD. You are addressing those people who were inside 

the flood zone without insurance over 120 percent of AMI? We have 

asked all homeowners that received flood surge damage to come in 

and register their needs and fill out our application. And we are 

addressing the buckets of people as we have funds to do so and as 

we can write a program. So we encourage those people to come in 

and apply so that we can identify them and see the need of those 

applicants. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right. We see what the rules are, now 

you have rules and these rules appear to eliminate the possibility 

for some people who have been damaged by Katrina, a family of 

four with $70,000 and four kids or so, I mean they should be eligible in my estimation, and I think you are setting yourself up for 

a lawsuit. So I want you to take a look at this, because it appears 

that there are some people who are going to be left out and the 

people who are going to be left out of receiving any assistance, are 

not the rich, but just good hard-working people who earn $60,000 

and have four kids. I mean, I think they should also be covered. 

So you take a look at that. I will talk with the Congressman about 

it to see if he wants to deal with this issue in any way, but I bring 

to your attention that which is disturbing; people who have lost 

their homes just do not need that kind of hassle. 

Thank you, very much. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right. I am sorry, Representative, 

please, do you have any questions you would like to ask? 

35

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Chairwoman, again, thank you for your 

time and while we have the folks from FEMA here, something I 

would like the committee, a thought I would like them to leave 

with. FEMA had a tendency for expediency to want to put trailers 

in clusters. I found that most homeowners wanted to be back on 

their lot. In a world where they have lost everything, the only bit 

of certainty they had was that little piece of ground, where their 

neighbors used to live to the left of them and to the right of them. 

And we have had trouble with the group sites, for whatever reason, 

we have had more crime there, we have had drug dealing, and in 

some instances, even gangs. And so if there are going to be group 

sites, one message I would leave since I am sure the Mayor would 

have delivered this if he was here, that is if you are going to have 

group sites, then FEMA needs to pay for the additional police that 

would be necessary. But to the greatest extent possible, even 

though it is harder, I would really encourage FEMA to continue the 

practice of trying to put people back on their property, if they can, 

to give them a sense of certainty. 

The second thing is really a question, and an observation for Mr. 

Jamieson. And I have been through this and it is water under the 

bridge for me. I do not want it, but I can see where other people 

are going to raise the question that if they lived in an area that 

was not in the flood plain, but is going to be in the flood plain in 

the new set of maps, they are going to find that they cannot get 

ICC. Now I have raised this question directly to Director Paulison 

and so again, I am passed it, I have already put my pilings down 

and took care of it myself, I do not want the money, but for the 

sake of all those other folks, that has to be addressed, because you 

are going to have a lot of angry people when those new rules come 

out, who think they are going to be eligible for that $30,000, so 

that they are trying to prevent future losses, who are going to be 

told the same thing I was told, you were not in it, but now you are 

in it, so you are slipping through the cracks. So I want to impress 

upon this committee that needs to get fixed. You understand the 

issue because you are down here, I do not think the guys in D.C. 

really do understand that issue, but that has to get fixed and it has 

to get fixed very, very quickly. And if you cannot fix it administratively, then this Commission needs to fix it legislatively. But I 

would welcome your thoughts on that. 

Mr. JAMIESON. Congressman, thank you, and for the other panel 

members, increased cost of construction is what the Congressman 

is speaking about, and that is for those folks who are grandfathered in and they will be grandfathered in if they have not been 

in the flood plain with the new maps, but they are not entitled to 

this coverage of what they may need to do to build those structures 

up, and so I will carry back that message. 

I just have two very quick points, Madam Chairwoman, if I may. 

First of all, Congressman, thank you, you have been through it 

down here and I appreciate your opening statements and your remarks. FEMA has tried hard to be responsive. We were not always 

all the time, we were sometimes slow, but I do appreciate your recognition of what we tried to do down here. 

And second, on the issue of travel trailers, we do have 80 percent 

of those trailers that are down here on private sites. We always try 

36

to put those travel trailers on private sites if we can. In many instances, because of debris in the early days, we did need group 

sites. I do not mean to suggest that does not happen, but I personally met with Mayor Warr probably 2 or 3 weeks ago to address 

the security issues and we have doubled our security in those parks 

and we have also doubled our management in those parks and we 

are working very, very closely with local law enforcement. If we see 

trends occurring in those parks in terms of crime, whatever it may 

be, we are doing what we can on the civil side to increase our presence there in the park and work with local law enforcement to 

quite frankly stamp it out before it gets any worse. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you very much, and we do appreciate your presence here today and the testimony that you have 

shared with us. 

And with that, I will call our third panel, thank you. 

Mr. Derrick Evans, executive director, Turkey Creek Initiative; 

Mr. Jason Mackenzie, North Gulfport Community Land Trust; Ms. 

Lillie Bender, Unity Homes Project; Mr. Rodger Wilder, president, 

Gulf Coast Community Foundation; Mr. John Jopling, Mississippi 

Center for Justice; Mr. William Bynum, chief executive officer, Enterprise Corporation of the Delta; Ms. Diane Collier, tenant; and 

Mr. Brian Sanderson, Gulf Coast Business Council. 

Please join us at the table. 

Mr. SIRES. [presiding] Mr. Mackenzie, would you please lead us 

off, for 5 minutes 

STATEMENT OF JASON MACKENZIE, NORTH GULFPORT 

COMMUNITY LAND TRUST 

Mr. MACKENZIE. Thank you for having us. 

I would like to speak of the work that local nonprofit organizations are doing in the recovery effort in coastal Mississippi. In a recent article, Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Cooper reported that tens of thousands of residents remain displaced while 

authorities dither over how to distribute housing assistance. Many 

crucial infrastructure projects have yet to start. Of the tens of billions appropriated by Congress, half remains unspent. The article 

goes on to detail how concerns about local corruption and fraud 

have mired the process of providing financial aid to the municipalities and individuals with desperate need. 

Often left out of articles like these is any discussion of the potential role of the local nonprofit sector. Governor Barbour has done 

an excellent job of assembling talent in Jackson to study issues of 

rebuilding housing and revitalizing economies. The Governor’s Office, however, has not yet taken full advantage of coast-based nonprofit organizations with first-hand knowledge of local problems 

and innovative solutions for solving these problems. 

We acknowledge the important role of private investment and 

government in improving the lives of coastal residents, yet we believe strongly that the Governor’s plan for the remaining CDBG allocation must include grants to community based nonprofit organizations. 

Unlike the private sector, local nonprofit organizations are required to serve the public interest and return any surplus funds 

into programs that serve the community. Community based nonVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 May 31, 2007 Jkt 034676 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\34676.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
37

profit organizations, moreover, do not raise significant concerns 

about fraud. Local nonprofit organizations are largely transparent 

to the public and are managed by highly committed boards and 

staff with no inclination or opportunity for personal enrichment. 

The coast nonprofit organizations enjoy excellent reputations and 

solid records of accomplishment. Back Bay Mission of Biloxi, for instance, has operated successfully since 1922. Housing 2010 developed an entire community of affordable housing in Moss Point with 

modest resources. 

These organizations have also repeatedly demonstrated uncanny 

innovation in the chaos following Katrina. Witness the North Gulfport Community Land Trust, which preserved affordability of housing through in-fill development, separating ownership of land from 

its improvements and utilizing a resell restriction that provides for 

permanent affordability, or the emergence of a Hattiesburg nonprofit organization Unity Homes, which will provide the coast with 

green modular housing at prices unheard of in the affordable housing industry. 

Alternative funding strategies have been suggested for nonprofit 

organizations throughout the United States and in greater numbers since Hurricane Katrina. Tax credits are offered to investors 

so they might assist in the creation of affordable housing. Though 

this form of financing affordable housing projects has provided 

thousands of units throughout the country, tax credit developments 

are required to create mass rental housing densities of very low to 

low income people. No mention exists of creating multiple use, multiple income, or multiple ownership types of tax credit development. Aside from FEMA trailers, this is the State’s principal solution that has been offered for coastal development. 

Providing grant funding from the remaining CDBG allotment to 

local nonprofit organizations would assist these grassroots groups 

on the Gulf Coast to expand critical work, and to rebuild affordable 

rental and homeownership opportunities for hurricane survivors 

and low income populations. Nonprofit organizations have demonstrated a proven track record of building and rebuilding affordable housing in communities across the Gulf Coast. It is essential 

that local grassroots organizations on the front lines of long term 

hurricane recovery have access to CDBG funds to serve the unmet 

housing needs. 

To date, these organizations have moved mountains through tremendous innovation, out of State technical assistance and generous 

but relatively small private grants from foundations and individuals. With the creation of a grant fund for nonprofit organizations 

from the remaining CDBG allocation, the Governor’s Office could 

ensure that thousands of units of safe, decent, affordable housing 

are rebuilt and that public dollars are reinvested quickly, efficiently and creatively in local neighborhood redevelopment. 

Nonprofits offer an important capacity and willingness to take on 

the hardest to develop projects, the ones that are not attractive to 

the private sector. Please urge HUD to encourage the State of Mississippi to include an allocation for nonprofit community development. This is essential in Mississippi because our State has not 

fully laid out its budget for use of the CDBG allocation. 

Mr. SIRES. Can you wrap up, please? 

38

Mr. MACKENZIE. Thank you. 

Mr. SIRES. Ms. Lillie Bender, please. 

STATEMENT OF LILLIE D. BENDER, UNITY HOMES PROJECT 

Ms. BENDER. Good morning. Welcome and thank you for allowing 

me to testify. I am Lillie Bender, and I am a native Mississippian. 

It is indeed an honor and a pleasure to represent Unity Homes 

Project as its Mississippi operations director. 

Our project is an innovative program to build and install houses 

that are more energy efficient and use healthier building materials 

than have ever been offered in affordable and workforce housing. 

I would like to focus on three aspects of the Unity Homes approach 

that set us apart from other efforts. 

First, community based rebuilding. Unity Homes is developing a 

modular housing production factory and installation operation in 

Mississippi as a nonprofit Mississippi based corporation. Unity 

Homes will invest in our most valued assets—our employees and 

communities. These efforts will product not only beautiful homes 

but also over 100 high quality jobs. 

Second, healthy affordability. Our nonprofit approach allows us 

to avoid many traps that drive affordable housing to the lowest 

common denominators of quality. Healthy and inexpensive housing 

are not mutually exclusive. 

As a nonprofit organization, we do not markup our costs at the 

expense of the homeowners and we are able to raise private grants 

and donations that offset the thin margins that are common in the 

industry. Further, by integrating both the construction and installation components of modular housing, we will operate with maximum efficiency and care. 

A Unity Home builds equity in every sense. It minimizes the use 

of unhealthy materials like resins, insulation, and particle board 

that are laden with formaldehyde, paints that emit volatile organic 

compounds and toxic flooring and siding that are made of vinyl. 

Better indoor air means less asthma and other illnesses, which enhances productivity and reduces healthcare costs. 

Third, strategic partnerships. Unity Homes is a fusion of strong 

partnerships with community groups, affordable housing organizations, leading legal advocates and national law firms, and some of 

the country’s best green architects, engineers, and manufacturers. 

With their expertise, we have developed an organizational framework that includes public and private sector workforce development 

programs, affordable housing organizations, faith-based initiatives, 

legal aid organizations, financial, construction and employment 

counseling programs, land trusts, and community development corporations. 

This new approach counteracts unhealthy housing conditions, 

unjust financing, and entrenched cycles of sickness and poverty for 

many families and communities. By replacing these industry standard materials with green building practices, we are building 

healthy homes that generate long term equity for their owners. 

In fact, we are so dedicated to the mission of providing healthy, 

affordable homes to this area that we have donated a prototype 

home to the North Gulfport Land Trust. We held a ribbon cutting 

and open house on January 27, 2007, when over 250 people came 

39

out on, believe me, the rainiest day of the year, to support this effort. We are proud that the first Unity Home is located less than 

a mile from here on the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Drive and Ohio Street. 

In conclusion, our prototype is a symbol of many other private efforts to fill the gap in affordable housing that grew larger after 

Hurricane Katrina roared through here. Over the past 18 months, 

private, nonprofit organizations and volunteers have taken the lead 

in tracking unmet needs of the Gulf Coast. We hope that the Federal Government has taken notice of what works and can see that 

this project and others like it are worthwhile investments through 

initiatives like the special CDBG program. As innovative stewards 

of our communities and the environment, we can help implement 

Federal and State efforts to serve the thousands of people for 

whom affordable housing has not yet been rebuilt. 

Chairwoman Waters and committee members, I urge you to come 

and see the Unity Homes advantage for yourselves. I invite you all 

to come and tour the Unity Home immediately following the hearing and we will be glad to answer any additional questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bender can be found on page 58 

of the appendix.] 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Next, we will hear from Mr. H. Rodger Wilder, president, Gulf 

Coast Community Foundation. 

STATEMENT OF H. RODGER WILDER, PRESIDENT, GULF 

COAST COMMUNITY FOUNDATION 

Mr. WILDER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. My name is 

Rodger Wilder, and I am the president of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, having just recently assumed that job after practicing law on the coast for approximately 29 years. I will make my 

comments brief. 

First, I want to thank you for all that you have done and tell you 

how much we appreciate that effort. 

I also want to commend to you the charitable and faith-based organizations who have come into this community. Government certainly had a large part in the recovery that we have enjoyed to this 

point, but as you will hear from other members of this panel and 

you no doubt have heard from others, the faith-based and the charitable organizations have literally responded in ways that are overwhelming to us. They came in the day after the storm, they have 

provided support, they have provided manpower, they have provided health benefits, and many other things, most of which could 

not have been provided to us regardless of how much money you 

had ever allocated because the money would not clean out a house, 

it would not tear out sheetrock, and it would not rip out flooring; 

those people did. We have enjoyed on the coast literally hundreds 

of thousands of people who have come in and helped us, and once 

they finished helping us, they thanked us for the opportunity to 

allow them to help us. 

As you go forward and consider what you need to do to respond 

to this and other disasters, I ask you to remember that one of the 

big legs of the stool that supports any recovery are your charitable 

40

and faith-based organizations. Whatever you can do to support 

those organizations, both before the storm in the nature of capacity 

building and what you can do then to help them in their efforts 

post-storm will benefit you, not only in terms of the human assistance that will be gained, but more importantly in terms of just 

pure money savings. And so I commend that to you as you go forward. Please remember those faith-based and charitable organizations, they can assist you in many, many ways. 

Thank you again for everything you have done. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Mr. John Jopling, Mississippi Center for Justice. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN JOPLING, MISSISSIPPI CENTER FOR 

JUSTICE 

Mr. JOPLING. Yes, and let me begin, Chairwoman Waters, and all 

members of the subcommittee who are present, by thanking you so 

much for coming to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to hold this hearing. 

Your concern about the post-Katrina housing crisis on the coast is 

vital to our recovery. We need your attention very much. I would 

like to also thank Congressman Gene Taylor for being such a 

champion for the coast since the storm. We really appreciate it. 

I am with the Mississippi Center for Justice, which is a nonprofit 

local agency committed to the advancement of economic, social, and 

racial justice in the State of Mississippi. We are the southern affiliate for the Washington-based Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights 

under the Law. On behalf of the Mississippi Center for Justice and 

the Lawyers Committee, I am here to outline for you a very specific 

problem that we are having with regard to public housing on the 

Mississippi Gulf Coast. 

At stake are at least five housing complexes funded by HUD and 

managed by the Mississippi Regional Housing Authority. 

Less than a year after Katrina, the Mississippi Regional Housing 

Authority decided to dispose of three large public housing complexes: Charles Warner in Pascagoula; L.C. Jones in Gulfport; and 

William Ladnier, also in Gulfport. These three housing developments sustained very minimal damage from Katrina, all three were 

and are habitable, and all three were and are occupied. 

We have submitted to the committee a CD–ROM. We know that 

time constraints will not permit you to visit all of these public 

housing developments because they are spread throughout the 

coast. If you take a look at the CD–ROM, you will see the excellent 

condition, both outside and inside, of these public housing developments. 

The Housing Authority notified residents first of its plans in July 

of 2006, when the residents were told that these properties would 

no longer serve as public housing communities. They were told that 

they might be eligible for Section 8 vouchers or that they might be 

transferred to other public housing properties. The notice also stated that residents eligible for Section 8 would have the option of returning upon completion of the redevelopment. Nothing was said 

about how the residents would be housed in the course of the redevelopment. 

Now obviously we have serious concerns about any redevelopment of HUD-funded public housing property and we would have 

41

those concerns regardless of the context in which this decision was 

made. Our concern would be that there be no displacement of any 

of the current residents and our concern would be that there be 

one-for-one replacement of all low-income units. 

However, our overriding concern with the decision made by the 

Mississippi Regional Housing Authority is the context in which 

that decision was made. You have heard the testimony and many 

members of the committee have recited the statistics themselves; 

well over half of the rental property was gone after Katrina. What 

rental property remained escalated in its market value, according 

to the Mississippi Realtors Association, by at least 30 percent. At 

the same time, Section 8 only raised the level of its voucher by $25. 

Why in the world would anyone pursue a policy in the aftermath 

of Katrina, in the midst of the most acute housing crisis in this 

State, a policy that would remove housing rather than add housing? Why would you put people out of the shelter that they presently have? At a time when almost 90,000 people are living in 

28,000 FEMA trailers, why would you ask people to get out of a 

brick home with a good roof? 

That is exactly what Region 8 is doing. Just last week, they told 

the elderly residents of Baywood that they would have to leave by 

November. 

Chairwoman WATERS. I am sorry, I am going to have to ask you 

to wrap up, your time is over. But I want you to know that the 

CD–ROM that you have advised us that you have, without objection will be submitted for the record. And I want my staff to inquire about our time today, to see if we can squeeze in time before 

I go to the airport, and hopefully other members, to see some of 

these housing projects that I understand are not too far away. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. JOPLING. That is correct. L.C. Jones. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jopling can be found on page 86 

of the appendix.] 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right. Mr. Bynum, chief executive officer, Enterprise Corporation of the Delta. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. BYNUM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

OFFICER, ENTERPRISE CORPORATION OF THE DELTA 

Mr. BYNUM. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and members of 

the committee, for holding this hearing and for inviting me to 

speak today. 

I testify as the chief executive officer of the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta and Hope Community Credit Union. Working together, these nonprofit organizations form a regional community 

development financial institution that since 1994 has generated 

over $300 million in financing and helped over 30,000 residents, 

primarily in the Delta, but over the past 18 months we have done 

significant work down here on the coast. Perhaps most relevant to 

my comment today is the fact that these accomplishments have 

been achieved certainly not by ourselves but by collaboration with 

banks, with private industry, with public agencies, foundations, 

and the faith-based community and community development organizations. 

42

I emphasize this collaboration because it has been our experience 

that development needs facing these communities, particularly 

here on the coast, cannot adequately be addressed by the resources 

of any one sector by itself. 

Immediately after the storm, ECD/HOPE began working with 

several groups to begin connecting families with resources that 

they desperately needed, first to survive, and then to start the 

process of rebuilding their homes, lives, and communities. Together 

with community development groups, faith-based organizations, 

low-income advocates and others, we have provided affordable financial services to over 4,500 residents, assisted 450 homeowners 

with repair and rebuilding, generated over $20 million in financing 

to help rebuild homes and small businesses, and to help consumers 

get back on their feet, often making bridge loans while people were 

waiting for FEMA proceeds and insurance payments and government support. 

In addition to working with individuals and nonprofit organizations, one of my colleagues last year before this committee talked 

about Home Again, our nonprofit housing development affiliate, 

which has been working to build 71 homes in Pass Christian. 

These homes have been funded by Jim Barksdale, Johnny Grisham, and The Home Depot Foundation. We provide counseling—financial and construction counseling—to help navigate the chaos 

that I think you have heard described that individuals have to endure in this environment, navigating FEMA requirements, elevation requirements, what you do with your first mortgage, etc. 

People need counseling. 

As a result of our successful pilot and collaboration and advocacy 

by the nonprofit community, Enterprise Corporation has been invited to extend our financial counseling as a part of Phase II. We 

are going to be doing the financial counseling for the Phase II program that has been described earlier. We are very clear that this 

is an important obligation and we also are very clear that we cannot do it by ourselves. We will be working with nonprofits throughout the coast to make sure these homeowners get good information 

that they need to rebuild their homes. Counseling is really going 

to be critical if people are going to come out of this intact. 

Again, none of this would have been possible without the work 

of nonprofits. They have been instrumental in filling the gap that 

exists between public resources and the resources people need to 

survive. I illustrate this with the story of Mr. George. He is a 70 

year old man who lived in the Old Town District of Bay St. Louis. 

He received 8 feet of flood surge damage, even though he lived outside the flood zone, and he could not meet SBA requirements because his income was too low. After going through a process with 

the State for Phase I, he received only $10,000. With nowhere else 

to go, he turned to Citizens Homes Project, a project of Catholic Social and Community Services, which covered the gap in funding between the check he received from the State and what he needed 

to rebuild his home. It is nonprofits that have helped over 1,500 

residents on the Mississippi coast. It is safe to say that without organizations like this, Mr. George, and many Mr. George’s, would 

not have been able to return to their homes. 

43

It is also the collective voice of nonprofits that champion an inclusive Phase II. Initially Phase II was capped at $50,000, not 

$100,000, as was reported today. It is because of advocacy, effective 

advocacy, that the amount is at $100,000 which we certainly would 

like to see more, but it is much better than it was. 

On the eve of the storm, there were 3,300 nonprofits in the Gulf 

Coast including Biloxi, Gulfport, and over to New Orleans that employed 37,000 people. These nonprofits experienced the same sort 

of damage that everyone else did. They lost staff, they lost buildings, and they lost businesses as a result of this and now they were 

struggling. But very few programs exist that are targeted for the 

needs of nonprofits. I implore this committee to consider ways to 

ensure that the viability of these nonprofits is not an after-thought. 

I would propose that the CDBG funds, as has been echoed by several members on this panel—certainly a billion dollars would not 

be adequate to equip these nonprofits to play the vital role that 

they have played and will need to play if residents of the coast are 

going to be able to rebuild in a fair and inclusive manner. 

We have done this in the Delta, we have seen nonprofits come 

together and work effectively, and we have seen it on the coast 

since the storm. The STEPS Coalition is a prime example of effective collaboration and we are making strides toward helping people 

rebuild. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Please wrap it up. 

Mr. BYNUM. Simply put, I would just like to leave you with this. 

Without the strong and viable nonprofits in the Gulf region, the region will not recover in a fair and equitable way for those who are 

most distressed. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bynum can be found on page 66 

of the appendix.] 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Diane Collier. 

STATEMENT OF DIANE COLLIER, TENANT 

Ms. COLLIER. Good morning. I would first like to thank all of you 

for giving us the opportunity to speak today. 

Mr. Jopling has already said most of what I was going to say, 

but back to the Regional Housing—the tenants from Charles Warner Homes in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Some of our tenants out 

there just received their eligibility for relocation and they were 

signed on the 16th, but they did not receive the letter until after 

President’s Day, which was Monday. They received their letter on 

Tuesday and it said, ‘‘As you know, Mississippi Regional Housing 

is proceeding with the Charles Warner Homes disposition project. 

You are eligible as a resident of Charles Warner Homes for relocation assistance to help you in moving to another Mississippi Regional Section 8 rental property or another rental housing assistance program. Charles Warner Homes has a management office located Palmer Street. Your current unit must be vacated by Monday, February 26th.’’ 

I have it right here, this is the letter that came from the manager’s office. It says, ‘‘Your current unit must be vacated.’’ Now 

they received it just this past Tuesday, and it says, ‘‘Your current 

44

unit must be vacated by Monday, February 26th. Therefore, Mississippi Regional Housing would like to offer you a choice.’’ 

I am telling you. ‘‘We will provide you with a dislocation advance of $50. Arrange for moving company, furnishing and assisting you 

in making all necessary arrangements for your move. After completion of the move, families will report to the management office to 

sign the relocation certification. Payment will be made within 7 to 

10 days after receiving verification of telephone cable reconnection 

costs.’’ 

Now all the elderly people out there, the ones who are moving 

from the west end up to Charles Warner, they are mostly all elderly people. You know, they first told them that they were going to 

give them vouchers and that they were going to see to them being 

moved to where they want to move, you know, relocated. Well, they 

changed their minds on that. So I went to a board meeting and in 

the board meeting, they said that I would have to have it in writing. Well, we did this on February 12th. I put it in writing, and 

I had it faxed to the Mississippi Regional Housing for the 15th, for 

the board meeting. When I got to the board meeting, we asked 

questions about the vouchers, and they shut me off; they would not 

give me an answer. They would not say anything. 

So, I said well, the tenants are upset, they want to know what 

is happening, what is going on. You know, when they have to 

move, when they are going to receive their vouchers. They would 

not give me an answer. If so, I would have been able to tell them 

that they would have to be gone by Monday, February 26th. And 

I was just in the board meeting and they would not tell us anything, they just will not talk to us. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, Ms. Collier. First of all, I 

would like to have a copy of that evacuation notice for the record. 

Without objection, that notice will be submitted for the record. 

Which housing authority oversees, is it Taylor Homes? What is 

the name of your housing development? 

Ms. COLLIER. Charles Warner Homes. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Okay, thank you. I am going to move on 

and get our next witness up and then we will be back for questions. 

Next we will hear from Mr. Brian Sanderson, Gulf Coast Business Council. 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN SANDERSON, GULF COAST BUSINESS 

COUNCIL 

Mr. SANDERSON. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member Biggert, 

members of the subcommittee, and Mr. Taylor, good morning and 

welcome back to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My name is Brian 

Sanderson and on behalf of the Gulf Coast Business Council, I 

thank you for your continued attention and assistance to the people 

of Mississippi. 

I work as president of the Gulf Coast Business Council, an organization comprised of over 170 of the top business leaders in the 

three coast counties. Most of our members are small businesses. 

Our group was formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to provide 

a unified regional voice of business on important public policy matters. No issue is more important to our region than affordable 

housing and it has been the priority of our organization. 

45

In response to this unprecedented need, we have formed the Gulf 

Coast Renaissance Corporation, the mission of which I will explain 

in a moment. You have heard the enormous need we have for affordable housing. It is integral to any inclusive, sustainable community and it is absolutely essential for the economic recovery of 

the Gulf Coast. Without affordable, safe housing close to the major 

centers of employment, our projected economic growth will not be 

realized. 

The title of this hearing asks the question, ‘‘Why no progress?’’ 

I cannot disagree more with that inference. I know you do not 

mean to suggest that the thousands of volunteers, faith-based and 

community action groups, and local, State, and Federal officials 

have made no meaningful steps in rebuilding affordable housing in 

this State. 

In addition to the assistance from State and Federal Governments, countless community organizations, many of which you 

have heard from today, also have made investments in affordable 

housing. They are tireless examples of the progress made in Mississippi. But if you are still one of the thousands of people living 

in FEMA trailers or driving 3 hours to work every day, the 

progress is not fast enough. 

The fairer question you posed today is what are the obstacles to 

success? The obstacles are significant. They can and will be overcome. Four are most prominent: elevated land prices; insurance 

costs and availability; increased construction material cost; and a 

shortage of construction labor. Continued Federal funding to support workforce training programs are crucial to meeting this need. 

The exorbitant cost of insurance and its decreasing availability 

are the most critical impediments. We must create a stable environment which will attract good insurance companies to provide 

coverage in all parts of our State. Multi-family developers have to 

charge, on average, an additional $300 per unit per month, just to 

cover the increases in insurance rates. We are hopeful that proposed State legislation will bring some stability, but the only permanent solution lies with a Federal insurance program for all catastrophic disasters. Congressman Taylor is working on important 

legislation and we are supportive of those concepts and urge you 

to work to develop a national catastrophic insurance program. 

Without it, our individual efforts will be a stop-gap at best and dependent on the forces of the private market. 

I will conclude by telling you about the efforts of our organization 

to develop affordable housing. As you know, many faith-based and 

community organizations have begun important work in building 

affordable housing. A comprehensive collaborative initiative, however, is necessary to build the significant numbers of homes in this 

area at a much more rapid pace. To date, the efforts have been 

well-intentioned but piecemeal. We have formed an independent, 

not-for-profit corporation named the Gulf Coast Renaissance Corporation. It will create and implement a broad based approach to 

land acquisition and development and redevelopment of single family and multi-family housing units on the coast with a particular 

emphasis on workforce housing. It seeks to work with, not replace, 

existing organizations like the North Gulfport Community Land 

Trust and the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta. A large portion 

46

of the workforce in desperate need of housing is households at 80 

to 120 percent of the area median income. This need is not being 

effectively met by existing State and Federal programs and it is 

our focus. 

The Corporation will marshal capital to bridge the gaps in financing land acquisition and construction costs so the new units 

will be affordable to this population. Although we plan to raise capital from private sources and through creative partnerships with 

local and State governments, the rebuilding effort will require an 

unparalleled commitment from HUD. A commitment of this nature 

will require flexibility within the existing HUD guidelines for the 

use of CDBG funds, or a new program, tailored to this period of 

recovery. A historical parallel is existing in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation established during the great depression and its 

similar use in the 1980’s to solve the S&L crisis. The Marshall 

Plan for European recovery is another illustration. Private enterprise, even at little or no profit, cannot assemble land and build 

housing at prices affordable to this population group. 

In closing, the Renaissance Corporation is developing a formula 

and framework for the use of public and private funds in an effort 

to maximize the number of workforce housing units produced and 

to ensure that the development of these units reflects responsible 

land use practices and the creation of sustainable communities. 

Developments will adhere to mixed income principles. Above all, 

the Renaissance Corporation will ensure fairness in housing and 

transparency in process and structure. It will be led by an experienced president and CEO, Laura Davis. It will be supported by a 

large advisory board that will bring together nonprofit groups, advocacy groups, housing authorities, policy organizations, and government stakeholders, as well as committed individuals. 

I will leave you with one specific request, that if granted, will 

provide greater housing options for workers in that 80 to 120 percent of area median income. My request is that more flexibility be 

authorized for the use of public funds, namely CDBG, to serve the 

needs of these households, above 80 percent of the area median income. It is our challenge to you to create today’s Marshall Plan by 

considering non-traditional approaches to the use of public funds. 

Your efforts are the critical piece in restoring hope to the families 

of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. 

I thank you for being with us again and for inviting me to share 

these thoughts. I thank the American people for their continued 

support. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sanderson can be found on page 

107 of the appendix.] 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

And now we will hear from Mr. Derrick Evans, executive director, Turkey Creek Initiative 

STATEMENT OF DERRICK EVANS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

TURKEY CREEK INITIATIVE 

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and members of 

the subcommittee. My name is Derrick Evans and I am the founder 

and executive director of Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, a 

local nonprofit here in the Turkey Creek Drainage Basin, working 

47

in partnership with nonprofit partners to plan for the revitalization 

of this distressed community and drainage basis. 

Long before Hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi coast was in 

many ways a housing disaster just waiting to happen. Mississippi’s 

lack of legal protections for renters in the absence of a State fair 

housing law have compounded the misery of many survivors who 

have needlessly lost habitable rental housing. Municipal and regional disinvestment in public housing is not new, nor is the dearth 

of creative and comprehensive planning to encourage in-fill development and to finance redevelopment of vacant structures in older, 

low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. 

At present, virtually every major lender in Mississippi fails to 

offer to HUD 203(k) mortgage, a nationally touted vehicle for revitalizing existing housing stock while protecting borrowers from 

poor workmanship and other common rehab pitfalls. 

In addition, poorly planned growth by annexation and the reckless permitting of inappropriate areas by local, State, and Federal 

authorities, particularly the Army Corps of Engineers, were for 

nearly 2 decades cornerstone features of the so-called Mississippi 

miracle that preceded Hurricane Katrina. 

With or without a major hurricane, our coast gets more than 70 

inches of annual rainfall and runoff flows into open ditches in front 

of many homes, wetland destruction intensifies, flooding significantly and learning little from the adverse impacts of poorly 

planned coastal urbanization, the Corps, commercial developers, 

and even many housing agencies are right back to these costly and 

self-defeating practices that made Katrina even worse than it needed to be. 

A postcard victim of this trend, the Turkey Creek and North 

Gulfport area have been ravaged for more than a decade by investors, politicians, and government agencies willing to trade this region’s unique cultural and natural identity for the homogenous 

sprawl of a drive-through economy. In 1994, after being annexed 

without input or consent, the entire Turkey Creek community was 

rezoned for commercial and industrial development, through an alleged clerical error in Gulfport City Hall. Getting listed as one of 

the State’s 10 most endangered historical places in 2001 did not 

protect us from the boom town feeding frenzy that largely destroyed our ancestral cemetery that very same year. 

When asked in 2003 why our residents opposed a multi-billion 

dollar development entailing a massive loss of even more wetlands, 

the then-mayor referred to our community, ‘‘as a bunch of dumb 

bastards.’’ 

Squeezed tighter each day by the Gulfport-Biloxi Airport expansion and development near I–10 and U.S. 49, our homes, wetlands, 

and people were gasping for relief long before Katrina struck. In 

truth, Katrina did attract more concern from outside groups than 

our community had seen before, but far less from policymakers. 

While Katrina introduced others in this region to terms like 

smart growth, long term recovery, and new urbanism, we have 

cried for balance and sustainability for years. We have already 

tasted what the top down redevelopment push sweeping the coast 

will likely mean for low- and moderate-income families, AfricanAmericans, and anyone else outside of the proverbial loop. We have 

48

lost more of our community’s diminishing resources in the 18 

months since Katrina than in the 3-year period preceding it. Judging from the major road projects, wetland fills, and commercial developing sprouting around us daily, nothing much different can be 

expected from those who insist on this area where we sit today as 

the economic center of gravity for the entire region’s recovery. 

Indeed, just 2 days into Black History Month and less than a 

week after the Mississippi Department of Archives and History finally nominated my community for the National Register of Historic Places, Gulfport red-tagged five of our remaining historic 

structures, ordering their demolition to occur within the next 30 

days. It takes roughly 45 days for the Department of the Interior 

to approve the recent historic district nomination. 

Shortly before Katrina, several disabled, elderly, and low income 

owner-occupants of distressed dwellings on Rippy Road applied to 

Gulfport and were approved for HUD home grants of up to $30,000 

per household. This much needed program had been fashioned and 

pitched to community residents and several were approved. When 

these houses were further and significantly damaged by Katrina, 

including the complete loss of one roof, the previously approved 

grantees went months without hearing from the City as to when 

or whether their anticipated home funds would be forthcoming. It 

was months before they learned that the initial pool of funds had 

been reallocated for emergency housing somewhere else. 

The previous year, a similar single street approach to the home 

grant program was piloted by Gulfport on South Carolina Avenue, 

just 3 short blocks from where we are today. I urge you to drive 

up South Carolina on your way to the airport from this hearing 

and to judge for yourself if HUD’s home program appears to have 

made any significant difference on that street. Should it seem to 

you that the answer is no, then you will personally understand why 

I mark the City 0 for 2 with HUD housing grants in the Turkey 

Creek/North Gulfport area. 

Please note that my point here is not to deride Gulfport, but to 

illustrate for you the demonstrable fact that housing policy, planning, and program implementation have never been priorities or 

functional capacities characterizing our local or State government. 

The dismal 18 months since Hurricane Katrina have only further 

driven home this truth, a truth that is readily observed in relation 

to public houses and places like the L.C. Jones Public Housing 

Complex that abuts South Carolina Avenue. 

Another example of poor housing policy has been Phase I of the 

special Community Development Block Grant allocation. HUD exempted Mississippi from a host of requirements that are designed 

to serve low- and moderate-income households. Despite being low 

income elderly and disabled, however, and thus overlooked by the 

ill-conceived waivers, my mother lucked out by being one of the 

17,000 homeowners who very narrowly qualified for assistance 

under Phase I of the CDBG grant program. Nevertheless, she is 

still in her FEMA trailer like everyone else who must wait for 

Phases II, III, IV, and V to occur. For her and virtually every 

household in communities like mine, there would be no housing recovery to speak of, if not for private donations and millions of hours 

of unpaid labor performed by friends, neighbors, and volunteers 

49

from across the Nation and the world. Along with their contributions to the physical repair of our homes and communities, local 

nonprofits are at the center of an essentially grassroots recovery occurring brick-by-brick with limited or no access to Federal or State 

dollars allocated for Katrina housing recovery. 

Thank you. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

We have one other person here today, and I think it is someone 

I met when I was here before. Mr. Rodger Clark, executive director, 

Paralyzed Veterans of America. Thank you very much. 

STATEMENT OF RODGER CLARK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA 

Mr. CLARK. Madam Chairwoman, and distinguished panel, I 

would like to thank you all for allowing me to speak, even though 

I was not scheduled. Congressman Taylor, I would like to thank 

you for your efforts and the continued efforts that have been done 

here for the people of south Mississippi. 

One thing that no one has really looked at in the rebuilding of 

the coastal area is that they have stated that if you own the property in the flood zones, and you have to go up to the higher elevations, they are not looking after the disabled community. If you 

have to rebuild a home—if you own property, let us say, on the waterfront in Hancock County and you are told you have to go up to 

19 feet or whatever the height requirement is, they will give you 

the $30,000 if you qualify, to raise your home, but they are not including any funds for handicap ramps or handicap elevators to 

allow the disabled to get into their homes. According to the ADA, 

you have to have a one inch drop for every foot. That means if you 

are going up 23 feet with your home, your ramp is going to go totally around your house twice. Okay? Then you have to have another way to get out in the event of an emergency, which when I 

met with community planners, they said elevators. Okay, there are 

no funds that the Federal Government has even thought about for 

the ramps or the elevators. 

If you get a non-service connected veteran, and I represent a lot 

of them, as well as representing and advocating for the disabled 

community as a whole, someone who is on a fixed income is not 

going to be able to afford a handicap elevator. A handicap elevator 

runs anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000 for the elevator itself. 

Okay, and then you are talking about the ramp that is going to 

wrap totally around the house at least twice. Someone needs to 

take a real good look at that. 

I have asked if they could be waived and build back to the normal requirements. They were told no. I have had seven members 

who fought for this country, who have spinal cord injuries, and own 

property in Hancock County that have now had to sell their property, purchase property up in north Mississippi and move because 

with the building requirements, they could not afford to get their 

house up in the air, they could not afford the wrap around ramp, 

and they could not afford the elevators. And nobody in the Federal 

Government is taking a look at it. I have brought it up in meetings 

with the mayors, the planners when they were discussing the 

Sherette Plans, and no one has even come on board and even 

50

thought about inviting anybody who has any idea of the ADA into 

the planning process. 

Secondly, the affordable housing down here on the coast, I would 

like to thank these organizations here, because without them, a lot 

of the disabled community and elderly would not have affordable 

housing. But you have to look at the price that the housing was 

going for pre-Katrina, versus what it is going for post-Katrina. I 

have disabled members of my organization who are veterans and 

members of the disabled community who have called me up—preKatrina a one bedroom handicap apartment was running them 

$550 a month. Post-Katrina, that same apartment, if there is one 

available, is now $1,000 a month. And if you get an elderly person 

or an individual on a fixed income, who is disabled, they cannot afford the prices post-Katrina. 

A lot of the Sherette Plans for the entire coastal front do not look 

at the affordable housing aspect. They are looking at condominiums. The cost of a condo, minimal price, is $1,300 a month. Do you 

think anyone in the disabled community on a fixed income will be 

able to afford that? No. 

In closing, thank you, very much. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Boy, there are so many questions I need to ask, and I do not 

have time; I am limited here. Let me see. 

First, I would like to get a clear picture of how many housing developments are under what housing authority, so that I can be 

clear, are scheduled to be torn down? Could you answer that for 

me, Mr. Jopling? 

Mr. JOPLING. Yes, Madam Chairwoman, there are five developments that currently have applications before HUD for disposal. 

Disposal is sort of a term of art within HUD and it does not necessarily mean that they will all be completely torn down, but that 

they will be transformed in some way that will require the displacement of the current residents. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Is this the Biloxi Housing Authority? 

Mr. JOPLING. It is not, it is very important for me to point out 

to you that these are all properties under the management of Mississippi Regional Housing 8. We have no quarrel with the Biloxi 

Housing Authority. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Okay, all right. And how many units are 

represented in these five developments? 

Mr. JOPLING. Warner has 210 units, L.C. Jones has 124 units, 

William Ladnier has 64 units, Baywood has 72 units, and the Village has 68 units. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Are any of these units being rehabbed 

now? 

Mr. JOPLING. Yes. They are making some repairs at the William 

Ladnier development according to the residents. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right, so those people who were displaced do have the possibility of returning into these rehabbed 

units and what you are worried about is—oh, okay, let me back up. 

Explain it to me. 

Mr. JOPLING. This is a situation where people are currently living in those units that are habitable in these various complexes. 

They are soon to be displaced, but they are not now displaced seekVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 May 31, 2007 Jkt 034676 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\34676.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
51

ing to return; they are seeking to remain in their habitable and 

safe units. 

Chairwoman WATERS. So these units that you are describing are 

not being closed down as a result of Katrina; they are not using 

that as an excuse. They were making application to get rid of them 

whether Katrina took place or not, is that right? 

Mr. JOPLING. They made the application after Katrina and in 

some cases, Katrina is the excuse, but it does not furnish a reason. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Okay, so you said some were being 

rehabbed. What was the evacuation notice about, that the young 

lady just told me about? Ms. Collier, the evacuation notices are notices that people who could not return or have already returned or 

just living there, what? Who got these evacuation notices? 

Ms. COLLIER. The people who are going to be moving out, they 

do not know if they are going to return or not, until the other 

building is built. 

Chairwoman WATERS. I see. So they are talking about tearing 

them down and building new buildings under the kind of the 

HOPE VI program? 

Mr. JOPLING. Similar. They are going to transfer these to a nonprofit agency that has been created by the Housing Authority 

which then is going to seek to go after low-income tax credit money 

and transform these units, which serve the extremely poor, into 

mixed income developments, but they will not tell us any of the details. 

Chairwoman WATERS. I get it. It looks as if it is a continuation 

of the philosophy of HUD and this Administration to get out of the 

business of providing units for low income poor people and getting 

rid of public housing projects. 

Mr. JOPLING. Yes. 

Chairwoman WATERS. It is done in any number of ways and 

Katrina may be a convenient excuse for moving people out and putting them under this now nonprofit private authority and HUD is 

out, is that right? 

Mr. JOPLING. As you say, Madam Chairwoman, you get it—you 

get it. 

Chairwoman WATERS. I get it. All right, thank you very much. 

I am interested, Mr. Evans, in your description of the demolishment of historical properties. Are you talking about properties that 

have been designated as historical that are being torn down in violation of the law? 

Mr. EVANS. I am talking, Madam Chairwoman, about five structures that were identified as ‘‘contributing structures’’ in a State 

Department of Archives and History application nominating the entire community of Turkey Creek, to the Department of the Interior 

as a historic district. There are currently—I testified before Congress in November of 2005 and contributed to our receiving $40 

million here for historic preservation grants for distressed historic 

structures in Turkey Creek and elsewhere. 

There are currently ample funds on the ground here in Mississippi for— 

Chairwoman WATERS. But the properties that you are talking 

about are not being covered? 

52

Mr. EVANS. Well, they will be. The April 6th deadline is for 

homeowners with clear title to apply for the grant monies, what it 

is is a classic example of various layers of government here on the 

Gulf Coast not reading the newspaper and not knowing what other 

layers or departments are doing, quite honestly. I will leave it at 

that. 

Chairwoman WATERS. All right. Mr. Bynum, thank you for the 

information that you shared with us about Phase I and Phase II. 

If you got it up from $50,000 to $100,000, you guys are certainly 

to be commended; do not stop working, they owe you $50,000. 

Okay? 

All right. Let me thank you for coming and let me turn it over 

to our ranking minority member, Mrs. Biggert. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mr. Bynum and all of you, I think working with the NGO, not 

for profits is a great thing and they do such a good job, whether 

it is in Mississippi, whether it is in Louisiana, whether it is in Chicago or wherever. I think we depend on the organizations so much 

to really move us forward without always having to have the government, and to a better job it sounds like in a lot of cases. 

I want to ask Mr. Bynum, you talked about assisting the nonprofit organizations and raised a considerable amount of money, 

the $915,000, to use and then you got a recommendation for rebuilding the region and being able to then have small business 

loans and investments. You are raising money to develop small 

businesses, create and retail jobs, train workers, expand homeownership opportunities, and build affordable housing. One of the 

things that we saw in Louisiana was that cycle of the jobs, business, and homeownership. How is this working here in Mississippi? 

Mr. BYNUM. Thank you. Unfortunately, it is working without a 

lot of support from the public sector. I would commend Governor 

Barbour’s office for having conversations with the coalitions of nonprofits on the coast and moving forward with a counseling initiative and upping the amount of grants for Phase II. That said, nonprofits—I think if you ask people across the coast from Mississippi 

to Louisiana, who has helped them, 90 percent of them would not 

say the public sector, the Federal or State government. They would 

say nonprofits, they would say volunteers. And this has been done 

without any formal programs to help rebuild these nonprofits, 

without any formal allocation of funds for the CDBG dollars that 

you appropriated to the nonprofit sector. And so I think what I 

would encourage is that there be a more deliberate means to build 

the capacity, rebuild the capacity of nonprofits in these situations 

and equip them to address those gaps that cannot be adequately 

met by government bureaucracies, by banks, by entities that historically have not had a priority on serving the needs of people in 

economically distressed situations or socially distressed situations. 

That is what nonprofits do, that is what churches do, and that is 

what philanthropic organizations have done so effectively. And we 

have done it in a tremendous way since the storm. Again, without—we have been fighting, you know, we have been digging out 

of this with a spoon. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Well, thank you for all the work that has been 

done. 

53

The other thing that you talked about, which I think is so important, is the counseling and I think that the Financial Services 

Committee has been very committed to financial literacy and I 

think that is so important as people have to make these decisions 

on how finance for rebuilding, what to do even in the public housing, financial literacy is so important. Could you expand on that a 

little bit? 

Mr. BYNUM. Certainly. I think you would all appreciate the, even 

if you have a—if you are a banker, if you are an attorney, if you 

are an accountant, in this environment, it is very confusing, what 

are the elevation requirements, do you do with your existing mortgage, do you have to negotiate solutions with existing lienholders, 

with insurance companies. And so what we will be doing after the 

grant award has been calculated by the State, people will be routed 

to us and we will work with them to determine what their financial 

options are. In many cases, the grants by themselves will not be 

adequate to rebuild. What was affordable, maybe a $60,000 home 

before the storm now costs $120,000, or $130,000 because of labor, 

materials, etc. And so many of these people will have to find gap 

financing, they will have to go to a lender and in many cases these 

loans may be $40,000 to $50,000 and most banks do not find that 

a financially profitable proposition. And so they will need alternative sources of financing. So we will be providing financial counseling to help them determine their financial options, match them 

up with gap financing, and then after the gap financing is identified, work with them to avoid unscrupulous contractors. There are 

sharks swimming in the water who are waiting to rip people off. 

There is more money in this region than there has ever been and 

there are a lot of people who would like to take that money and 

many have already taken it without anything to show for it. So we 

will be working with the individuals to make sure that as they 

interact with contractors, the contracts are in their best interests 

and at the end of the day they end up with an affordable, quality 

home. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Neugebauer. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

There are a couple of things I want to do. I also want to talk 

about our nonprofits. I know that I came down to this area a few 

weeks after the terrible storm and there were tents that churches 

and organizations had set up all over the region. They were feeding 

people, they were bringing clothes in, and they were making sure 

people had water. And truly it was, I think, one of America’s finest 

moments because I know a lot of churches from Texas and companies were sending trailer loads of food and water and clothing down 

there. 

So one of the things I want to say to the—I agree that is an infrastructure that is important to our country. But let me just say 

this, I think one of the things that we can do to help you better 

probably than anything is that we have an unfair tax policy in this 

country. The issue today is that this is your hard-earned tax dollar 

that goes to the Federal Government. And by the time it goes 

through the washing machine in Washington, D.C., when it gets 

54

back to the people you serve, it is this size. What we need to do 

is to have a better tax policy in this country that encourages individuals and corporations to be able to directly give you those dollars and not try to shuffle them through the Federal Government, 

so that you can then keep that infrastructure in place, serve the 

communities, and encourage local companies to support their local 

organizations. They are the most efficient delivery system in many 

cases of any of the services that we have. Yet today, we encourage 

you to send that dollar to the Washington washing machine, which 

shrinks that dollar and then by the time it comes back through the 

State government and then as we have been talking about in this 

meeting, that dollar is much smaller, and less effective for the people that it serves the most. 

So, I look forward, I am hoping that in this Congress we are 

going to be talking about I think some tax policy in this country 

and I would hope to work on a bipartisan basis on a way to make 

sure that we encourage, not discourage, companies to do that. 

I think the second thing I want to say is that, Madam Chairwoman, we have had wonderful panels in this hearing. We have 

had a great cross section of people that have testified all the way 

from the users to the people in government, people in the Federal 

Government and State government and local government. But 

there has been one group missing. and I would hope as we have 

future conversations about housing that we have America’s homebuilders and developers at the same table getting their input, because they are also our partners in rebuilding, whether it is Louisiana or Mississippi or Florida, and making sure that we are getting input from them as to, from the private sector, the things that 

we might be doing from a policy standpoint that we could do better, 

that would help them bring their dollars to the table. We need 

everybody’s resources and so hopefully as we in the future have 

some additional hearings possibly on housing that we could have 

some of those people at the table also. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you, very much. 

Congressman Taylor. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Chairwoman, I just want to thank our panelists and I think the gentleman from Texas summed up what they 

have privately told me before the gentleman said that was how impressed they were with all of you, how you did really touch every 

aspect of what needs to be done. And I thank all of you for being 

here and I thank all of our participants, the folks in the gallery—

the folks sitting out there. 

Thank you all for being here, it is important. Ms. Waters has 

asked to try to cut this short a little bit because she does want to 

try to find the time to go look at one of those housing complexes 

before she heads back and I think, as we all know, you have to see 

it to believe it. So I am going to cut my time short and try to make 

that happen. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you very much. Congressman Sires. 

Mr. SIRES. Yes, thank you, Madam Chairwoman—go ahead, he 

deserves it. 

I just want to say thank you to all of you. I have the opportunity 

to work with nonprofit corporations and you do a great job, and I 

55

know you get discouraged, but I beg you, do not get discouraged. 

You do a wonderful job, people appreciate it, and the most needy 

are the ones you serve. So keep up the good work and we are going 

to take some of these things back and see what we can do. 

Thank you very much for being here. We want a copy of that letter. 

Chairwoman WATERS. Thank you very much. 

Chairwoman WATERS. The Chair notes that some members may 

have additional questions for this panel, which they may wish to 

submit in writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit written questions to 

these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:16 pm., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(57)

A P P E N D I X

February 23, 2007

58


34676.001
59


34676.002
60


34676.003
61


34676.004
62


34676.005
63


34676.006
64


34676.007
65


34676.008
66


34676.009
67


34676.010
68


34676.011
69


34676.012
70


34676.013
71


34676.014
72


34676.015
73


34676.016
74


34676.017
75


34676.018
76


34676.019
77


34676.020
78


34676.021
79


34676.022
80


34676.023
81


34676.024
82


34676.025
83


34676.026
84


34676.027
85


34676.028
86


34676.029
87


34676.030
88


34676.031
89


34676.032
90


34676.033
91


34676.034
92


34676.035
93


34676.036
94


34676.037
95


34676.038
96


34676.039
97


34676.040
98


34676.041
99


34676.042
100


34676.043
101


34676.044
102


34676.045
103


34676.046
104


34676.047
105


34676.048
106


34676.049
107


34676.050
108


34676.051
109


34676.052
110


34676.053