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27–793 PDF 2006

HOUSING OPTIONS IN THE AFTERMATH

OF HURRICANES KATRINA AND RITA

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JANUARY 14, 2006

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 109–70

(

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio 

SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair 

RON PAUL, Texas 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

JIM RYUN, Kansas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

VITO FOSSELLA, New York 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

CAMPBELL, JOHN, California 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

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 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director 

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio, Chairman

GARY G. MILLER, California, Vice Chairman 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

STEVAN, PEARCE, New Mexico 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

CAMPBELL, JOHN, California 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BARBARA LEE, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

AL GREEN, Texas 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

January 14, 2006 .............................................................................................. 1

Appendix: 

January 14, 2006 .............................................................................................. 65

WITNESSES 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2006

Bolen, Dianne, Executive Director, Mississippi Home Corporation .................... 16

Bowling, Sheri Cox, Director, Disaster Response Coordinator, Diocese of Biloxi, Catholic Social and Community Services ................................................... 36

Clark, Rodger, Executive Director, Bayou Gulf States Chapter, Paralyzed 

Veterans of America ............................................................................................. 34

Davis, Lanelle, Executive Director, Housing Authority of the City of Long 

Beach, Mississippi ................................................................................................ 38

Davis, Wallace, Chief Executive Officer, Volunteers of America–Southeast ...... 39

Eide, Phil, Enterprise Corporation of the Delta .................................................... 41

Griffin, Cynthia P., Executive Director, Habitat for Humanity/Metro Jackson . 42

Johnson, Derrick, President, Mississippi NAACP ................................................ 44

Jones, Rev. Carlton L., Second Sweet Home Church, Gulfport, Mississippi ...... 49

Nicks, Shantrell, attorney and local resident ........................................................ 46

Russo, James N., Federal Coordinating Officer for DR–1604–MS, Federal 

Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security ............ 12

Smith, Dr. Gavin, Director, Office of Recovery and Renewal, Office of Governor Haley Barbour ............................................................................................ 9

Walters, Nick, Mississippi Rural Development State Director, USDA ............... 13

Warr, Hon. Brent, Mayor, City of Gulfport, Mississippi ...................................... 6

Williams, Charles H., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Multifamily Housing, Department of Housing and Urban Development .................................................. 15

Williams, Rev. Rosemary, Mount Zion United Methodist Church ...................... 48

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Bolen, Dianne ................................................................................................... 66

Bowling, Sheri Cox ........................................................................................... 72

Clark, Rodger .................................................................................................... 74

Davis, Lanelle ................................................................................................... 114

Davis, Wallace .................................................................................................. 120

Griffin, Cynthia P. ............................................................................................ 129

Johnson, Derrick ............................................................................................... 131

Jones, Rev. Carlton L. ...................................................................................... 135

Nicks, Shantrell ................................................................................................ 137

Rayburn, Bobby ................................................................................................ 140

Russo, James N. ............................................................................................... 147

Smith, Dr. Gavin .............................................................................................. 159

Walters, Nick .................................................................................................... 163

Warr, Hon. Brent .............................................................................................. 171

Williams, Rev. Rosemary ................................................................................. 177

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Hon. Robert Ney: 

Letter from Bechtel .......................................................................................... 180

(1)

HOUSING OPTIONS IN THE AFTERMATH 

OF HURRICANES KATRINA AND RITA 

Saturday, January 14, 2006

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 9:20 a.m., in the 

City Council Chambers, City Hall, 2309 15th Street, Gulfport, Mississippi, Hon. Bob Ney [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Ney, Waters, Lee, Green, Cleaver, Watson, Melancon, Taylor and Thompson. 

Chairman NEY. We meet this morning to continue this discussion 

of the Federal Government’s response to the emergency housing 

needs of the residents affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

This is the first field hearing held in Gulfport, Mississippi, since 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf shores late last summer. Yesterday was the first hearing, official U.S. House hearing, 

held in New Orleans. 

I am going to submit my opening statement because we do want 

to hear from you. We have a couple of important panels and I 

would appreciate it if the members would do the same thing. 

We are going to hold strictly to the time limit here. I need to explain that for people who have not been to a House hearing. This 

will be an official hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on 

Housing and Community Opportunity. We will give you 5 minutes. 

If we do not have a light system, I will just give a light love tap 

here and then you can wrap up your statements. And we will leave 

the record open, since people might want to ask questions, for 30 

days. The members have 5 minutes to offer opening statements and 

then 5 minutes to ask questions and your response time. So please 

hold to that. 

And then also we do ask that although there is a lot of enthusiasm and passion on these issues, not to show your happiness by 

clapping or your sadness by booing. So just—you can murmur a bit, 

we do not mind that. 

But I want to thank the Mayor. We had a discussion in Washington, D.C., awhile back about doing this here for the people. 

Mayor, thank you for hosting us and for the nice hospitality your 

staff has shown us here. Also, Governor Haley Barbour’s staff person was on the bus with us today; we appreciated that. 

I want to thank all the members of the Mississippi and Louisiana delegations who took the time to attend today’s hearing. And 

2

again, we want to hear from you. This is a terrible trauma that has 

happened to the people of the Gulf States. 

With me today are, of course, many members who will identify 

themselves and I want to thank these members for taking the time 

to come across the country 

I also want to assure you that since the day this has happened, 

we have focused on these issues. We may be from other States, but 

it is one Nation and we have to help each other; we are concerned 

about our fellow human beings. We have been on this, we have had 

meeting after meeting in the Capitol; also hearings and meetings 

with FEMA and HUD when problems arise, when we hear from 

local officials or Members of Congress from these affected States, 

like Louisiana and Mississippi. We have been working on it. Our 

ranking member, Maxine Waters, whom you will hear from in a 

second, is from California, and she has done a fine job on many, 

many issues in the subcommittee. 

Our Full Committee Chairman, Mike Oxley from Ohio, and the 

Ranking Member, Barney Frank from Massachusetts, all of these 

individuals and the members—our ranking member, as I mentioned, Maxine Waters, have done an unbelievable job to effect 

some legislation to try to help and try to reach out to people who 

are in the greatest need of their lifetime after this most catastrophic disaster that this Nation, I think, has ever seen. 

Not leaving the least for last, my colleague Mr. Taylor here, who 

has done a wonderful job. Thank you for having us. You hear about 

these, we have seen them on TV, but until you come—we were on 

a bus with the gentleman from Mississippi Mr. Taylor, and we saw 

first hand, it is an amazing picture that you see on the ground, it 

is absolute devastation. There is such a spirit here of people trying 

to pick up the pieces and go on. Thank you, Congressman Taylor, 

on behalf of all our colleagues for being here. 

And I just want to point out another thing about Mr. Taylor that 

you will not see in the papers. When this happened, he lost a couple of district offices, I can remember his people and he were right 

on the phone, they wanted the services back up so they could help 

people. They knew people would be reaching out and need to find 

them. And his people had a tenacity that I appreciated quite a lot 

and they really were out there, first concern was not themselves 

and the houses they had lost; the first concern was what they could 

do to make sure that they could reach out to the people that were 

affected. Thank you and your staff for that. 

With that, I am going to yield to our distinguished ranking member, Maxine Waters. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to take a moment to thank you for your leadership and 

thank you for having the vision and the concern that helped to 

bring this hearing to the Gulf Coast. This is extremely important 

and let me just share with you that not only are we the first official 

committee holding a hearing in the Gulf Coast region, but I am 

concerned that only 60 Members of Congress have been to the Gulf 

Coast since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And when we go back to 

Washington next week, we will make it known that the Members 

of Congress should come and see for themselves. The pictures on 

television and the pictures in the newspapers do not adequately deVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:47 Oct 18, 2006 Jkt 027793 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\27793.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
3

scribe the extent of the devastation that we have seen in Louisiana, 

in the New Orleans area, and today in Mississippi. 

I am thankful to all of my colleagues for being here today, and 

particularly thankful to Mr. Taylor and Mr. Thompson from Mississippi, both of whom have been strong advocates in the Congress 

of the United States, battling for resources and appropriations, but 

also trying to get the Members of Congress to understand how lives 

have been torn apart and how families have been devastated. So 

I thank them so very much for the leadership that they have 

shown. 

Mr. Mayor, we are very appreciative for your leadership and the 

time that you have taken and the fact that we are here in City Hall 

today. 

And we are very grateful to HUD for the assistance that they 

have given to us on these tours. They have made themselves available to us in an extraordinary way, and Mr. Chairman, they used 

the resources of their department to do this. I do not know whether 

we could have done as well without them. 

So I am here today, along with my Chairman and the other 

members, to hear from you, to let you know that yes, we have been 

doing a lot of work in Washington, D.C. This is the Housing Subcommittee of the Financial Services Committee. We are very concerned about housing. We have been concerned that everything 

from the temporary shelters to the trailers to the mobile homes, 

other kinds of efforts that should have been put together, may be 

being put together to house the families. And we are also very concerned about permanent housing. We are concerned about insurance companies and whether or not they are doing a good job. And 

we are concerned about our own government and what more we 

can do to make the transition from this catastrophe to ‘‘normalcy’’ 

a lot better for everybody. 

So we thank you all for having us here today and we are grateful 

for everything you do. I am going to yield back the balance of my 

time so we can get on with the hearing. 

Chairman NEY. I thank the gentlelady. 

We will go to our host Congressmen first of all. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to thank all 

of my colleagues. Many in this room came from all across the Nation to be here. I want to thank so many elected officials that I 

spot, I would miss one or two. I see some Senators, State representatives, and city councilmen. We are very grateful that all of you are 

here. 

Chairman Ney—to brag on him, when we lost the two Congressional offices down here, within a week or so—he had bent the 

rules in order to get us temporary quarters. He actually allowed me 

to increase my staff size. I very much want to thank you for that. 

As you know, we have had an unprecedented disaster, we have 

had unprecedented requests for help. It was through him bending 

the rules that we were able to get some staffers down here for temporary offices. And I want to thank you for that. 

Mr. Sid Melton is here, Ms. Waters asked your counterpart in 

Louisiana—Sid Melton runs the FEMA trailer operation—and Ms. 

Waters had asked your counterpart in Louisiana a number of questions yesterday. And Sid, I know we have given you a very hard 

4

time for the past 120 days as we had about 36,000 requests, even 

though today about 31,000 have been filled, I am still not happy 

that there are 5,000 people waiting. 

On the flip side, in Louisiana, something like 10 percent of the 

people who wanted a FEMA trailer have gotten the trailer. So even 

though we are not perfect here, we are doing a heck of a lot better 

than Louisiana and I want to recognize that you are doing a heck 

of a lot better than they are doing in Louisiana; so thank you for 

the 31,000 who do have a trailer. 

Again, I see a lot of people who have a lot of good things to tell 

us, a lot of things that we need to address, so I am going to yield 

back my time. But it would be shameful of me not to thank Chairman Ney for what he has done to help the people of south Mississippi. We now have temporary offices in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport; 

we had one in Ocean Springs, but we had to find other quarters. 

And that is because of his good work and really the kindness of 

your heart and I want you to know we very much appreciate that. 

Chairman NEY. The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to thank you and 

our ranking member for your leadership and vision and commitment in assuring that our work on this committee is bipartisan on 

behalf of the people of the Gulf region. 

Let me also say to Congressman Taylor and to Congressman 

Thompson, this devastation has been staggering, but the response—I mean your leadership in the community, the Mayor, all, 

has been extraordinary. 

What we saw briefly this morning driving in was very unbelievable. I come from California in an area that is prone to natural disasters—earthquakes, fires—but nothing like what we have witnessed in the last 2 days here. 

So I just wanted to commend all of you for your pulling together, 

ensuring the debris cleanup and the recovery process began immediately. I too am concerned and interested in how Federal agencies 

have coordinated around here together and with you, as well as I 

will be interested to hear about how the local residents have benefitted from the jobs for the reconstruction. 

I just want to thank again, Mr. Chairman and ranking member, 

Mr. Thompson and Mr. Taylor, for your leadership and just say 

that I look forward to working with you to see what we can do to 

make sure that we support the efforts that you have mounted. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. 

Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 

Member Waters. 

Friends, we hear so often that we want our elected officials to 

work together. Our chairman and our ranking member are doing 

it. And I think they do it so well that we ought to let them know 

how much we appreciate the way they do this. These persons are 

the example of excellence that we are looking for in Congressional 

representation and I think that an expression of appreciation 

would be in order at this time. 

[Applause] 

5

Mr. GREEN. When you are a neophyte in Congress, you can get 

away with things because you do not know any better. This is my 

first year—I just started my second year. 

[Laughter] 

Mr. GREEN. I do want to thank Congressman Taylor and Congressman Thompson for the exemplary leadership that they have 

provided as well. 

And I would simply like to say this in closing so that I can give 

back some of my time—the people of Mississippi are strong, you 

have great will, and you will rebuild. You rebuilt after Camille, the 

flood of 1927 did not stop you; and I assure you, Hurricane Katrina 

will not stop the people of Mississippi. And I want you to know 

that we are going to do what we can to be of assistance. I will work 

on behalf of the people of Mississippi. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Congressman Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Yes. I would just like to express appreciation to 

you and to Ranking Member Waters and I will yield back the balance of my time. I will wait until we have the witnesses to ask 

questions. 

Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. And this is not his district right 

here, but it is the same State, Congressman Thompson is a host 

for us and we want to thank you. Also thank you for all your interest; you, like Congressman Taylor and the other members of the 

Louisiana delegation have championed the issues up in Washington. Congressman Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Waters, I have a written statement for the record that I will submit. 

But I would like to say that my role as ranking member on the 

Homeland Security Committee gives me specific responsibility for 

the Department of Homeland Security. The response to Katrina 

concerns me greatly, the adequacy of the response here is of significant concern, and I look forward to making sure that in any disaster in the future, the response is far more robust than what we 

had here. 

We are the Federal Government, we are the calvary. Our citizens 

need the cavalry in times of need. And I look forward to making 

sure that ability to respond is there and will be there as long as 

I am in Congress. 

I yield back. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. The gentleman, Congressman 

Melancon from Louisiana. 

Mr. MELANCON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Waters. 

It is good to be over here in Mississippi. For those of you who 

do not know me, my district basically surrounds the Orleans metropolitan area. My district was the first to take landfall from Katrina 

and the first to get a swipe back from Rita when she came by. That 

is Plaquemines, St. Bernard, lower Jefferson. What Katrina did not 

do to my district, Rita came back and took care of. 

As I was explaining to several members a few months ago, we 

have been through a lot of hurricanes along the Mississippi coast, 

6

along the Louisiana coast. This was not a traditional hurricane in 

the sense that the magnitude was just so much more, and greater 

than anything that I have ever seen in my 58 years. 

The Louisiana situation has a lot of different problems than Mississippi’s situation for getting back up on its feet, but both States 

and both areas have a long way to go and are doing well to try and 

get there. 

I commend you, Mayor, and the people of Mississippi for their efforts and also want to thank you, the people from Mississippi as 

well as people from Louisiana, for your help when the time came. 

Thank you and I yield back. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. We also have Congresswoman Watson from California. She is not on detention from Congress. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman NEY. She has done nothing wrong. She is a great 

member and has been with us now for 2 days of hearings. She is 

seated there because there was not enough space. Congresswoman 

Watson from California. 

[Ms. Watson indicates no comments.] 

Chairman NEY. Our first panel is Dr. Gavin Smith, Director, Office of Recovery and Renewal, Office of Governor Haley Barbour. 

Next is the Honorable Brent Warr, Mayor, City of Gulfport. Mr. 

James Russo, Federal Coordinating Officer, Federal Emergency 

Management Agency, FEMA, Department of Homeland Security. 

Mr. Nick Walters, Rural Development State Director, USDA. Mr. 

Hank Williams, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Multifamily Housing, 

Department of Housing and Urban Development. He has given us 

his time for the last 2 days and we appreciate it. And Ms. Dianne 

Bolen, Executive Director, Mississippi Home Corporation. 

We will start with the Mayor, the Honorable Brent Warr. Thank 

you. 

STATEMENT OF HONORABLE BRENT WARR, MAYOR, CITY OF 

GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI 

Mr. WARR. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Waters, distinguished members 

of Congress, thank you for your invitation to speak here today and 

for affording the City of Gulfport the opportunity to take part in 

the hearings to assess the housing options in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

Before I begin with my assessment and suggestions for improvements in housing, I would like to give a special thanks to Chairman Ney. Our conversation back in D.C., in our Nation’s Capitol, 

I think back over fondly and I never knew that in a meeting like 

that, an opportunity like this would be the result. And I want to 

thank you so much for giving our city the honor of hosting this 

event. 

In all fairness, the unparalleled damage and destruction caused 

by Hurricane Katrina was so unimaginable that no single agency 

or organization could have possibly been prepared for a storm of 

this magnitude. 

The City of Gulfport is extremely grateful and appreciative to everyone at the local county, State, and Federal level for assisting in 

the recovery process. In particular, I would like to thank President 

7

Bush for his compassionate leadership, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Chertoff, Governor and Mrs. Barbour, and our distinguished 

Senators and Congressmen from Mississippi for their tireless efforts. 

We also owe a debt of gratitude to Colonel Joe Spraggins, director of the Harrison County Civil Defense, and the Harrison County 

Board of Supervisors for their leadership. Additionally, I would like 

to extend a special thanks to our Gulfport City Council for their 

hard work and dedication to the citizens of Gulfport, and we applaud the talents of our local law enforcement and municipal departments. Our recovery efforts are where they are today because 

of their unwavering determination to put our city back together. 

I took office as Mayor of the City of Gulfport on July 5, 2005, and 

on that very same day, we signed our first State of Emergency due 

to the threat of Tropical Storm Cindy. While Cindy had little impact on south Mississippi, a few days later, the Gulf Coast was 

threatened once again with a much more powerful hurricane, Hurricane Dennis. 

On the Federal side, a call from the White House’s Department 

of Intergovernmental Affairs on Sunday, August 28th, in preparation for Hurricane Katrina, began a relationship that placed Gulfport in good stead. Continuous direct communication with elected 

officials and their Administrations in Washington was extremely 

helpful and greatly appreciated. It was also on this Sunday, prior 

to Katrina, that I learned FEMA representative Mike Beeman was 

on his way to Gulfport. Beeman, who was assigned to Harrison 

County Emergency Operations Center, has been a tremendous 

asset to our recovery, and he certainly assisted our community 

with a great deal of knowledge and compassion. 

However, Mr. Beeman was assigned to the county and he was 

one man dealing with an overwhelming volume of devastation. A 

FEMA representative should have been on hand for each municipality, and this officer should be vested with authority to make real 

time decisions and the ability to cut through red tape in acquiring 

vitally needed assets. While FEMA guidelines suggest that each 

municipality should be assigned a Public Assistance Officer, the acronym is PAO, within 24 hours after the storm, Gulfport did not 

receive its PAO for many weeks. 

Our recommendations to this panel would be that we create a 

team of those who lived through this experience. They should be 

assembled to sit down and develop a play book, a real plan of real 

time preparation and solutions that could be followed to save many 

days and hundreds of millions of local and Federal dollars. This 

team should be challenged to do the following: develop an emergency plan for each city and any other populated areas; establish 

an organization of overall management and allocation of resources—commodities, volunteers and donations; create an asset 

management team or asset commander to allocate and move resources quickly and efficiently; and secure pre-existing contracts for 

immediate needs such as water, ice, generators, lighting, portable 

showers, and bathrooms. 

There are many recommendations that could come with preparation for a storm, I guess, for the emergency needs, but you have 

come here to talk about housing. 

8

In the short-term housing perspective, prior to landfall, Harrison 

County had 19 shelters in place for storm evacuees. Three of those 

were in the Gulfport City limits, the others were in the county and 

the surrounding area nearby. Pre-storm, these shelters housed approximately 6,000 evacuees, while post-storm, shelters have housed 

an average of 1,500 evacuees daily. Schools began to re-open and 

schools in Gulfport opened by October 1st. Shelters that were located at area schools were moved to local community and recreation centers. Gulfport housed two of these centers, the Gulf Coast 

Skate Park and the Good Deeds Community Center. The Skate 

Park location closed in November, while Good Deeds just recently 

closed, housing storm victims until the end of December. 

Temporary housing was an immediately concern for the City of 

Gulfport and for all the local municipalities from day one. Thousands of local residents were left without homes, while an overwhelming percent of homes were severely damaged. While no plan 

was in place for long-term sheltering or for temporary housing beyond the established pre-storm shelters, the City worked closely 

with County officials to begin identifying potential housing sites. 

Of the 13,000 county-wide requests for housing to date, close to 

11,000 of those requests have been fulfilled, and the trailers are in 

place on numerous pieces of private property, in commercial trailer 

parks and in FEMA trailer sites throughout the county. The City 

of Gulfport currently has three FEMA sites for placement of travel 

trailers and mobile homes. The sites are as follows: 

Rippy Road contains today 41 travel trailers; Milner Stadium, 

131 travel trailers; the VA Hospital at Gulfport property, 47 travel 

trailers and 64 mobile homes. 

The process, and the lengthy amount of time residents have had 

to wait to receive temporary housing has been a difficult issue. Of 

those 13,000 county-wide requests for temporary housing, there are 

approximately 2,500 people in Harrison County still waiting on 

trailers. However, the end result as we stand 5 months after the 

storm, we continue to have some families sleeping in tents on the 

grounds, children sleeping in their family’s car and thousands who 

still have no place to call home. 

Some of the blame for the slow delivery of trailers can also be 

directed toward the city and county officials who failed to have 

long-term shelter and trailer sites in place. Because of this oversight, there has been extreme difficulty finding large areas of land 

that have not been developed, or is in the process of development. 

Therefore, the city and the county have been forced to seek out private property, and there has been a great deal of difficulty negotiating prices at GSA’s suggested pre-storm market value. We all 

know that the market value of property prior to the storm is very 

different than the market value of property post-storm. 

In actuality, real estate is much more expensive and valuable 

post-storm, due to the emergent need for land and housing and 

owners have not been quick to sell or rent space at previously determined values. 

Furthermore, trailer delivery has been delayed due to the fact 

that many residents have requested the placement of trailers on 

wetland property. To acquire a trailer for such property, a resident 

must obtain a 404 permit, which allows for temporary usage of 

9

wetland property. And finally, the primary requirement to place a 

trailer on private property is that the property has water, sewer, 

and electricity. Due to the complete devastation of some residential 

areas, these three necessities have yet to be restored, and this has 

caused delay. 

In the long-term housing, the good news is there is not a shortage of developers who are interested in helping us rebuild. The city 

has plans for a variety of mixed-use housing to accommodate every 

socio-economic class. Some of this housing included condominiums, 

three of which have been approved for construction; apartments, 

single-family residential housing subdivisions; and extended-stay 

hotels. 

Developers, as well as public and private organizations, have 

shown more prevalent interest in the development of long-term affordable housing. This is very important. It is imperative, though, 

that this be done right. What we are asking for is specialized assistance in the development of a plan that will spread affordable 

housing evenly throughout our community and infield developments. 

Our HUD Department needs additional support. We need inspectors, we need planners, we need employees. We need the opportunity to have live-work opportunities in communities where people 

can live in their homes and work in their homes, which will give 

them additional opportunities to get financing that will support the 

development of a home that they can be proud of. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. If you would like to summarize. 

Mr. WARR. Yes, sir, I will wrap up. 

In conclusion, when people ask who is to blame for the conditions 

after the storm, I sincerely answer you can only blame Katrina. No 

one came to the Mississippi Gulf Coast intending to do a poor job. 

Were there things that could have been done better? Absolutely. 

Are there organizations that did less than their mission statements? Yes. Were there far more successes than failures? Absolutely. 

I ask this panel to engage locals in searching out ways and 

means of promoting the local readiness and abilities so that the 

tools are in the hands of those homes, families and properties who 

are involved. 

Once again, I sincerely thank you for the honor of appearing before you today. The City of Gulfport thanks you for the important 

work that you are doing and the improved safety and quality of life 

that will ultimately spring from your efforts. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mayor Warr can be found on page 

171 of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, Mayor. 

Dr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF DR. GAVIN SMITH, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF RECOVERY AND RENEWAL, OFFICE OF GOVERNOR HALEY 

BARBOUR 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you for allowing myself and our new office 

which has just been stood up, the Office of Recovery and Renewal 

10

in the Governor’s Office. We will be taking on some of these challenges, working in partnership with HUD and FEMA trying to cut 

through the red tape and figure out short, immediate and longterm and intermediate solutions to housing and other issues. 

I want to talk a little bit about some of the things that did not 

go so well, but I want to talk first perhaps about some things I 

think that did go well. 

One of the things that we recognize is that the provision of temporary housing in this disaster was done faster than ever before. 

However, that was not good enough. It is just not good enough. 

And that is one of the issues, one of the key issues that I would 

request you focus on, is coming up with a long-term housing recovery strategy. That is going to require partnerships among HUD, 

FEMA, EDA, and a number of other partners working in tandem 

with State agencies and local governments. Local governments in 

many ways driving that effort because we need to develop a plan 

that is based on local needs. And I will touch on that in more detail 

in just a moment. 

Another issue that I certainly would like to commend FEMA for 

is the fact that they developed what are called Flood Advisory Elevation maps in Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina. And for 

those who do not know, it was an unprecedented effort, it is unbelievably useful to local governments to help them make educated 

decisions about where and how they rebuild. That is a very important tool, it is very difficult decisions that have to be made on the 

coast, but FEMA did a great job of providing that data very quickly. Those maps are available to communities and they can use 

them to help determine how they are going to rebuild their communities. 

Another area where FEMA is improving but more work still 

needs to be done is the area of recovery planning, generally speaking. They have created an emergency support function. The focus 

is on long-term community planning whose role is to bring together 

Federal agencies, State, and local governments to address complex 

issues like this. However, it is just starting, it has been in process 

or in place for a couple of years. I would suggest that a cadre of 

experts from around the country and within FEMA are developed 

that can immediately deploy to these communities to help them address these issues upfront as quickly as possible. 

Touching on the temporary and long-term housing strategy, as I 

mentioned earlier, while the temporary housing situation, more 

travel trailers were put up faster than ever before, again, it is just 

not fast enough for local governments. 

One thing that we ought to think of, in my opinion, is the idea 

as part of this plan is having an in-place coordinated effort not only 

with State, Federal, and local agencies, but also the private sector. 

Having private sector individuals, builders, and others that have 

innovative housing solutions, be it manufactured housing, be it 

panelized housing, be it the resources that can be brought to bear 

to set up what are often being referred to as transitional communities, setting those up in the immediate aftermath. Trying to come 

up with a plan in the throes of a disaster is often too late. And that 

is kind of where we are today; we are trying to come up with a 

plan after the disaster. 

11

So I would suggest that for the long-term recovery planning aspect, we really need to do a lot of that planning before the storm. 

And I would suggest that a group be formed, obviously to address 

Katrina and that is my primary responsibility and we will be doing 

that, but in the future to think about how we can develop a team 

that would do those types of pre-planning activities. 

I think we all know that the provision of temporary and longterm housing is a foundation of recovery. Until we can get housing 

in place, until we can get quality housing in place, affordable housing for everyone who was affected by the disasters, the overall disaster recovery effort is actually not going to be achieved as quickly 

as it can. 

Obviously people live in homes that are helping us rebuild the 

coast. People’s kids need to come back to school, which in Mississippi, we do have all our schools open, which is a fantastic effort. 

But we need to do something comparable to that with our housing. 

And again, that is kind of the engine of recovery and we need to 

recognize that. 

One of the things we also need to look at is in order to make this 

happen, we are going to need three things—funding to help make 

this happen, to implement some of the ideas, some of the plans. We 

need technical assistance, people on the ground that can provide 

State agencies, local governments with that type of assistance. And 

third, we need to knock out some higher level policy issues. And 

I would like to talk a bit about those today as well. If we can do 

those three things, we will really be able to achieve a renaissance, 

as the Governor is suggesting, in our State. 

I want to focus a bit on policy, however. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. If you would like to summarize. 

Mr. SMITH. Very quickly, it is very important, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program is something we need to look at. Congressman 

Taylor did a great job of providing assistance for housing outside 

the floodplain. This program, very well intentioned, a key policy 

issue for us is to actually—you typically elevate flood damaged 

houses. Well, if the house is gone, what do you elevate? So in our 

State, one of our biggest challenges is that we are suggesting that 

the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program be used to elevate—pay for 

an elevated foundation and the house upon which it sits. A critical 

issue. 

One other thing I would like to say very quickly is in connection 

with the floodplain mapping effort that was done post-disaster; predisaster floodplain mapping is critical, doing that before the storm 

comparable to the pre-disaster planning. And the map modernization program within FEMA, I would argue is under-funded. It is a 

great program and certainly is something worthy of further attention. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Smith can be found on page 159 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you very much. Mr. Russo. 

12

STATEMENT OF JAMES N. RUSSO, FEDERAL COORDINATING 

OFFICER FOR DR–1604–MS, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. RUSSO. Good morning, and thank you, sir, members of the 

committee, Congressman Taylor, Ranking Member Waters. I have 

a prepared statement that I believe has been given to you. What 

I would like to do is also give you some perspective so that you 

know what my role was from the early days of Katrina up through 

today, so when we answer questions, you will know what my perspective of the event was. 

My initial role was to deploy into Jackson on the 27th of August, 

where I met State counterparts, then Federal Coordinating Officer 

Woody Carlisle, and began to pre-plan landfall operations. The day 

after landfall, it was decided that I would move forward to this 

city, to Gulfport, with a small command and control team to start 

identifying resources and requirements, funnel that information 

back up through the State and through Jackson, and begin the response operations in the lower six counties. 

On October 14th, Mr. Carlisle decided to retire, I was then appointed the Federal Coordinating Officer for the State and relocated up to Jackson, where we work daily with Governor Barbour’s 

staff, my State counterpart Robert Latham, and with the members 

of Mississippi’s delegation. 

While I will agree that there are many policy changes that I 

think are being looked at and I think they need to be looked at, 

I think in retrospect, many of the issues that we need to resolve 

were policy-related. I think the men and women who hit the 

ground here in Mississippi worked tirelessly. I know in the early 

weeks, the first six-and-a-half weeks I spent here in Gulfport and 

in the Biloxi area, many of our employees worked side-by-side with 

their State counterparts 18 and 20 hours a day, trying to identify 

the damages, what the needs were and try to get people back into 

some temporary shelter. 

I agree with the statements that many have made, I know Congressman Taylor has made it, and I have made it myself, that 

31,000 travel trailers on the ground at this date is an earth shattering number and a number that we would have never thought 

possible at this stage, but if your family is 31,001, it is not fast 

enough. 

There are issues with procurement, there are issues with policy, 

there are issues with transportation movement, and I think quite 

honestly one of the things that was our biggest impediment is it 

is the first time that we have dealt with a wide scale operation that 

not only displaced hundreds of thousands of people, but it made it 

much more difficult when the infrastructure to replace those people 

back on their own property or even remotely close to their property, 

was dismantled or completely destroyed. As you know, in order to 

put those travel trailers and relocate those people, the placement 

of choice is to put a travel trailer on their property, for many reasons. One, for comfort and peace of mind, so that they can be on 

their property. When the property is gone, when the debris is such 

that it is not safe to put that travel trailer in there, or if any of 

the structure is completely wiped out, it made it very difficult for 

us to get in there. 

13

I think there are changes that can be made to the way we put 

travel trailers in place, task force type mentalities that we can 

overcome. Several local issues that I think need to be addressed so 

that we can move quicker and faster in the future. But I think that 

for the most part, I think the movement at this level, ground level, 

was rapid and it was done I think within the confines of the incident that we were dealing with. The time lag in moving communications up and down the chain and horizontally, I think that was 

an issue. 

I think we have never had an incident of this magnitude, and to 

date, I would offer to you that the majority of our catastrophic 

planning to this point has been done through hypotheticals, 

through mapping, through modeling. We now have historical data 

that we can use for future planning. We now know, we have put 

people on the ground, we have had our first catastrophic event. 

And I would hope that this is the information and these are the 

people that will be allowed to work on the planning process for future catastrophic events. 

And with that, I will be happy to answer any questions you 

might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Russo can be found on page 147 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Mr. Nick Walters. 

STATEMENT OF NICK WALTERS, MISSISSIPPI RURAL 

DEVELOPMENT STATE DIRECTOR, USDA 

Mr. WALTERS. Thank you all for allowing us to attend. 

As a Mississippian and a local person who is from 30 miles right 

north of here in Stone County, we are glad you are here and thank 

you for being here. 

I wanted to give you a little insight of what we have done as an 

agency in helping to try to do some relief efforts as well as what 

we at USDA Rural Development have done since that time of the 

first couple of months of being involved, to give you an idea of what 

we have done. 

We are the single largest lender of single-family homes in the 

State of Mississippi. We literally build communities from the 

ground up, whether it is the water and sewer or whether it is the 

hospitals and the schools and the other necessary facilities, police 

stations and such as that that we are able to do, helping businesses 

try to find dollars so that they can operate. This is what we do for 

a living every day. And so we have been about the business of 

doing that. We do about $250- $270 million dollars a year here in 

the State of Mississippi. 

What we did in response on the front end is first off, we tried 

to make sure that we knew where all our employees were, that we 

knew that they were safe. Indeed we are fortunate to say that 

while several lost their homes, everyone was safe and their families 

were safe, for the most part. 

The second thing we did is we made the assumption that a lot 

of the folks at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency or 

at the FEMA office probably were not as aware that we at USDA 

Rural Development had the resources that we did here in the 

State. So we immediately went to them. I don’t think USDA is the 

14

first place that is on a lot of folks’ minds about where they turn 

to for help, but we went and met with our counterparts there and 

let them know about what we did, what we could offer, how we 

might be able to be of some assistance. 

One of our employees, as a matter of fact, went to work over at 

the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency office and she 

worked there for about 3 weeks, just answering the telephone, just 

being able to take some calls and things like that that we thought 

were important to do. 

The next thing that we did is I got on the phone with our UnderSecretary Tom Dorr in Washington and he told us and gave us the 

green light, and Secretary Johanns had given it as well, to please 

go and do everything we need to do under our legal bounds, take 

care of the things that we needed to do. We immediately began to 

do that. 

We also did a quick assessment of our multifamily housing complex units that were vacant across the State, so that people who 

were in shelters would have the opportunity to possibly go into one 

of our multifamily housing complexes. So we needed an inventory, 

a tighter inventory, on what was available so that as folks tried to 

get placed, that we knew exactly where that was. 

Then our Washington office really kicked in and we got debt forbearance for 6—first it was 90 days and then it was moved to 180 

days, for anyone who owed us any money for a housing note, if a 

municipality owed it for a water and sewer project or others, we 

got a 180-day forbearance for them so that they could try to have 

a little bit more funds in their pockets as we went through this 

part as well. 

Chairman NEY. Your time is expired. If you could summarize. 

Mr. WALTERS. Okay. 

Up to date, what we have done for the future is right now for 

housing, we have taken about 6,000 applications just in our four 

local offices that are down in the southern part of the State. Of 

those 6,000 applications, we have about 500 today that we have already processed, the rest of them were either ineligible or they did 

not want to access any of our dollars. We have put about $6 million 

out so far to date in single-family housing loans, either as direct 

loan money or in guaranteed loan money. And even with the additional money that was given for response, we believe that we will 

spend every dollar and every dime that is given to us to be able 

to put folks into single-family homes. 

The waivers that we were able to put into place so that we could 

come into more metropolitan areas, we can do a home in Gulfport 

and Biloxi now, and Hattiesburg, places that we have not, because 

of populations limits, been able to do a single-family home inside 

the city limits here. Our Under Secretary waived all those regulations, so we are able to do that. It has been taxing on our folks, 

but our people have done an outstanding job, I will have to brag 

on them, in trying to deliver these programs as much as possible 

for the local community. 

Thank you. 

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

163 of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Mr. Williams. 

15

STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. WILLIAMS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY, MULTIFAMILY HOUSING, DEPARTMENT OF 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, ranking member and distinguished members of the committee, my name is Hank Williams 

and I am the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Multifamily Housing 

in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

It is a privilege to be able to represent the Department today. We 

also wanted to thank you for the opportunity to host the tour from 

Louisiana along the Gulf Coast. When the call came in from the 

subcommittee staff, the HUD staff went to work right away to facilitate this tour and we know that it has made a big impression 

upon not only the members of the subcommittee but also many of 

the HUD staff, who had not had that opportunity previously. 

The Katrina, Rita, and Wilma disasters have thoroughly tested 

all of us, and the President has directed the Federal agencies to 

adapt to the extraordinary challenges presented by the most extensive natural disaster in the Nation’s history. 

Responding to the President’s direction, Secretary Jackson mobilized the resources of HUD, and I would like to describe just a few 

of those in my comments. 

HUD worked very closely with FEMA in the early days of the 

disaster to get the housing assistance to those who were displaced 

and uprooted by the hurricanes. There were also partnerships 

formed with the USDA, VA, HHS, and others, which demonstrates 

the dedication for getting the housing resources into the hands of 

the people who need them. 

Some of the best examples were the Katrina Disaster Assistance 

Program, KDHAP, and the Joint Housing Solution Center. 

Also, there were hundreds of HUD staff who volunteered and 

were deployed to the Gulf Coast area to assist in a variety of different disaster related activities. 

The program offices at HUD also aided in the recovery process. 

Administered by the Office of Community Planning and Development, the community block grant program, CDBG, is an important 

tool in the rebuilding effort. As you know, the President recommended additional funding for CDBG to help in the recovery 

and rehabilitation. The Congress and the President approved $11.5 

billion in additional CDBG funding as well as almost $400 million 

for public housing authorities to assist in the recovery and housing 

efforts. 

In addition, CPD issued waivers for more than 40 requirements 

within the grant programs that already existed so that the States 

of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama could increase their flexibility to use their current resources in disaster recovery. 

The Office of Housing took the lead and provided the first 90-day 

foreclosure relief in the Presidentially-declared disaster areas. On 

November 22nd, that 90-day period was extended to 180 days, 

which ends in February of 2006. Homeowners in those counties 

were given the opportunity to work with their mortgage companies 

and have the additional time in which to confirm what their intentions would be, their abilities to rebuild, and what their plans were 

for being able to service their mortgage payments and retain their 

homeownership. Realizing that even 180 days is not a sufficient peVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:47 Oct 18, 2006 Jkt 027793 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\27793.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
16

riod of time, HUD and FHA took the extraordinary step of creating 

the first 12-month deferral of payments for the disaster victims. All 

disaster victims in the Presidentially-declared major disaster areas, 

whether they live there or work there, it could be either one, are 

eligible for 12-month deferral of payments on their FHA mortgage. 

This 12-month deferral then was put on the end of their mortgage, 

not required to be repaid at the end of the 12-month period of time, 

giving them really full relief for that 12 months of time. We determined that there were about 20,000 families who could benefit 

from this program of payment deferral. 

In addition, Secretary Jackson personally encouraged lenders 

and lender groups to undertake actions such as mortgage modifications, refinancing, and the waiver of late charges so that those in 

the disaster areas could have the benefits that HUD was providing 

in all areas of the mortgage world. 

The Office of Public and Indian Housing has issued guidance to 

the Nation’s more than 3,000 public housing authorities on how to 

assist displaced residents. That is posted on the HUD website and 

provides the guidance both to these housing authorities and to the 

HUD offices, to be sure that maximum usage of the assistance is 

available. 

As mentioned earlier, the Katrina Disaster Housing Assistance 

Program, KDHAP, is providing housing vouchers for evacuee families who were previously receiving rental assistance through HUD, 

and those who were homeless—and this is the first time that the 

homeless were actually provided disaster relief. And the KDHAP 

program is the first step towards doing that. 

Under this program, individuals and households who had been 

found ineligible because of their participation in the HUD register 

with FEMA— 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. You may summarize. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I will just finish up on this program because it 

is very important. FEMA then transfers that registration information and provides us the funding that is available through the Stafford Act to fund the program. It assists these families with the 

public housing authorities being able to help them to find suitable 

housing and they can pick a home in any area throughout the 

United States because any housing authority within the United 

States is funded through the program to help them with that selection. And those homes are funded 100 percent of the fair market 

rent for that particular area, giving them maximum flexibility for 

a start at their new life. 

So we appreciate this opportunity of not only participating with 

you in this important Gulf Coast rebuilding effort, but also in the 

opportunity of presenting here today at the hearing. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, Mr. Williams. 

And the last witness for panel one is Ms. Dianne Bolen. 

STATEMENT OF DIANNE BOLEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

MISSISSIPPI HOME CORPORATION 

Ms. BOLEN. Mr. Chairman, Representative Waters and distinguished members of the Congress; thank you for the opportunity to 

appear before this subcommittee to discuss Mississippi’s housing 

needs and plans as a result of Hurricane Katrina. 

17

The Mississippi Home Corporation is the State’s housing finance 

agency. We offer various State, Federal, and corporate programs 

that address the affordable needs of Mississippians. 

It is estimated that over 50,000 homes were destroyed on the 

Gulf Coast alone. The majority of homeowners had no flood insurance. People are still living in tents. Temporary housing remains 

a top priority. From day one, the IRS was available to make adjustments and waivers in our housing tax credit programs so that developers could move Katrina victims into vacant apartments. 

Additionally, the Mississippi Home Corporation partnered with Freddie Mac, who donated $900,000 for the purchase of travel trailers. The Mississippi Home Corporation was able to house 36 families that did not qualify for the FEMA trailers. 

We also partnered with Fannie Mae to make 15 foreclosed properties available to displaced families rent-free. 

MHC has focused on the rebuilding of permanent housing stock 

through the Federal programs that we administer which include 

housing tax credits, mortgage revenue bonds, and mortgage credit 

certificates. The recent enactments of the Gulf Opportunity Zone 

Act of 2005, and the tax relief bill HR 3769, have provided flexibility and increased cap for these programs to assist in the rebuilding of affordable housing. I thank Congress for this unprecedented 

situation and the speed with which it was enacted. 

MHC estimates that 4,163 tax credit units in the disaster area 

were damaged or destroyed. On September 7th, our Board of Directors approved a plan to allow developers who had received an allocation of tax credits but had not begun construction to relocate 

their development to sites within the disaster area. To date, 8 requests have been approved to relocate 228 units. 

On January 11, 2006, the Board approved a plan to reallocate 

some of the previously awarded 2006 tax credits and to utilize applications that are on a waiting list. By doing this, the Mississippi 

Home Corporation can immediately take advantage of the initial 

$38 million in 2006 tax credits made available by the GO Zone Act. 

On January 17th, the Corporation will allocate approximately nine 

million of the GO Zone credits, some of which will be 15-year single-family lease/purchase developments. Developers will have the 

ability to maximize the number of units being built in the disaster 

area in the fastest possible manner. 

A concern of both MHC and developers is that a development 

must be placed in service by 2008 to receive the difficult-to-develop 

designation. Developments typically take 24 to 30 months to reach 

placed-in-service. As a result, developments would be exposed to a 

risk in development costs that would discourage participation in 

2007 and 2008. MHC would suggest that difficult-to-develop designations for GO Zone credits conform to the IRS requirements for 

Section 42. 

MHC also seeks guidance on the use of the national non-metro 

income for tax credit development. In Mississippi, some metropolitan incomes are less than the national non-metro income. In these 

cases, MHC would like the flexibility to use the national non-metro 

income. 

To encourage homeownership in the disaster area, MHC will provide training to lenders and realtors to educate them on recent 

18

changes to the mortgage revenue bond program and the mortgage 

credit certificate program. We are also planning homeowner fairs 

with our partners to educate potential borrowers. 

MHC is encouraging lenders to utilize HUD’s 203(k) home improvement loan and HUD’s 203(h) 100 percent financing loans in 

conjunction with a mortgage revenue bond and mortgage credit certificate program. 

Freddie Mac has pledged to purchase up to $1 billion in bonds 

at a below market price from States affected by Katrina. The benefit will pass directly to the potential homeowner in the form of a 

lower mortgage loan rate. To date, we have already reserved about 

$17 million of these funds at a 5.61 percent interest rate and we 

also offered them a 3 percent cash advance to assist with closing 

costs and down payment assistance. 

Families are now facing foreclosure, bankruptcy, and other credit 

issues as a result of Katrina. MHC will support housing counseling, 

credit counseling, and homeowner education services. We have recently approved grants from HUD and Freddie Mac. MHC estimates that 800 households will receive assistance from these 

grants. We also need additional funds to help, because there are 

more than 800 families who could use and benefit from services 

such as these. 

MHC is also looking at ways that we can tweak other programs 

we administer to meet the needs of families of the disaster area. 

We just completed our annual housing conference where a record 

number of partners attended to share ideas and learn more about 

the latest changes in our program as a result of the GO Zone legislation. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. If you would like to summarize. 

Ms. BOLEN. In conclusion, the Corporation has acted to implement the new authority Congress has given us. We are committed 

to continuing to work with our partners to rebuild Mississippi. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bolen can be found on page 66 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. We thank you so much, Ms. Bolen. 

Before we proceed, I failed to recognize special guest Ambassador 

Sidney Williams. He has been traveling with us. He is also the 

spouse of Ms. Waters. Ambassador, we are honored to have you 

here. 

Also, the Democrat and Republican staff, from both sides of the 

aisle, raise your hands. These individuals do such a great job. We 

have to give them a round of applause. 

I would like to mention the GSE bill where we work with the 

housing trust fund with Mr. Frank, Chairman Oxley and Ranking 

Member Maxine Waters, that penny—by the way, you might want 

to drop a little note to your United States Senator, we would love 

to have that House version of that fund which will help the poorest 

of the poor with housing and also will help specifically for disaster 

victims. That is one little penny. 

I have a couple of quick questions and we will move to the other 

members. I just want to get a handle on a couple of differences 

19

maybe, if any pops up, of the needs in New Orleans versus down 

here in Gulfport and this entire area. 

We have an issue that we heard about yesterday, a privacy issue. 

The Secretary of State of Louisiana had asked for the names of 

people and where they live. The Secretary of State got the names. 

We think we now can get the names and the Mayor of New Orleans said that he could not get the names. That way they can contact people. Is there any issue, has this been a problem down here 

of privacy and the names cannot be passed on of where people are 

at, anything like that? 

Mr. SMITH. What I will say is there has been an issue of trying 

to get information relative to homeowners who live inside the floodplain, outside the floodplain, to try to characterize the level of damages that they sustained. And actually we have been working closely with FEMA on that. I do not know that that is going to be a 

problem. I think we have resolved many of those issues. 

Chairman NEY. How about FEMA, have you heard of any issues 

about privacy? 

Mr. RUSSO. Initially the Privacy Act came into play particularly 

when we started looking at transitional housing and shelters and 

our cruise ship population where we were trying to identify any 

undesirables that may be amongst the shelter population. That request went up to the State’s attorney general and to my knowledge, 

we are working through the State’s attorney general into the local 

law enforcement. That is where that stayed, at that level, and 

thereafter it did not involve us. 

Chairman NEY. The other question I wanted to ask and I do not 

know if you have exact statistics, but you might have an idea. Were 

there issues down here and do you know how many people have 

left to go to other States? As you know, in New Orleans, huge numbers of citizens have left. In my home area near Newark, Ohio, we 

have some families up there. Do you have that type of situation 

down here, or not; and if you did, do you know how many people 

are out around in other States? 

Mr. RUSSO. I will try that, Mr. Chairman. From the Governor’s 

Office—and I know one of the things we tried to assess early on 

is would we see an additional influx of shelterees from people who 

evacuated out-of-State. To date, we have not seen that. The assessment in-State is that there were literally only about 3,600 hotelmotel rooms being taken up by shelterees, 65 percent of that were 

from Louisiana. So the bulk of the Mississippians either stayed 

with relatives or remained in the State. We are still unsure, checking with the hotel populations out of the State as to exactly how 

many Mississippians left. Our guess, working with the Governor 

and his office, is that it is far fewer than Louisiana and some of 

the other States. 

Chairman NEY. So you have some citizens in the hotel situation 

but not— 

Mr. RUSSO. Very few Mississippians. 

Chairman NEY. Okay. The other area is the flood mapping. I 

think Congressman Taylor will have some thoughts on that. Mapping is important. Where I live, the 18th District of Ohio, we had 

last year three rounds of floods and some people lost houses. We 

have had our share of floods and things, but I have found also that 

20

the mapping issue, I think, needs to be updated. We are working 

with FEMA to update that mapping and digitize it. That will help 

I believe. 

My last question I wanted to ask, also just to get a handle on 

it, was the issue of the trailers, because—has there been any—it 

seems like you got trailers in this State a lot faster, which is great. 

I know there are some different reasons for this, there are a lot of 

homeowners probably here and in New Orleans—some people are 

renting and they have to get permission. But it just seems like it 

went a little better here. Although you have, I understand, some 

trailers that are still hanging around. If you want a trailer and you 

see those thousands sitting there, you want that trailer obviously. 

And maybe that could be expedited somehow. 

Was there an issue of sitings? The local government can say yes, 

we will put the trailers here. Was there any complication on that? 

We have heard up in New Orleans of complications between the 

locals and the United States Government and where are you going 

to site the trailers and things like that. Any comments? 

Mr. WARR. Those issues were resolved rather quickly. The city 

councils and the planning departments of the cities made determinations that made it available for people to site trailers, primarily on their home sites, and in such a manner where the home 

can be rebuilt. 

Chairman NEY. So that happened fast. 

Mr. WARR. They were resolved quickly. 

Chairman NEY. Okay. The gentlelady. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I think I should preface my remarks or my questions by saying 

to the panel, I am pretty direct and I do not want you to take offense. 

I know that there has been a lot of cheerleading and I know that, 

you know, people talked about the high hopes and all, the good 

feelings and all like that. But my job is not to do that, my job is 

to find out where the problems are, why there are problems, and 

what we can do to help solve those problems. So if I come at it directly, just know this is just business, I do not want you to take 

it personally. Okay? 

Now having said that, we are here and there is a lot of cheering, 

talking about the high spirits and the hopes and how well things 

are going. But on CNN, I believe, I saw one of the mayors—I think 

it would have been the mayor of Waveland, I am not sure. He was 

totally depressed, he was sitting on a pile of debris and he was 

talking about the fact that the debris was everywhere and had not 

been moved, etc. And my heart went out to him because this was 

a robust man, as I remember and he did not seem like he was the 

type who would usually go around depressed. So something was 

going on. 

Now having said that, let me try to ferret out the problems as 

I know and understand them and get some response from the Governor’s Recovery Office. The Governor has done a good job, he has 

friends in the White House, and they should respond to their 

friends, so he has done a good job. 

But there are some issues that have not really been talked about. 

There are people who had flood insurance, they paid their preVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:47 Oct 18, 2006 Jkt 027793 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\27793.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
21

miums every month, every year, every 6 months, and the insurance 

companies are not responding to them. They are trying to take 

every way possible not to have to pay these claims. 

The State legislature and the Governors can do something about 

that. Insurance companies work under the laws of the State, they 

can be fined, they can be sanctioned, they cannot be allowed to operate in the State—you can do a lot. But they get away with too 

much, often because the relationships between members of the legislature and some of the special interests are very cozy, we know 

that. Many of us, you know, have been in the State legislature, 

then in Congress, so we understand that. 

I want to ask have you done anything to deal with the problem 

of Mississippians who paid their insurance and now the insurance 

companies are trying not to pay their claims. What action have you 

taken to try to help people in that situation? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, one of the things that we are looking at—and 

I did not get a chance to talk about it in-depth, is looking at it in 

the Hazard Mitigation Program, trying to help homeowners inside 

the floodplain. I certainly will address your question, but one of the 

things that we are trying to do is get resolution to policy issues 

about helping those homeowners who have lost everything. 

Again, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, typically one of 

the types of activities they do is to elevate a damaged house. 

Ms. WATERS. No, no, no, I do not want to hear about that. What 

I want to hear about is what are you saying to the insurance companies, are you threatening them or are you doing anything to 

make them pay these claims? 

Mr. SMITH. I understand. If you will bear with me just a moment, they are connected. If we can assist in reaching a resolution, 

we can use money to elevate homes, pay for the foundation, that 

is one tool to assist those people that may or may not have had 

flood insurance in the floodplain. 

Ms. WATERS. No, I do not want to know about that. I want to 

know what you are doing with the insurance companies that are 

not paying their claims. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, to be honest with you, I have not seen that information. 

Ms. WATERS. Okay, that is okay, that is an answer. 

Mr. SMITH. I understand. What I am trying to say is that they 

are related. 

Ms. WATERS. No, I do not want to hear the relationship. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Ms. WATERS. I just want to know, because this is a big issue. 

Mr. SMITH. I agree, it is a very big issue. 

Ms. WATERS. Now secondly, when those people who did not have 

flood insurance, who may have been told that they did not need it, 

that they were not in the floodplain area, we tried something in 

Washington to retroactively take care of these people, but I did not 

see any advocacy from the Governor’s Office, from anybody in the 

State to say— 

Mr. TAYLOR. Whoa, whoa, whoa. 

Ms. WATERS. I am sorry, it was led by Congressman Taylor. 

[Laughter.] 

22

Ms. WATERS. But I did not see the help. We lost the vote on the 

Baker Bill by one vote, to help the people who did not have flood 

insurance. We could have done something retroactively. What do 

you think about that and will you help us in Washington to revisit 

that? 

Mr. SMITH. I could not agree with you more. I worked in floodplain management issues for about 15 years. I could not agree with 

you more. One of the biggest problems is that we do not do a good 

enough job about educating our people about what options are 

available to them. 

Ms. WATERS. No, we are past that, we are past that. We are past 

the time when—we are going to do that for the future, but I want 

to deal with the problem right now. Right now, on the other side 

of this, you have got the insurance companies, they are trying not 

to pay the claims and the second thing is you have those who do 

not have insurance, who did not know they had to have insurance, 

and they need some help or they are going to lose everything. 

Mr. SMITH. That is right. 

Ms. WATERS. What are you doing about that? 

Mr. SMITH. The homeowners who do not have flood insurance but 

should have or thought they should have, is that— 

Well, one of the things that Congressman Taylor did is help pull 

down billions of dollars to help those people, provide assistance to 

the 35,000 homeowners who were impacted, many of whom were 

outside the floodplain. So that act, in and of itself, is going to play 

a huge role in directly assisting them. That was the intent, because 

the idea being that the insurance industry does not do a good 

enough job of educating or informing them about their options, for 

those people that live outside the floodplain. So there is $4 billion 

that will be assisting Mississippians to do just that. 

Ms. WATERS. I am going to stop you at this point and I am going 

to let Mr. Taylor deal with that for a minute in the way that he 

knows how to do it. 

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say to Mr. Russo, we spent a lot 

of time yesterday talking about trailers and the siting of trailers. 

I heard a figure here of 2,500, but I am told that there are 5,000 

families who still need the trailers. And I have great respect for all 

of the work that has been done, but we understand that some of 

your contractors do not have enough crews to go out and put these 

trailers on the ground and these gentlemen will probably talk 

about this some more. He took us by a trailer today to show us exactly how you put the electricity in and how you put the boxes in, 

etc., etc. And we have learned there are some problems in the system. And while you may have done a much better job than Louisiana, it is not good enough. Five months later, there should not 

be children living in cars, there should not be people without trailers. And we want to know are you having problems with the contractors? Do they have enough crews to send out? And secondly, 

how is the electricity company doing, are they putting up the wiring? And again, Mr. Taylor probably will talk a lot more about 

whether or not the electricity company could also put in the meters 

and the boxes at the same time as opposed to having another crew 

having to come out and delaying all of this. 

23

What are you doing to expedite the ability to get these trailers 

in use? 

Mr. RUSSO. Ma’am, I agree with you 100 percent. One of the 

things we asked for early on in this event was that in siting travel 

trailers, particularly around private sites, which is I think what 

you are referring to, is that there is a slowdown in the siting. The 

site has to be identified and it has to be rendered safe. Then the 

utilities have to be identified, the trailer put on, prepped and leveled. Then, utilities must be individually put into that travel trailer. That is an inefficient way to put that travel trailer on that site. 

What we asked for early on was a task force type event so that 

once a site was cleaned, it was rendered safe, the trailer would be 

placed on that private lot and then a task force with the plumbers, 

the electricians, all of the people that would be required to render 

that trailer safe and permittable, so that they could come to that 

site at once as opposed to over the course of 5 to 7 days. 

Ms. WATERS. So what are you doing about it? 

Mr. RUSSO. What we found out was the local utilities are a private entity, they are beyond our control. And we could request it, 

but we could not mandate it. And that is what is holding that process up. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Will the gentlewoman yield? 

Ms. WATERS. Yes, I will yield to Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Russo, on that point, and I have had this conversation with the folks from Bechtel, had it with Sid, I have had 

it with Mr. Chertoff—there is absolutely no reason to send two 

crews out there to hook up the electricity. It would have been very 

easy, and it is still easy—we have still got 5,000 to go—to give the 

power pole to Mississippi Power or to Coast Electric and say you 

install it—one crew. Instead of a crew to take it from the street to 

the pole, have one crew do it right there. And that is the biggest 

holdup, one of the reasons these folks were good enough to let me 

walk them through it. Anybody can do PVC pipe, anybody can hook 

up the garden hose to get you your running water. Electricity, people can get hurt if you do it wrong, you can burn up the trailer, 

you can kill the installer. 

But that is something that ought to be getting fixed right now. 

And one of my continuing frustrations is your agency does not 

mandate that change. This is not the last natural disaster. I have 

still got 5,000 families waiting on a trailer. 

Mr. RUSSO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. And I keep hearing somebody is going to fix it but 

it is not getting fixed. Now I cannot control Federal employees—

you can. 

Mr. RUSSO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. And that is one of the things that needs to get fixed. 

The other thing is—and I should have walked the group through 

this, I mentioned it yesterday—I am 52. Carrying around those 

propane tanks is no big deal. But on a cold day, like we are getting 

now, you get about a 3-day supply of propane and for the elderly, 

for the folks who are disabled, changing out those tanks is a pain. 

Someone in FEMA ought to be changing those trailers to all electric. You can buy a rooftop air conditioner with a heat strip. There 

is absolutely no reason why we ought to be having propane heat 

24

and going through the rigmarole of having to change out those 

tanks every 3 days, which costs, by the way, about $70, when it 

could be all electric. And that is just a matter of going to a 50 amp 

fuse instead of 30 amp. 

But you are not fixing that stuff and you do not seem to learning 

from your mistakes. 

I very much appreciate—I mean the gentlewoman from California caught onto this very quickly. She is easy on you, you should 

have seen the guys in Louisiana yesterday. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. That guy just wanted to die. 

But again we say this hopefully as constructive criticism. I respect Sid, Sid served in the United States Army for many years. 

But this affects the lives of south Mississippians, affects the lives 

of south Louisianians and it is going to affect—no telling where the 

next storm is, but we have got to get better as a Nation. And the 

frustration is I do not see you all getting better. 

I yield back. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you. And I will just wrap this up by saying 

that you talk about inspections, I have a great respect for inspections. I do not know what all the local laws are, but we heard 

something really stupid yesterday. And that is a woman who wanted a trailer, who had a driveway, she is the only one in the neighborhood, but they are trying to rebuild her house. The neighbors 

on either side are gone, do not know where. And they would not 

let her have a trailer because it came 4 inches over her driveway. 

Now this says a lot about bureaucratic nonsense in the siting of 

these trailers. I do not know if the 4-inch problem is a local problem with city ordinances or what, but really, we expect that these 

kinds of little nuisances will not prevent these citizens from getting 

these trailers placed on their property. 

We would like for you, FEMA, to identify every obstacle that you 

see, we want it in writing. Mr. Chairman, may I ask that they submit it to you—every obstacle from the Federal level to the local 

level that you have. And at the local level, I want you to talk with 

the Mayor and members of the city council and tell them about a 

stupid inspection rule that will not allow you to site a trailer on 

property because of some 4-inch extension over to another driveway. This is nonsense. It has been 5 months since Katrina and 

Rita. There should be nobody, nobody, without transitional housing 

of some kind, be it a trailer or some assurances that they can stay 

in rental property. And no excuse is good enough. 

Having said that, again, I am very, very appreciative for the opportunity to be here and to share with you in the best way that 

I can, we are going to do everything possible. I am not going to go 

back through the history of FEMA and criticize what they have not 

done. I want to talk about right now what we can do. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman NEY. I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Again, I want to thank everyone who is here, particularly our witnesses. 

Ms. Waters, in answer to a couple of your questions—and I realize this is a housing hearing, but you are the Financial Services 

Committee that has oversight for the Federal flood insurance. 

25

The reason I took you to my neighborhood today is because I 

wanted you to see the slabs. And you touched on a huge problem 

for the people of south Mississippi. On the one hand, the Federal 

flood insurance companies are the only ones paying their claims. 

Our Nation has done the right thing by FEMA. 

Ms. WATERS. Okay. 

Mr. TAYLOR. On the other hand, the wind insurance people have 

used, as you mentioned, every excuse under the sun not to pay people. You saw my neighborhood. What took those houses away, was 

it water, was it wind? As I pointed out the Federal employee who 

died, who stayed in his home—if you stayed behind, you were going 

to die. And what happens is the inspectors come on board from the 

insurance companies and they say I do not see any wind damage. 

Well, there will be tin in trees 30 feet up in the air, there will be 

trees toppled over obviously by wind. 

And so one of the things from Financial Services that I would 

ask is it is called the Federal flood insurance program, we need to 

change it to the Federal natural disaster program. It does not matter if it was wind or water or a tornado; if your home is destroyed, 

it is destroyed. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. And again, this is something where our Nation did 

better than the private sector, we paid our claims, they did not. 

The second thing is, and you touched on it, why in this day and 

age are there only two businesses in America that are exempt from 

the antitrust laws and do not have Federal regulation? Major 

league baseball and the insurance industry. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. It is perfectly legal for the insurance industry to set 

prices, to divvy up territories—you take Louisiana, you take Mississippi. They can conspire to raise your rates. No other business 

in America can do that. Anybody else would go to jail. 

So again, this is your committee, this is where it would start. We 

need Federal regulation of the insurance industry, because—you 

come from a high-tax, high-service State. 

Ms. WATERS. Yes. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I come from a low-tax, poor-service State. So the resources available to regulate them in Mississippi, quite honestly 

there is not much there and they have done very little with what 

they have. 

So again, it ought to be Federal, it ought to be just natural disaster insurance, so you do not have to stay in your house with a 

video camera to find out why it was destroyed or how it was destroyed. If you have been paying your premiums and it is gone, you 

ought to get your settlement. 

To Mr. Smith’s credit, we did not pass the bailout of those folks 

who lived outside the floodplain in the way I would have preferred 

and the way that you folks would. The way I would have preferred 

it is if we did it through Federal flood insurance, then you send an 

inspector out, who takes a look at the damage, and your claim is 

based on your damage and how much you insured yourself for. Now 

it is going to go through the community development block grant 

program. And since you are here, Mr. Smith, and I will give you 

an opportunity to comment on this, I have heard reports and I hope 

26

they are wrong that the Governor does not want to pay claims on 

less than 51 percent damage. That is crazy. 

If a person had insurance, which is one of the things that they 

had to have had in order to qualify, and they file a claim, I do not 

care if it is 20 percent of the value of their home, one percent of 

the value of their home, or 100 percent, it ought to be based on the 

damage. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. If you are on a fixed income and you live at 25 feet 

elevation and the unforeseen happens, which is the flooding of your 

home, you have now got to pull up the sheetrock, you have got to 

pull up the insulation, you have got to rewire your house. Even a 

small house, that is $50,000 expense that people never dreamt they 

were having. And that may be way less than 51 percent of the 

value of their house. Those people need help. 

In my conversations with the Governor, he said he was going to 

help those people, so I hope it is not just some bureaucrat 

misspeaking, because the Governor’s intentions—and I hope he will 

fulfill those intentions—is to help everyone who had insurance, 

who lived outside the floodplain, who had damage, up to the 

amount of their insurance or 150, whichever is less, minus what 

they got out of insurance. That was the agreement we had in 

Washington. I sure hope it is what your agency will do. 

The last thing, the flood insurance, and again this comes back to 

your committee. You passed by the Stennis Space Center, it is our 

Nation’s center for remote sensing from satellites, is where I 

showed you they test the rockets. They can tell you the elevation 

of every square inch on earth from space. They can tell you how 

high the water got the day of the storm, from space. There is absolutely no reason that these flood maps have to take 18 months. 

They had that information within days of the storm; and quite 

frankly, for the cities to come up with their ordinances of before 

they give building permits what your elevation has to be, that information needs to be in their hands right now. And my great fear 

is right now the Federal flood insurance is only issuing—and please 

correct me—recommendations. 

Mr. RUSSO. That is correct. 

Mr. TAYLOR. They are only recommending you go so high. So 

what happens if 6 months from now, the cities did not follow the 

recommendations, but then they come back and take the hardnosed approach and say you did not follow our recommendations, 

no one in Gulfport can get flood insurance, or no one in Bay St. 

Louis or no one in Long Beach. 

Again, we need a clear definition from the Federal folks, what 

the rules are going to be. And we need to know right now, so that 

the rules do not get changed after the fact, after people start rebuilding and we find out that Gulfport or Bay St. Louis or Long 

Beach or Delisle or whoever cannot get Federal flood insurance as 

a community, even if some people went and lived by the new rules. 

Again, I am going to throw that back out, but that flows through 

this committee. I regret that I am not a member of this committee, 

but again, I am so grateful that so many of you gave up your weekend to come down here and see south Mississippi. We did take 

27

them to see a travel trailer, they know what it is all about and 

they know we have got some incredible challenges. 

So again, thank you to all of our witnesses. Mr. Smith, if you 

want to comment on that, I would welcome your remarks. 

Mr. SMITH. There are a couple of things. One on your question 

of the 50 percent rule, I know that is a huge issue for a lot of people, because a lot of people suffered outside the floodplain less than 

50 percent, perhaps 45 percent or 10 percent or less. That issue—

you and I talked about it in the hall—is a big concern of the Governor and we are looking at the amount of money available and all 

of the needs outside the floodplain, for those people that have the 

criteria, they had homeowners, they are impacted by wind, it was 

an owner-occupied dwelling. We are looking at that and so we 

should have—in fact, I hope we will have the universe of need identified early next week and one option is to set up a prioritization 

of expenditure of those funds outside the floodplain. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. 

The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. 

Let me talk a little bit, very briefly, about the money in the Congress. Initially, as you know, there were five large contracts, no-bid 

contracts, let. And of course, many of us thought that that was totally unacceptable and in fact we know that when that happens, 

quite often, African-American businesses, minority companies, 

small businesses are eliminated from the overall benefit of the contracts that are let. 

Let me ask you—yesterday we learned in New Orleans, for example, about debris removal. And so I want to ask how those contracts are working now. 

Secondly, on the debris removal, we learned that the prime contractor is paid about $43 a cubic foot, but by the time they subcontract, subcontract, subcontract, the individual or entrepreneur 

who finally does the work is paid about $7 a cubic foot. To me, that 

seems totally unacceptable and I want to find out from you how 

this is working here, the percentage of African-American and minority businesses that are benefitting from these contracts for the 

huge amount of work that needs to be done, and how this is working and what you see for the future in terms of benefits to the local 

community. 

Mr. RUSSO. Ms. Lee, I can tell you that to date of the contracts 

that have been let here in Mississippi, about 66 percent have been 

let to Mississippi contractors. In terms of the debris removal contracts, those debris removal contracts, if I am not mistaken—and 

we may have subject matter experts here in the room we can clarify it—those are being rebid I believe this week. So there will be 

a rebidding of those contracts. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Will the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. LEE. I will yield to the gentleman. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Of that 60-some percent— 

Mr. RUSSO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Give me the dollar breakout. 

Mr. RUSSO. I can certainly have that for you, sir, I do not have 

it in front of me. 

28

Mr. THOMPSON. But you understand what I am saying. You give 

the impression that 60 percent of the companies from Mississippi 

got the bids, but did they get the money? If they only got 10 percent of the money, they got short-changed. That is the point. 

Mr. RUSSO. Okay. 

Mr. THOMPSON. If all these individuals were working as subs and 

not as general contractors, that should not give you bragging 

rights, because that is not good. There are good Mississippi companies who ought to have the general contracts and not the subcontracts. 

Mr. RUSSO. Yes, sir. 

Ms. LEE. That is the second part of my question, the amount of 

money that is paid. In New Orleans, for example, $43 a cubic food 

versus the money that was finally paid to the sub, which really 

does the bulk of the job. So who would have that information, in 

terms of how much money is paid to who? 

Mr. RUSSO. The majority of the contracts go through GSA procurement process, that is the way the contracts are let. We can certainly access that information and get it to you. 

Ms. LEE. FEMA does not let the contracts directly at all for debris removal? 

Mr. RUSSO. There are two mechanisms for debris removal. One 

is that the municipality has the option to go with the Corps of Engineers for debris removal, and they also have the option to contract individually for their city. And those contracts are let either 

by that city or they go directly through the Corps of Engineers. The 

Corps of Engineers contract is let by FEMA. 

Ms. LEE. Okay. So you do not have that information here today? 

Mr. RUSSO. No, ma’am. 

Ms. WATERS. If the gentlelady will yield for a moment. 

Ms. LEE. Sure. 

Ms. WATERS. FEMA contracted with several firms, as the Congresswoman mentioned, they were no-bid contracts; that was 

Shaw, that was Bechtel, that was Fluour, etc. 

Mr. RUSSO. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. WATERS. Now you did that contract, FEMA did that contract. 

Mr. RUSSO. FEMA did that contract. 

Ms. WATERS. For debris removal. 

Mr. RUSSO. Correct, yes. 

Ms. WATERS. That is what the gentlelady was asking. I mean we 

do not want you to deflect it and talk about the GSA contracts, you 

did those contracts. And furthermore, you have some escape 

clauses in those contracts. And if they are not performing, if they 

do not have the crews, if they are not charging properly, if they are 

not including the local community, you can get out of those contracts. 

Mr. RUSSO. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. WATERS. Right? 

Mr. RUSSO. I am sure the agency has some escape clause, yes. 

Ms. WATERS. Of course you do. 

Ms. WATERS. I yield back to the gentlelady. 

Ms. LEE. So do you know how much money then the contractor 

is paying, bottom line, to those who are doing the work? 

Mr. RUSSO. I do not. 

29

Chairman NEY. Can you get that information? 

Mr. RUSSO. Yes, ma’am, we can get that information for you, I 

do not have that information. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. And you will get that to the 

committee. Thank you very much. 

Chairman NEY. And we will pass that to the members. 

The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Russo, I am sorry to continue with you, but I think we have 

more business to discuss. 

In your State, how many people are in hotels? 

Mr. RUSSO. Last estimate is 3,700, sir, I believe. 

Mr. GREEN. Thirty— 

Mr. RUSSO. 3,700. 

Mr. GREEN. This is something you may not know. Living in a 

hotel is not living high on the hog. And people need to know this, 

because yesterday at one of our hearings, we had a lady to give us 

testimony indicating that in the hotel, you have no refrigerator, 

you have a little ice bucket; no means to cook her food, so she has 

to eat out every day—person on a fixed income, eating out; no maid 

service. Hotels do not give you maid service when you are there as 

a FEMA evacuee. No room service. So it is not the typical hotel situation. And every 3 days she has to request an extension. 

Now it would seem to me, given that we have had a Federal 

judge to intercede, given that we have municipalities who are 

pleading to have people get extensions, that we ought to be able 

to do something about this 3-day extension, so that people do not 

have to go in to the hotel management every 3 days with an extension. It was 7 days at one time, it has been reduced to 3 days and 

we need to do something about these extensions. What can we do 

so that elderly senior citizens do not have to continue to get these 

extensions? 

Mr. RUSSO. Sir, I think that in conjunction with the new code 

system that they are putting in for hotel shelterees, there should 

be no reason for them to have to extend every 3 days. That is a 

matter of FEMA notifying our housing contractor to notify those 

housing providers that that is no longer necessary. That is something that is an easy fix and it can be done. 

Mr. GREEN. So let me make sure I understand. The 3-day extension rule is something that is imposed by the entrepreneur, the 

hotel— 

Mr. RUSSO. I am unaware of any 3-day extension required by us. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, then I think, Mr. Chairman, we truly need to 

check these and verify this. 

Chairman NEY. If the gentleman will yield, I am not taking it 

off your time, but I noticed yesterday, I recall the one lady said she 

had a 3-day but the second lady who was in another hotel said she 

did not. There is something going on where, for whatever reason—

you are saying you do not know about it, but in New Orleans one 

person had to do it and one did not. So we need to find out if that 

is a blanket policy. 

Mr. GREEN. If we could do some additional inquiry, Mr. Chairman, I would appreciate it if you would advise us how we may proceed. 

30

Finally, before I yield back my time, it is true that these are difficult tasks, but given that we are now months away, 5 months 

away, people ought to have what we would expect to have if we 

were similarly situated. A lot of these people are coming up short 

because they are poor and because they do not know how to finesse 

the system the way you and I might. This system has to be revamped so that it can respond not only to those who are among the 

best and the brightest, but also so that it can respond to those who 

are among the least, the last, and the lost. We have to reform the 

system. 

Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me first of all ask whether or not the Governor’s office has 

been notified of the $11.5 billion of community development block 

grant. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, we have. And we are in the process of working 

with the Mississippi Development Authority who will be the entity 

administering that program. In fact, that is what I was referring 

to, is looking at the need, collecting the data as quickly as we can 

and looking to disburse that money to those folks that do meet the 

criteria as stated in the bill—the law. 

Mr. CLEAVER. That money—there is great flexibility with CDBG 

dollars, however, those dollars are aimed at—unless the regulations have been dramatically altered, you can only spend those dollars in certain areas and under certain circumstances. My concern 

is—and we really may need to go back and have HUD officials 

come before our committee to go through the regulations. It appears that the regulations that normally govern CDBG, Mr. Mayor, 

have been altered. I would imagine that this community under normal circumstances would apply for CDBG through the State. Jackson and probably a few other larger cities would get a direct grant. 

My concern about the CDBG dollars are two-fold. One that the 

public is involved in determining how those dollars are being spent, 

according to existing Federal guidelines. Those dollars are not supposed to be spent without a public hearing. And in addition to the 

way I think we normally have public hearings, members of the 

public are not notified. I think in this case, they need to be. I think 

that Congressman Taylor needs to know when the public hearings 

are being held. 

The other concern is because of the contentious nature of CDBG 

hearings—my experience—if you have a number of Mississippi 

communities that have been devastated by the event, what you are 

also going to have are a number of people coming together vying 

for those dollars. And I think it creates chaos where chaos should 

be minimized. The people will come in and naturally they are going 

to want to get the dollars they think their communities needs. And 

retrospectively, we might have come out better if we had figured 

out a formula before those dollars were allocated, because some 

communities feel neglected and, you know, they are excluded. I 

have been there, I could write a little pamphlet on it. I have great 

concern about it. 

And the other concern is when we—I keep hearing that the time 

has been reduced from a 30-day notification to a 3-day notification. 

31

And I have been told that by officials in New Orleans and if that 

is the case here as well, then what we have tried to do is to get 

away from notifying the public at all, because 3 days, that just is 

not—that does not make sense. 

Mr. TAYLOR. If the gentleman will yield. 

If you are not familiar with all this, I certainly cannot fault you 

but the debate on this took place at 4:00 on a Monday morning on 

the House floor. The Katrina relief was attached to the Defense 

bill, which again, at 4:00 in the morning, not everyone is at their 

best. 

But that has been very well publicly—at least here in Mis- sissippi—explained. That $11 billion will be split roughly 60/40 between Louisiana and Mississippi. And the Mississippi portion will 

be directed to individual homeowners who lived outside the floodplain who had some form of homeowners insurance, up to $150,000 

they can file a claim or ask for a grant to help them move their 

lives forward to either pay off their mortgage on a house that is 

gone, use that money for repairing a house that has been damaged. 

It is going to flow through the State and what I was asking Dr. 

Smith to do, is to see to it that whether a home was 10 percent 

destroyed, one percent destroyed, or 100 percent destroyed, that 

they can file a claim. Because my concern is some word has come 

out of our Governor’s office that only those homes that were 51 percent destroyed or more could file a claim, and I do not think that 

is fair and that is certainly not the understanding I had with the 

Governor when we spoke in Washington. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could respond just briefly. Yes, sir, that 50 percent rule has not been established per se, it is being discussed. I 

just want to make that very clear. What we are trying to do is assess the need first and foremost. 

Just very quickly to your question, in addition to public meetings 

as required, they are also in fact—Mississippi Development Authority is holding focus groups, so they are going to look at bringing in a series of disaster victims that are facing in some cases the 

worst of the worst, those that need the most help, that really need 

the assistance. They are going to have a panel and they are going 

to ask them questions, almost like you would at a housing council. 

They are going to try to get in-depth information as to how to best 

spend this money. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Thompson, I do not think at this time, has 

any questions. 

Congressman Melancon. 

Mr. MELANCON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Russo—and I do not know if this is the situation here, I 

know last night going home after having discussions with Mr. 

Wells in New Orleans—are there hotel rooms or apartments or facilities where Federal employees or contractors to the Federal Government are staying in the immediate area? And to what extent 

would that number be of the total housing available? 

Mr. RUSSO. The total workforce in the State of Mississippi to 

date is about 1,800. I do not have the number on contractors or 

other Federal agencies. 

32

Mr. MELANCON. For FEMA, the people that you have on the 

ground, how many people are here in the coastal area? 

Mr. RUSSO. In the coastal area to date, we probably have about 

350. 

Mr. MELANCON. And they are all in single-family dwellings or hotels or trailers? 

Mr. RUSSO. They are wherever they could find lodging. 

Mr. MELANCON. One of the things—and the reason I asked that 

and this is one of those after-thoughts I had last night. The folks 

in the metropolitan area of New Orleans are being put in trailer 

parks up in the northern part of the State, in other States, any 

place they can, other than where they want to be and that is close 

to their home so they can rebuild. And I guess I need to speak with 

Mr. Wells or maybe the regional people for FEMA. 

It makes more sense to me when you have a trailer park outside 

the city somewhere to put the FEMA workers out there, contract 

workers out there. They are not bringing their families, so they will 

not be burdening the education system. They should be working in 

New Orleans all day or in the region down there all day, so they 

will not be burdening the law enforcement system and the trailer 

parks should not be burdening the water, gas and electricity system. And we have got just the opposite. The FEMA workers are in 

and the people are out. And that is one of our dilemmas there, but 

it does not sound like that is a problem here. 

Mr. RUSSO. I do not think it is that extreme here, sir. It is certainly something we could review and if it had any impact at all, 

we could make adjustments. 

Mr. MELANCON. I would rather see them commuting in government cars and rented cars than folks having to commute in to work 

on their house. 

I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. WATSON. A question for Mr. Russo. I understand that there 

were non-bidded contracts given out because of the emergency 

needs of the various communities that were affected by the hurricane. What I am hearing, we heard today and we heard all day 

yesterday, is that they have not been effective. Why then would 

you continue giving these contracts out and they cannot do the 

work. I think it is the most ridiculous thing and Mr. Taylor took 

us out and showed us the poles and so on, and one group comes 

in to do one part and another group comes in to do the other and 

a third group comes in. That seems to be a very inefficient way. 

What is FEMA—Federal Emergency Management Agency—going 

to do about that? And why do you give contracts out when they 

cannot deliver? 

Mr. RUSSO. Well, ma’am, first in terms of the contracts, the contracts are let at a level, a policy decision level, and I am not involved, nor am I solicited for information on the contracts and how 

they are awarded. 

I agree with Congressman Taylor in terms of the travel trailers. 

I think in order—we only have control over Federal employees, but 

I agree that there needs to be a better system and I think one of 

the things we would have to do to accomplish that is we would 

have to enter into memorandums of agreement with those local 

33

power authorities, so that we could do that in a task force mentality rather than have that homeowner wait for 5 to 7 days for the 

various utilities to be hooked up. Have a memorandum of understanding or memorandum of agreement between the Federal Government and the local utility companies to make that happen in a 

one stop. 

Ms. WATSON. I appreciate you stating that it is happening above 

your level, because I am suspecting, and it seems to be consistent 

that it is an old-boy still and the friends get the contracts. The people who really need them, the locals who can do business, are not 

getting them and so the work is not being done in an expeditious 

way. So I would hope that you would give to this committee a list 

of positions that can be changed to make what you do more effective and impact in a positive way on these people who have survived this terrible disaster. And we cannot continue to cover up for 

bad doings. This is public money that you get to serve the public 

and I do not see it being done in an effective way. 

So I would hope that you would report back to your agency that 

there are some problems out in the field. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. I will also, without objection, leave the hearing 

record open for 30 days so that members of this panel who have 

questions, additional questions, will put them in writing and you 

can respond to them. 

I want to thank the panel. This was I think informative, there 

are some similarities and contrasts to the operations. Also again I 

want to thank the Mayor for your help. I still think too that it is 

important, as we talked in Washington, that we are here to help. 

We cannot tell you how to live, your communities need to decide 

that, mayors and councils and trustees and working with members 

of Congress. 

You are at that point where a lot of things have got to be put 

forth and decided, and we appreciate your input. 

Mr. WARR. It is an honor to have you all here today. 

Ms. WATERS. I just want to say that I want the record to reflect 

that I do not know for sure who the mayor was that I was trying 

to describe. I will get my staff to go back and research that because 

I do not want the wrong mayor to get all upset. 

Mr. WARR. Well, it was not me. I have been depressed, but that 

was not me. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much. 

Chairman NEY. We want the right mayor upset. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you for all your help. 

Mr. WARR. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. We need to proceed right away. Our second 

panel is Rodger Clark, executive director, Bayou Gulf States Chapter, Paralyzed Veterans of America; Ms. Sheri Cox Bowling, disaster response coordinator, Diocese of Biloxi, Catholic Social and 

Community Services; Mrs. LaNelle Davis, executive director, Housing Authority of the City of Long Beach; Mr. Wallace Davis, chief 

executive officer, Volunteers of America; Mr. Phil Eide, Enterprise 

Corporation of the Delta; Ms. Cynthia Griffin, executive director, 

34

Habitat for Humanity/Metro Jackson; Mr. Derrick Johnson, president, Mississippi NAACP; Ms. Shantrell Nicks, attorney and local 

resident; Reverend Rosemary Williams, Mount Zion United Methodist Church and Pastor Carlton Jones, Second Sweet Home 

Church, Gulfport, Mississippi. 

We will begin with Mr. Clark. 

STATEMENT OF RODGER CLARK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

BAYOU GULF STATES CHAPTER, PARALYZED VETERANS OF 

AMERICA 

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. If we could clear the hallway. 

Mr. CLARK. I would like to take this time to thank the chairman 

and other distinguished members of this committee for allowing me 

the opportunity to testify before you today on behalf of my organization and the disabled community on the Mississippi Gulf coast as 

a whole. 

Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, my organization went into 

the devastated areas to check on our members and the disabled 

community doing whatever we could to get food, water, fuel, and 

medical supplies to those who had lost everything. I found that we 

had 24 spinal cord injury veterans at that time who had lost everything and were living and sleeping in tents, and out of their wheelchairs. 

I immediately contacted the FEMA representative here and the 

Harrison County Emergency Operations Center, introduced myself, 

and told him what the situation was. I was informed at that time 

that he was worried about the entire operation of southern Mississippi, not just a handful of disabled veterans or disabled members of the community. 

I then notified Washington, D.C., and advised them of the situation, talking directly with the head office of FEMA out of Washington, D.C., and my national president in Washington, D.C. 

So we turned our attention to FEMA and the Bechtel Corporation, who was responsible for getting temporary shelters into the 

affected areas. I started placing phone calls and every call went unanswered. I contacted WLOX–TV and talked with A.J. Gardina and 

he agreed to meet me at one of the FEMA trailer parks located 

here at the Biloxi/Gulfport Regional Airport. We did an interview 

out there. They had a total of 56 mobile homes at that trailer park. 

There was a total of 13 disabled trailers set up for the handicapped. They all had occupancy stickers, this is 9 weeks after 

Katrina and there was not the first member of the disabled community or the able-bodied community living in this trailer park. 

The interview aired at 6:00 p.m. that night. At 6:05, my cell 

phone rang. It was a representative from FEMA out of Jackson. He 

stated you wanted FEMA’s attention, you have got FEMA’s attention. What can we do for you? I told him the situation with the 

trailers down here on the coast and the fact that handicapped trailers were non-existent. There were no handicapped trailers delivered to the coast. He stated that he is averaging three to four trailers a week that are handicapped accessible. I find that ludicrous. 

My organization in Washington, D.C., submitted a plan for a universal design of trailers, both mobile homes and the travel trailers. 

35

That plan never went into place. If you had a universal designed 

trailer that is set up for either the disabled community or the ablebodied community, universal design, anybody can get in that trailer. All it takes is putting that trailer in a location and if it is for 

an able-bodied, place steps so the able-bodied can get in; if it’s for 

the disabled, place a ramp. 

I was given a call the next morning from the same individual up 

in Jackson, and he told me to fax a letter to him that had a list 

of my spinal cord injured veterans and the disabled community, he 

would fast track them into trailers. I got in touch with the local 

organizations here that represent the disabled community to get 

the information. The information that FEMA required me to fax to 

them consisted of the individuals’ names, number in family, the 

registration number, where they are displaced to, and the location 

where they want the trailer to be placed. 

When you try to contact nine organizations to find out where 

their people are at, how many people they have, and the whole 

nine yards, and then get it in, that is tacking more and more time 

on these individuals waiting. I have still got 45 spinal cord injured 

veterans who are scattered in VA medical centers throughout the 

United States waiting on FEMA trailers right now. And that does 

not include the disabled community as a whole. 

I was contacted by a lady yesterday, FEMA delivered a trailer to 

her home, she has been waiting all this time for a handicapped accessible trailer and they delivered a trailer to her home and put a 

ramp up. She called me up, I went out there, and went up the 

ramp. The door is a foot-and-a-half-wide. Now how can an individual in a power chair get into a trailer with a one-and-a-half-footwide door? When I contacted FEMA— 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired, if you would like conclude. 

Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir. When I contacted FEMA, FEMA stated that 

it would be taken care of. 

The Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center did an audit of complexes 

prior to Katrina and 75 percent of the complexes here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were not compliant with the Fair Housing Act. 

We as a community, and the leaders in the community, need to 

look—it is sort of like a clean palette now. We need to ensure that 

when they rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans, we 

need to ensure that all new construction is done to standards in 

the Fair Housing Act to allow affordable accessible housing for everyone in that community, to include the disabled and those on 

fixed incomes. 

I would like to thank this committee. With me today for questions on the Fair Housing Act are Charles Lee, the executive director of the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center, and my government relations director, Wayne Grassley, for when the question and answer period opens up. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Clark can be found on page 74 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Now Ms. Sheri Cox Bowling. 

36

STATEMENT OF SHERI COX BOWLING, DIRECTOR, DISASTER 

RESPONSE COORDINATOR, DIOCESE OF BILOXI, CATHOLIC 

SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICES 

Ms. BOWLING. Good morning. I am Director of Long Term Recovery for the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi. We serve the lower 11 counties in Mississippi. 

Chairman NEY. Could you move the microphone a little bit closer. Thank you. 

Ms. BOWLING. We serve the lower 11 counties of Mississippi. We 

are most active right now in the lower six counties. Currently we 

have 961 families who have requested assistance from us and that 

number grows between 20 and 30 per day. 

I have prepared a list for you that is basically the voices of the 

clients that we serve. When I received the invitation, I was not 

sure how to respond. We have been on the ground since the storm; 

I was here for the storm. We were not sure exactly what you needed from us, so I went to our clients and said tell us what the problems are so I could bring them. 

I will not go over all of them; you have heard most of them. A 

lot of them have already been in the media and a lot of them have 

already been discussed today, everything from the extended wait 

time for a FEMA trailer—one of the issues that a client has 

brought up over in the Waveland community is that those trailers 

are available, they are ready, but because of the rain we keep having, they cannot get the heavy equipment through the mud to be 

able to clear the debris enough to set the trailers up. I went to our 

recovery team and I said what suggestions would you have for 

something like that and everyone said the same thing—we have 

the SeaBee base here, we have military experts in going over difficult terrain; why can we not use that resource to figure out how 

to get across the mud? So that was one of their suggestions. 

Some of the other issues that were brought up were the lack of 

a clear plan for the housing issues after the 18 months that FEMA 

provides, the temporary housing for 18 months. But because this 

recovery process is so long, 18 months is going to expire and there 

is no clear plan for what will happen after that point. 

Let me preface that by saying I come from Florida. I am a Mississippi resident now, but I come from Florida and was in long 

term recovery there, and we have seen, and I certainly know from 

my own personal experience and from professional experience that 

the recovery process can take years. We really need to come up 

with something that is going to ride us past this 18 months. In 

Florida, they had a plan where people could purchase their FEMA 

trailers after the 18 months, to remain there until they could move 

on. And they have announced several times in the newspaper here 

that it is not an option for Mississippi residents. Somebody needs 

to come up with a plan for that. 

A lot of the trailer clients complain that the trailers were delivered to them but they were not equipped with the essential things 

that generally come with a FEMA trailer, the linens, the pots and 

pans, the essentials for living inside this trailer. 

We have had numerous complaints, as Mr. Clark has talked 

about, clients who are handicapped, disabled in different ways, who 

are not given handicapped accessible trailers. 

37

As an agency, I have had to send my volunteers and pay for two 

ramps to be built on trailers and we had to cut the doorway on one 

trailer because after going around and around, it finally came to 

FEMA’s attention locally to help us with this client and the solution was for us to go cut the door and put a new door in and build 

our own ramp on the trailer because no one was coming to build 

a ramp for that client. 

Again, I brought that issue to our case management team and 

said what is your recommendation and they said, you know, we are 

set up and experienced in case management, our job is to match 

clients with resources. American Red Cross, all of us who do this 

for a living and have done it for years, know how to match clients 

with resources and match them together quickly and efficiently. 

Our suggestion is that FEMA might consider contracting with 

agencies like us and Red Cross and other large agencies who do 

case management. And when you have clients that are applying for 

the FEMA trailers, to let us come in and help and we make sure 

that there are pots and pans and linens and things for those trailers. 

The two other main things that clients have mentioned where we 

have had difficulty was relocation issues. FEMA and HUD have offered and given written documentation to our clients that they will 

be provided with 18 months of rental assistance. Two problems 

with that. One is that they do not provide for a way to move, so 

as an agency I have to rent them a moving van and I have to pay 

for the gas to get that moving van from point A to point B. So a 

comprehensive package that included all the things that are necessary to relocate would be helpful. 

The other issue is that we have clients who are being evicted because their FEMA money has not shown up, the landlords have not 

received the funds that they were promised in that letter. So we 

have clients in Jackson, Laurel, down here that are all being evicted from their apartments and their houses because that money has 

not arrived and the client does not have the ability to pay for it 

themselves. So again, a comprehensive package that would meet 

those needs across the board. 

The other thing we had was with private housing, we are having 

situations where—and obviously that is a money-making enterprise 

and any businessman is going to want to make money, but they 

pressure clients, they use intimidation methods to get clients to 

break their leases, to leave early, so that the landlord can turn 

around and rent that place for twice as much money the next 

month. To refuse to make repairs on the property, so they end up 

living in mold-infested housing because the landlord is hoping that 

the client will give up and move out so that then he can make the 

repairs and charge twice as much for the property. Our recommendation on that would be the landlords not be able to raise 

their rental prices for 6 months after a storm to give the community time to adjust. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. You may summarize and 

then we will come back with questions. 

Ms. BOWLING. That is all. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cox Bowling can be found on 

page 72 of the appendix.] 

38

Chairman NEY. We will move on to Ms. Davis. 

STATEMENT OF LANELLE DAVIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF LONG BEACH, MISSISSIPPI 

Ms. DAVIS. First of all, I would like to note that I am a Katrina 

victim; I lost everything. I lived in Long Beach but I will be a 

Katrina survivor; I plan on coming back. I am being told that it 

will likely be 18 months before we can start building. 

I am executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of 

Long Beach. I have been there for 35 years, rebuilt it immediately 

after Camille, and I still operate it. 

Prior to Katrina, I spent 2 days out there boarding up and notifying the tenants of the coming hurricane, which was routine procedure for us. As it turned out, we were preparing for a storm that 

was not really routine. 

After Katrina, I got there about 9:00 on Tuesday morning, proceeded to go through the subdivision that I have, we had 100 percent damage. We went door-to-door checking to see if we had any 

fatalities or any injuries, which fortunately, we did not. We did 

have damage to all of our units. We went to check points, got ice, 

water, and supplies. We took groceries to our office for them to 

come to us, most of them did not have transportation at the time. 

We immediately notified insurance and FEMA, and applied for 

the emergency funding that HUD had, at that time it was $29 million. Out of the $29 million, only one housing authority in the State 

of Mississippi was funded. There were five coastal authorities that 

were damaged very heavily in Katrina and out of that, we got approximately $68 million to $100 million damage just in housing 

stock. Some of them had to be demolished. I am fortunate, I can 

rebuild or repair. So far, we have received no funding from HUD 

or from FEMA to either rebuild or repair. 

Chairman NEY. I am sorry, just for clarification, when you say 

we have not received funding, you or the housing authority? 

Ms. DAVIS. The housing authority. 

Chairman NEY. Sorry. 

Ms. DAVIS. The housing authority. As I said, only one in the 

State of Mississippi has been funded through the emergency fund. 

The funding that has come through in 2006, we do not have access to because it is strictly for 2006 and our disaster was in 2005. 

The FEMA/HUD policy that goes back to 2001 prevents or prohibits FEMA from funding any permanent repairs to any of our 

units. They can only reimburse for emergency repairs. This was 

signed in 2001. 

The money that the government has allotted to the State of Mississippi basically is going to help homeowners; it will not help the 

rental people. We house the needy, the seniors, the disabled, and 

the poorest of the poor working. 

The housing stock is not here. You can give us all the vouchers 

you want, but if you do not have the housing stock, we cannot 

house people. We have relocated people out-of-State, we have relocated people in the State, and we have gotten eight units ready 

since Katrina that we have put people in that was damaged. 

39

Again, we do not need more paperwork, we do not need more 

proposals, we do not need more applications to have to fill out. We 

need funding. We need funding now, not next year, or not 2 years 

from now. 

That is basically all I have to say. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Davis can be found on page 114 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you very much. Mr. Davis. 

STATEMENT OF WALLACE DAVIS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA-SOUTHEAST 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity, 

Chairman Ney, Ranking Member Walters and other distinguished 

members of this committee. Thank you very much for what you 

have done, for the resources that you have brought to our communities all along the Gulf Coast from Mobile to New Orleans and 

thereabouts. 

Katrina was far bigger than any governmental agency. I think 

there are a lot of good Katrina programs that are working. There 

are a lot of gaps, there are a lot of people falling through the 

cracks. But I am grateful for our government, for the response that 

this committee and others in our government have made and I 

thank you very much. 

I would like to basically highlight one non-governmental resource 

that provided critical help immediately following the storm, and 

that is the overwhelming response of the faith-based community. 

People in this community, people of faith, came out of their 

wrecked homes and their wrecked sanctuaries and began to minister and to help one another. People from all over this country 

came because of their faith and they responded to the needs of the 

people in this community and to all the victims of Katrina. They 

had no red tape to cut, they had no bureaucratic process to go 

through, they just did because it was their higher calling to do. 

Volunteers of America, which I have been a part of for the last 

27 years, is a faith-based group since 1896. And during that time, 

we have been motivated by our faith to reach out. During this time 

in the days following Katrina, in partnership with faith groups and 

churches, we established eight relief sites, four warehouses, two 

medical clinics, one of them right here in this community not far 

from here, and we served over 20,000 patients in those clinics. And 

in the relief effort, we served 70,000 individuals needing help. 

We have helped people to rebuild their homes and to muck out 

their homes and to start over, and helped some businesses as well. 

And all that cost the Federal Government not one red cent. 

Sometimes I think the Federal Government overlooks the powerful resource that we have in our faith-based community. The response has been overwhelming. Our country has seen the best of 

the faith community. Somehow, I believe the artificial wall that 

separates the faith community and the governmental community 

must be torn down, torn down to the extent that we can work together to achieve our similar goals and our similar objectives. Government must see the faith community as one of the community’s 

most valuable assets and bring it to the planning table before and 

after all disasters. 

40

My hope is that Katrina will change forever the way churches 

minister to people in the community and the way the government 

responds to the faith-based community. As we move forward, 

please see the faith group as one of the valuable resources. 

As I tried to think about what you all have said this morning 

and as I was preparing my remarks, I have one very basic guiding 

principle that I would like to suggest to this group. And then as 

I have heard you this morning, I realized that you do not need my 

suggestion. And that is the very simple principle called KISS, keep 

it simple and smart. That is what we need in government. This is 

what these folks have said, this is what the folks said before, and 

this is what you said you wanted from the agencies of government 

as well as the agencies in the community. Keep it simple. 

It is simple and smart to embrace the faith community. Let me 

tell you a quick, quick story. There was a church in this community 

in Biloxi, that through the compassion faith monies that we received from HHS, we gave that church $10,000 to build a community feeding kitchen to feed the homeless people on Saturday and 

Sunday. Would you believe that 8 months later, one day after 

Katrina, that church in Biloxi was up and they were the first responders in the community feeding the people who were hungry. 

Now that is about the best investment I have ever known the Federal Government to invest $10,000, to feed hungry people. They 

were preparing using the faith community for the next disaster and 

for what was going on right there. 

It is simple and it is smart to embrace the faith community. It 

is also simple and smart to keep people in hotels on a voucher system when there is no housing stock out there no matter how much 

money you have. 

It is simple and smart not to fight it every month in the court 

system either, just let it be, pay the bill and let people have a place 

to live and do not let them have a fear and intimidation that they 

are going to be kicked out and they do not have any security, they 

do not know how long they are going to be there. 

It is simple and smart, in Bayou La Batre, we have got boats in 

trees and in marshes. It would be simple and smart to get those 

boats out of the trees, out of the marshes, back into the water fishing and shrimping. I got some good news today in the Mobile Press 

Register though, I saw where we are getting some foreign aid now 

to help us get our shrimp boats out of the trees and the marshes. 

Chairman NEY. Which country? 

Mr. DAVIS. Sir? 

Chairman NEY. Which country? 

Mr. DAVIS. They did not identify which country but there has 

been a lot of countries that have given some monies and they figured out that they can— 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Coast Guard is going to do that. If you were 

to go to the Industrial Seaway, the Coast Guard has already put 

dozens of boats back in the water. That function is going to get 

done. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, it has been— 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. We have eaten away a 

little at your time, but if you could summarize. 

[Laughter.] 

41

Mr. DAVIS. I would encourage you to find simple and smart ways 

to respond to the needs of people and that we do it together, not 

forgetting the faith community, bring everybody to the table because I believe you will find tremendous resources in our faith community and keeping government simple and smart. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Davis can be found on page 120 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, sir. Mr. Eide. 

STATEMENT OF PHIL EIDE, ENTERPRISE CORPORATION OF 

THE DELTA 

Mr. EIDE. Thank you. I also want to thank you for the invitation 

to be here today and thank you for taking the time out to see for 

yourselves what we have ahead of us. 

I also want to thank you for sending the CDBG funds down. It 

will be a big help as we begin this, continue this rebuilding process. 

I work for Enterprise Corporation of the Delta and Hope Community Credit Union which are two statewide organizations with a 

track record of working with especially low and moderate income 

families for more than a decade. We have partnered with local 

banks, State government, Fannie Mae, and national foundations to 

provide and leverage our funds for commercial loans, mortgage 

loans, and consumer loans for the last 10 years. Our biggest challenge lies ahead. 

I would like to talk a little bit about demographics of the region 

that was hardest hit. Using census data, the median family income 

is about $40,000 per year or $10,000 less than the national average. Poverty rate is about 18 percent, 5 percent higher than the national average. Home ownership rates are in the mid-50 percent 

and the median home value is about $85,000. Demographics for the 

African-American community are much lower. The median family 

income is under $30,000 per year with poverty rates nearly 30 percent. Home ownership rates are well under 50 percent and the median home value is under $65,000. 

After working in this area, we feel it is important that this is not 

lost in the whirl of spending and activity, especially with significant CDBG funds arriving. Waving a check and hoping for the best 

will not be enough for those who are especially at risk, the elderly 

citizens, those with significant assets to lose if the work is not done 

properly, and those who are not used to working with contractors. 

As word gets out about money being available, unscrupulous contractors will be around to take what they can without rebuilding. 

Shortly after Katrina hit, ECD began conversations with the Enterprise Foundation and others to craft a meaningful response and 

get private solutions. We set about creating a pilot project that 

would begin rebuilding. With the help of John Grisham, Fannie 

Mae, the Home Depot Foundation, and Freddie Mac, we have 

raised about $5 million to date. 

We are providing counseling services to those who initially request help, including helping with their current insurance, their 

FEMA payment, and the gap needed to rebuild the property. A construction specialist then inspects the home to determine what is 

needed and prepare a write up that is presented to the contractor. 

42

A financial counselor works with the family to determine the best 

options for refinancing, paying off other debt, and ensuring the construction job is completed. 

Finally, a construction supervisor oversees the construction and 

the payoff so that the task is correctly completed. 

We believe this is the best way to ensure rebuilding is done to 

the current code and standards and is acceptable to the owner. 

We expect to provide about $80,000 on average to each family in 

subsidy funds during this pilot phase which will last about 6 

months. These will generally be grants. They will also include 

loans that are forgiven as the owner continues to occupy the property and some low interest repayable loans. The pilot will include 

50 new homes in Pass Christian and about 50 rehabs in Biloxi at 

this point. As we raise additional funds, this effort can be expanded 

as needed. Administration costs will be kept low and we are projecting well under 5 percent when the project is done. The money 

is spent on rebuilding, not administrative costs. 

Figuring out the new FEMA elevations and providing affordable 

housing at the new elevations is going to be difficult at best. Any 

help you can provide in figuring out some reasonable solutions will 

be helpful. 

We are confident that we can provide these services and funds 

to help many people rebuild during this pilot phase and provide 

counseling, construction services as funds come into the region. 

I want to thank you again for being here today and for your commitment to keep our region in the minds of your colleagues in 

Washington. With the cooperation of government, lenders, foundations, and non-profit organizations, I believe we can get the job 

done. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, sir. Ms. Griffin. 

STATEMENT OF CYNTHIA P. GRIFFIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY/METRO JACKSON 

Ms. GRIFFIN. I, too, would like to thank the subcommittee for 

your work and for allowing me to be here today. 

A toddler learns early on that it is much easier and quicker to 

knock down a tower of blocks than it is build one. To build, it takes 

patience, coordination, and discipline. 

We know it will take years to rebuild, but we urgently need to 

start now. Every day that goes by leaves more and more families 

without hope and choices and deeper in despair and financial ruin. 

Affordable housing must not be overlooked as the rebuilding 

process begins. Low income housing was in short supply before the 

storm hit. Rents before the storm were an average of $700 to $900 

a month. They are currently up to $1,500 and more. It is imperative that each of us be advocates for affordable housing. 

Four days after Hurricane Katrina, Habitat for Humanity International announced an unprecedented response to an unprecedented national disaster. Habitat’s plan is to be poised and ready 

to build in a big and fast way when it is appropriate to start building. Habitat will mobilize and utilize the energy and desire of tens 

of thousands of volunteers and donors from across the country and 

around the world. 

43

During the first weeks after the storm, Habitat affiliates from 

across the country provided funds and materials and built modular 

housing components called homes in a box, for shipment to the devastated areas. Habitat affiliates have built 300 homes in a box. The 

first Habitat for Humanity home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is 

scheduled to be built February 6th in Gulfport. The Home in a Box 

Program was designed as a first response, but as building becomes 

possible, Habitat for Humanity will utilize a variety of building options to maximize production. 

Habitat for Humanity Metro Jackson is one of the largest Habitat affiliates in the Nation and being on the fringe of the disaster 

area, we knew we had to help our neighbors. Joining with the Harrison and Jackson County Habitat affiliates, Habitat Metro Jackson has expanded to serve in the Hancock County area. Before I 

made my first visit to the Hancock County area after Katrina, my 

enthusiastic determination to begin rebuilding was unencumbered 

by the reality of the huge barriers that impede our progress today. 

While the Governor’s Commission made an impressive and fast 

start in leadership and planning, other vital information comes in 

bits and pieces over much time. For example, the FEMA flood 

maps, information about the national Federal assistance and insurance settlements, and feedback on how to deal with the issue of 

lack of flood insurance have all trickled in slowly. These issues, 

coupled with the incredibly mammoth and time-consuming task of 

debris removal and disposal, the challenge of finding temporary 

housing solutions, and the lack of water and sewer infrastructure 

for trailers and homes, has created a depressingly slow building response. 

Habitat Jackson and the other Mississippi Coastal Habitat affiliates are being joined by Habitat for Humanity International and 

its hurricane recovery program, Operation Home Delivery, to address the housing needs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Our efforts 

could be greatly advanced in the following areas: 

First and foremost, locating buildable property. The availability 

of property with necessary infrastructure of roads, utilities, water, 

and sewer at an acceptable elevation has proven hard to find. Some 

communities have no property that would fit these criteria. So the 

first and foremost need for short term building to begin is property 

at the appropriate elevation, or C zones, with roads, water and 

sewer, utilities; or barring that, an economical and fast way to establish infrastructure for undeveloped properties in these areas. 

Habitat for Humanity is actively seeking partners interested in 

developing mixed use, mixed income developments. Habitat works 

to create communities, not projects. 

Streamline permitting and site design and filing process so building can begin as soon as possible. 

An increase in the number of tradesmen and contractors willing 

to work at reasonable rates, resisting the price escalations that 

push more and more families into substandard housing solutions. 

And an efficient and well supplied pipeline of building materials 

to circumvent slowdowns due to material shortages once building 

begins. 

With the above recommendations implemented, Habitat would be 

poised to mobilize the thousands of volunteers ready and willing to 

44

begin work on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We recognize the fact 

that Habitat alone cannot be the solution to all of the housing 

needs along the coast and we are working with other organizations 

and entities to have a greater impact on more people. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. If you would like to summarize. 

Ms. GRIFFIN. Habitat is committed to rebuilding and will bring 

the necessary resources at its disposal to help as many families as 

our resources allow. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Griffin can be found on page 129 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Mr. Derrick Johnson. 

STATEMENT OF DERRICK JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, MISSISSIPPI 

NAACP 

Mr. JOHNSON. Good morning, Chairman Ney, Ranking Member 

Waters, and members of the committee. My name is Derrick Johnson and I am the State President for Mississippi NAACP. 

I am going to raise two issues here this morning. One will be the 

dire need for affordable housing and the second will be oversight 

of the CDBG funds that are coming to Mississippi. 

NAACP got involved in Katrina as a result of our local branch 

president here in Biloxi issuing a call because of the lack of response from FEMA, Red Cross, and other relief agencies in AfricanAmerican communities on the coast. 

As a result, on the Saturday following the hurricane, we began 

to deliver a supply truck to East Biloxi; we were the first to deliver 

those supply trucks. East Biloxi is a community that is predominantly African-American with a very large Vietnamese working 

class population and black working class population that was pretty much left out in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

As a result of that, we began to establish additional sites across 

the Gulf Coast to provide food and other essential items in AfricanAmerican poor communities to ensure that our communities were 

served, because of the lack of response from relief agencies and 

FEMA. In Biloxi, we established our first site on Saturday following the hurricane; in Gulfport that following Sunday and in 

Moss Point, I believe, the following day. 

What we discovered was a wholesale lack of information provided 

to working class Mississippians across the Gulf Coast, irrespective 

of color, but particularly those African-American, Vietnamese communities and the handicapped community were not served at all. 

Following that, we were able to negotiate some 2 weeks later, the 

Red Cross to begin opening recovery centers in our communities, 

the first being at United Methodist Church in Moss Point, the second being right here in Gulfport at our office out near Fredericks 

and then following with several others after that. 

Our next goal was working hand-in-hand with Congressman 

Thompson on the issue of minority contracts. We found that minority contractors were locked out, but pretty much all Mississippi 

based contractors were locked out. We tried to work with Bechtel 

and other companies to try to utilize the skills of local contractors, 

but to no avail. And in some minor instances where they were 

45

hired to do debris removal, where the general contractors were paid 

$18 to $20 an hour, they ended up being paid $6 an hour, well 

below what they could earn as a decent living considering the high 

price of gas. 

I was later invited to serve on the Governor’s Commission and 

became one of the vice chairs of the Governor’s Commission. The 

Governor’s Commission was a good effort to make people feel like 

there was some activity going on. And as a result of the Commission’s report, our focus was on housing. We had a very comprehensive housing report to come out of that Commission, it focused 

mainly on affordable housing to assure that renters, elderly and 

others who would normally be out of the mainstream of home ownership would be properly taken care of. 

Unfortunately, to date, that Commission’s report which was submitted to the Governor, from my understanding has not been part 

of the recommendations from the Governor in terms of community 

development. The Governor’s proposal would include a proposal 

that has been repeated here earlier for homeowners who had insurance prior to Katrina, who lived outside of the floodplain but didn’t 

have flood insurance. 

One of the groups that is completely left out of this proposal are 

home renters, which many African-Americans and other working 

poor on the coast happen to be home renters, especially those who 

work in the casino industry. There is no provision in the CDBG 

funds that I am aware of that would allow any sum of money for 

this population. 

A second group that we are really concerned about are senior 

citizens on fixed income. A gentleman and I were talking and he 

told me about an elderly gentleman, 84 years old, who owned his 

home for the last 20 years. He was on a fixed income, social security, and could not afford to keep up the payments on the insurance. Under the Governor’s plan as proposed, this individual would 

be left out of the CDBG funding. I suspect that there will be many 

more who fall in this category. 

In addition to that, when the question was asked by State senator Earl Williamson to the Governor about this particular scenario, the response was there was no appetite to reward irresponsible behavior; in other words, there was no program to be offered. 

I find this to be unfortunate and unfair for those who worked all 

their lives simply to buy a home and retire in peace. 

Under current Mississippi State law, there is no legislated oversight over CDBG funding. Funds are given directly to the Executive Branch and the Executive Branch then allows the Authority 

to decide who will administer the funds. Currently that will be the 

Mississippi Development Authority. Without any type of oversight, 

without the huge gaps in individuals who will not be covered by 

CDBG funds, we will find that the Mississippi Gulf Coast will pretty much cleanse itself of low income working individuals because 

there will be no option or very few options for them to be able to 

rebuild. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. If you would like to summarize. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I ask this committee to do two things. One, reconsider how CDBG funds are appropriated in the State of Mississippi, 

46

and secondly, work to ensure that individuals who would be left 

out of CDBG funding as proposed by the Governor somehow be included, because if they are not, we will have a large population of 

our citizens who are left out of this process. 

Thank you. 

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

131 of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Ms. Shantrell Nicks. 

STATEMENT OF SHANTRELL NICKS, ATTORNEY AND LOCAL 

RESIDENT 

Ms. NICKS. Good afternoon. My name is Shantrell Nicks, I practice law in Gulfport, but I am currently assisting my community 

in recovering from Hurricane Katrina. 

Congressman Ney, Ranking Member Waters, and other distinguished members of the committee, I would like to thank you for 

this opportunity to speak with you today about the government’s 

response to emergency housing needs of residents affected by Hurricane Katrina. 

I resided in Mississippi my entire life. I am proud to say that before Katrina, 72 percent of Mississippians owned their own home. 

This is 4 percent higher than the national average. In fact, more 

African-Americans own their own home in Mississippi than in any 

other State in the union, at 61 percent. 

Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. She caused wind, rain, and flood 

damages that were unprecedented. Most homeowners were insured 

for hurricane damage, which we thought would cover a hurricane. 

All of the damage to my home was caused by wind-driven rain. 

I also had mold coverage. 

But, I have yet to be fully compensated by my insurance company. They will not give me in writing what they have covered or 

if and when I will receive additional insurance proceeds for the 

subsequently discovered damage. I first thought that I had very little damage, but the walls were soaked and as we waited for our 

insurance proceeds to fix our home, the mold grew and now my 

family of four live in two rooms of our house. I consider myself fortunate and blessed, as others do not even have two rooms. They 

have a cousin’s couch, a tent or a shelter, or perhaps a small trailer. 

Insurance companies have refused to cover damage that resulted 

from flood damage. This is a complex case, but so far we are told 

nothing will change. There is talk about Federal money going to 

the State, but so far no money has trickled down to the people, so 

we are skeptical and wondering if the 72 percent of Mississippians 

will continue to be homeowners. 

We are also told to be patient and not to rock the boat as the 

insurance companies may leave the State or will not insure homes 

on the Gulf Coast. Well, I know one person that has already attempted to buy insurance on property that she bought after 

Katrina, and she was told that no major insurance companies will 

insure homes and that she should contact a local person where the 

premiums were much higher than what it would have been prior 

to Katrina. 

47

As for FEMA, FEMA’s policy is that insurance companies must 

act first and then they will see. The insurance companies are not 

acting or they are offering such little money, such as $9,000 for losing a three bedroom house with all the contents. The people want 

to contest the settlement; however, FEMA requires that it be settled before they pay. 

FEMA has said that some areas are high-impact areas and they 

will not need inspectors, and that the money is coming. However, 

the working insured American individuals have not received that 

money. I have asked FEMA about this again and they say they 

have to wait until the insurance company pays and that it is illegal 

for them to act prior to the insurance company. Therefore, the Federal Government’s response to insured individuals has been inadequate. The FEMA regulations penalize and overlook individuals 

for being responsible and paying their insurance premiums. 

In the end, it seems as though there is a crisis of leadership. 

There is no oversight of the insurance industry. They are allowed 

to cite the magnitude of the disaster as a cause for delay, but now 

it has now been over 4 months since the storm. 

Now a natural disaster has turned into a human disaster. The 

people of our community have worked their whole lives to achieve 

the American dream of ownnership and a better future for their 

children. We went to school, we got jobs, we bought homes and 

paid our bills and insured our properties. 

We have been told that help is on the way and that money is 

there but we are starting to give in to the skeptics that say that 

Katrina was an easy way to clean out the lower and the middle income Americans from the Gulf Coast and make way for those of 

greater means. 

As a taxpayer, and a homeowner, and someone who faithfully 

paid insurance premiums year after year, I respectfully request 

that you make the insurance companies accountable so that the 

taxpayers will not have to subsidize the insurance companies with 

FEMA grants. 

I would also request that Congress appoint an independent oversight entity to investigate and ensure that the Federal monies are 

allocated wisely. 

I think the FEMA trailer allocation should be spent much more 

wisely. The amount of money, effort, and time being exhausted in 

setting up these trailers could be used to do prefabricated homes 

which provide families with a more permanent housing solution. 

Furthermore, the government contractors are issuing FEMA trailers and are not taking into consideration people with handicaps 

and not providing the citizens with a forum to voice those concerns. 

I personally went to a site on Menge Avenue to speak with someone about a handicapped individual who needed a trailer. I was ordered to leave and speak with George Bush about my concerns. 

In closing, accountability is the key for the insurance companies. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Nicks can be found on page 137 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Next, the Reverend Rosemary Williams. 

48

STATEMENT OF REVEREND ROSEMARY WILLIAMS, MOUNT 

ZION UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 

Rev. WILLIAMS. First let me express my gratitude to Chairman 

Ney, Ms. Waters, my Congressman, Gene Taylor, my colleague in 

the ministry, Rev. Cleaver, and others of this group. Your presence 

is truly a representative of Christ’s leadership style—leadership 

that is rooted in service and sacrifice for others. 

I am a native Mississippian and I have lived here all my life. I 

am the pastor of Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Delisle. 

Delisle is located approximately 5 miles, 6 miles from Pass Christian, which was heavily damaged by Katrina. 

Katrina was good to the physical structure of Mount Zion. Mount 

Zion still stands and we share our church with three other congregations, two Baptist and one of my husband, Theodore Williams, 

which is St. Paul United Methodist Church in Pass Christian. 

Katrina has been a blessing and Katrina has been a burden. She 

has blessed me with an opportunity to extend God’s love, grace, 

and generosity to a wider community, a community that my husband and I have known well for we both taught in Pass Christian 

schools where I retired in 1996 to go into the ministry. 

I toured Pass Christian after the storm. Our first thought was 

to go and to find our parishioners, to see that they were safe. I also 

toured Pass Christian after Camille. After Katrina, the houses had 

faces on them, faces of parents whom I had worked with, faces of 

children whom I had taught, and parishioners of ours. The devastation was incomparable to any that I have ever seen. We thought 

Camille was bad, but it is no comparison to what Katrina did to 

our community. 

The church has always been the center of community assistance 

in this region. Mount Zion immediately went into action to open 

her doors for people to live, for people to put camps, to go across 

State lines and bring gasoline back, to bring food in, to feed the 

people in the community, and to give them spiritual support, and 

moral support in a time of great loss. We even purchased small 

heaters for the trailers after they began to be given out, so that our 

handicapped and our older citizens would not have to worry with 

trying to see that they kept gas in the little tanks that they have 

on their trailers. 

We have given in all of the ways that we can, but we need financial assistance that is beyond a resource that we can produce. We 

read in the papers about block grants and billions of dollars being 

generously allocated by the American taxpayers and donors, but 

before Katrina and post-Katrina, the money has not made its way 

to the people who need it the most. 

Housing is our biggest priority. Our community cannot survive 

without housing. The jobs will come and have come back, but people must have a place to live. Many members of my community are 

on a fixed income and have paid off their homes in full. Without 

any payment from the insurance companies, and as of yet no 

money from FEMA and no SBA loans, they are living day-by-day, 

often in mold-infested homes. Others still have debt on their 

homes. 

We are grateful for the FEMA trailers that have arrived. But 

they are not a long-term solution and many are still living with relVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:47 Oct 18, 2006 Jkt 027793 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\27793.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
49

atives and friends. The uncertainty is starting to unhinge the 

strongest. 

My church has 20 acres that we have spent the last 4 months 

trying to determine how we can work in concert with the community to develop affordable housing. We have not yet been able to 

move forward as the local community is without public assistance 

funds to build the infrastructure. This property is on high ground, 

but we have not been able to break ground. This property can provide for a blended community without houses on stilts that make 

me fearful for my older and handicapped citizens. 

We are also working with a private donor who has purchased a 

large piece of property across from our future housing development 

that will serve as a community center for educating young adults 

who have dropped out of school or need some type of employment 

training. 

Chairman NEY. Your time has expired. If you would like to summarize. 

Rev. WILLIAMS. We ask if you will consider helping us do the infrastructure for Mount Zion United Methodist Church in order that 

we can be a part of the healing of our community and bringing 

homes back to our people, affordable homes. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Rev. Williams can be found on page 

177 of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. The last witness is Pastor Carlton L. 

Jones. 

STATEMENT OF REVEREND CARLTON L. JONES, SECOND 

SWEET HOME CHURCH, GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI 

Rev. JONES. First it is an honor to have you come to us, the Honorable Mr. Ney and the rest of your committee. We thank you for 

coming a whole lot and we praise God for your visit. 

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of a hurting 

community, but one that continues to trust God and to work to 

make a better life for our citizens. 

The greatest need for the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity would be to fully fund—we are asking that these 

needs would be fully funded by a community block grant to assist 

low- and moderate-income homeowners, and to assist in good and 

viable rental projects. 

The community’s needs are greater than the small community 

block grant amounts being given to the City of Gulfport. Many of 

our citizens are disheartened, and they feel let down as millions 

and even billions of dollars are being talked about and criteria assigned that will leave us completely out of the picture and other 

criteria that will make us disappear from the picture altogether. 

We hope we will not be left behind. We need more senior citizen 

complexes. We are still in need of funding to assist senior citizens 

who have their homes and have had them for more than 30 years 

and help them to upgrade their homes. We need support for young 

families to neighborhoods but we must have a police visibility and 

greater police community funding. 

We need to support communities the same as many decades ago, 

we need continued revitalization of our neighborhoods, affordable 

50

mom and pop small businesses with educational centers inside of 

our communities to expand their knowledge of marketing and business plans to use their God-given talents to re-open businesses 

again in our communities. 

We need public housing that addresses mixed income neighborhoods and looks like hope, not poverty. 

We need support of funding for early childhood education programs such as Head Start. 

We need training programs for youth to continue the Job Corps 

and summer training programs and summer camp programs and 

the facilities to give quality summer camp. We want to expand and 

upgrade the Boys and Girls Clubs, expand community libraries, 

computer education centers and etc. 

I want to go back and recap some things because I have been 

working in this community since Katrina and since before Katrina 

hit, and I just am really thankful for what you are doing, but there 

are some other needs that I think if we could make it happen, it 

would greatly assist us. 

I would ask you to exhort the media to continue to communicate 

the needs of the Gulf Coast area, because there is an old saying, 

‘‘out of sight, out of mind.’’ And right after Katrina first hit, it was 

aired all over the Nation. Now there is very little airing going on. 

I think that the community, church community, has great programs throughout this Nation and many others have already 

touched on how great the church community—they are saying 

faith-based, but I do not see a problem saying the church community—has played in this role. 

The second week, we had churches from all over the Nation in 

our neighborhoods and they were really assisting us. Red Cross did 

not make it to many of my neighborhoods until the fourth week. 

I am asking that we would allow the church community or faithbased community to sit down and help to devise a plan where they 

have such plans as the Nehemiah Rebuilding Program, Joseph 

Project, etc. And you know, the church community is a champion 

of reaching out and rescuing people and I think it would be a great 

tragedy to push them aside, push the church community aside, and 

not grab hold of the information that we already have and that has 

been in use. 

There was also something else that I noticed. It took awhile for 

our people to get into the FEMA offices, to get into the Red Cross 

offices and then there was the human services. They did a great 

job and I asked one of the head persons why did they do such a 

great job of getting people in and getting them out and their secret 

was they had over 200 people taking applications and working 

those applications. When I went over to the FEMA office over in 

Ocean Springs, they would have maybe a dozen, maybe a few more, 

and that is why it took so long because there was not too many 

people working those applications. 

Chairman NEY. Your time is expired. If you would like to summarize. 

Rev. JONES. Yes, sir. Also, I want to ask that we tap the private 

sector. There are many of those who just moved in and those kinds 

of things that would gladly give support to the elements here if we 

would just ask them. 

51

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. We pray God’s blessing 

upon each of you and your families. 

[The prepared statement of Rev. Jones can be found on page 135 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, sir. 

Before we move on to questions for the witnesses, without objection, I would like to insert a statement for the record by Bobby 

Rayburn, president of Rayburn Associates, to the House Financial 

Services Committee. He is a homebuilder. Something happened to 

his flight and so he could not get here. He is former president of 

the National Association of Home Builders. 

Also for the record three items—a letter from Bechtel to myself 

as Chair; a statement from the Mississippi Association of Housing 

Redevelopment Officials and again, the statement I mentioned of 

Bobby Rayburn. Without objection, they will be part of the record. 

I just have a couple of questions I wanted to ask. I want to thank 

all of you for good testimony. 

I want to ask the housing authority—I am sorry for your personal loss of your home, but I want to ask the housing authority 

about Section 8. Are any people on Section 8 and has that followed 

them to other areas or any comments on Section 8? 

Ms. DAVIS. We have relocated several of our residents— 

Chairman NEY. I am sorry, could someone get her a microphone? 

Ms. DAVIS. Under our Section 8 program, a lot of our residents 

were south of the tracks. We have relocated some of the Section 8 

people to other areas, other States. We are getting a few units back 

on line for Section 8 vouchers. We have put one of our Section 8 

residents in a FEMA trailer on our property because we could find 

no place to put FEMA trailers for our Section 8 residents. 

Housing is just not there. Even with the vouchers, the rents have 

gone so high that we cannot house people because the fair market 

rents are not high enough. 

Chairman NEY. Because the fair market rent is not high enough? 

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. 

Chairman NEY. I wanted to ask another question. I know you do 

not have statistics maybe on this, but we talk all the time about 

the housing authorities of course never have enough of the vouchers in the regular course of business. 

Now as far as what I will call the new Section 8, you have people 

who want Section 8 and now you have a lot of people who have lost 

their homes and did not have insurance, it is going to create a 

whole different group of people now who are going to get on Section 

8. Have you had people approach you that have never been on Section 8 before and now are considering that? 

Ms. DAVIS. Yes, sir. But there is absolutely no housing stock. 

Chairman NEY. I assume you do not have the ability either. 

Ms. DAVIS. Yes. 

Chairman NEY. One other question I wanted to ask is what 

about projects that were underway or what about units that had 

been built, multi-family, single-family, as we saw. There were six 

projects up in New Orleans, we saw other housing complexes, one 

that was built in the 1940’s, I doubt it can be rehabbed, it is going 

to have to be ripped down and everything I have seen down here 

52

cannot be rehabbed because things are in pieces from Katrina. Did 

you have units that people lived in that are gone? 

Ms. DAVIS. We have had quite a few units that had to be demolished. The Waveland Housing Authority has been demolished. 

Some of the Bay St. Louis Housing Authority has been demolished. 

Also your Region 8, which is in Gulfport and Biloxi had to be demolished. I did not demolish any of mine at this point. We had 

structural damage but I think we can rehab them easier than we 

can rebuild it. 

Chairman NEY. This is a personal opinion, but I just feel that 

somewhere along the line, where we had units, the government is 

going to have to pay to rebuild. The housing authorities are not 

going to have the ability to— 

Ms. DAVIS. Without funding, they cannot be rebuilt. 

Chairman NEY. It is part of the process, like Habitat for Humanities does a piece of the housing and there are all different types 

of situations to get people in some form of housing, but I just 

thought if they are gone, they have got to be rebuilt. 

The one other question I had of Mr. Johnson. You are talking 

about oversight of—there needs to be oversight of Mississippi of the 

CDBG or oversight by the Federal Government in regards to Mississippi? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, currently under Mississippi State law, there 

is no provision for oversight by the legislature. CDBG funds are 

given to the Executive Branch, the Executive Branch issues the 

funds, and there is no oversight at all from the legislature. We are talking about in excess of $4 billion. That is just a few 

million dollars short of our total State budget and we would find 

it inherently unfair if, without any public input, without any legislative oversight and entitlement cities being taken out of the process because with the new legislation, it goes directly to the Executive Branch and entitlement cities do not have any say. There 

needs to be a level of oversight to ensure that those funds are properly distributed to the communities who are most in need. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. I wanted to ask Mr. Clark a quick 

question. How has the VA been—I know it is not an ideal situation 

to have—I have dealt with the Paralyzed Veterans Groups for 

years, how has the response from VA been recently as far as temporary situation? 

Mr. CLARK. I met with now General Spraggins and the emergency operations center. We have got all the medical facilities here, 

and a good VA and those veterans with spinal cord injuries, spinal 

cord disease, and dysfunction who were considered high risk, highlevel quadriplegics, we got with the VA and got them served and 

got them out of the area. Immediately after the hurricane, I met 

with the directors of the Biloxi VA Medical Center, the Jackson VA 

Medical Center, the Memphis VA Medical Center, and the New Orleans VA Medical Center, and set up immediate replacement of any 

and all hospital beds or equipment that was lost, immediate input 

of medical supplies, prescriptions being transferred down to the Biloxi VA Medical Center. This way the vets could come into the 

area, if they had a problem, I got on WLOX and announced that 

the VA had come up with this program. VA has been excellent in 

addressing the needs of the veteran population. 

53

The problem that I see is the non-veteran disabled population. 

They have run into a lot of issues on trying to get chairs replaced, 

you know, through Medicaid or Medicare, private insurance. What 

we did, I had a corporation out of Florida contact me and say what 

type of supplies or medical equipment do you need to get out to 

your veteran members. I informed him that if he was wanting to 

send anything down, we would get chairs and medical supplies 

down to the disabled community as a whole, because the vets 

would be taken care of by the VA. So he then had convoys come 

in and they got with the University of Southern Mississippi out of 

Long Beach now displaced from the hospital in Gulfport, but they 

brought the supplies to them. I told them to contact them and find 

out what type of supplies were needed in that area there on the 

MS side as well, and then I contacted the Executive Director of the 

Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities up in Jackson. 

Chairman NEY. Last question I wanted to ask of Ms. Shantrell 

Nicks. What is this—I do not want to take time from other members, but elaborate a little bit on what you said about this site, 

your site. Oh, I am sorry—Rev. Williams. 

Rev. WILLIAMS. The property, this 20 acres is located right north 

of Pass Christian. We had the vision some years ago, in 1999 when 

we bought the property, that we would build houses there for that 

community, not knowing that Katrina would come. This is a small 

church, we are talking about 135 members, but what we need is 

financing in order that we can do the infrastructure. 

Chairman NEY. Oh, I am sorry, it was the site where the government said something to you about calling the President, what was 

that? 

Ms. NICKS. Okay. 

Chairman NEY. Did you contact him? 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman NEY. He does not call me back either, do not feel bad. 

Ms. NICKS. I went to the Bechtel site on Menge Avenue, which 

they are I guess the place that the FEMA trailers are being 

brought into and delivered. That is the I guess headquarters or 

whatever. 

Chairman NEY. So this is not where people are living, this is 

where they are stored. 

Ms. NICKS. And I wanted to go there and find out if they had 

some type of priority or any type of list for handicapped people because I knew of two handicapped people that did not have a place 

to live. And I merely drove up to the site, tried to find out where 

the office was, who did I need to talk to—‘‘Ma’am, leave. If you 

have any questions, talk to President George Bush, that is who my 

boss is.’’ And escorted off the property. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. I am going to move to our ranking 

member in just a second, but I just wanted to make a couple of 

comments. 

I appreciate, and we all do, you thanking us for coming here. We 

appreciate the thank you’s and warm hospitality but we wanted to 

be here. I am from Ohio and we have people who have come to 

Ohio, people who are, you know, temporarily relocated there. I 

hope they can come home to their areas. Some people were not 

given options, they were not given the option of staying in the area 

54

or given the option to come to Ohio. If they gave me the option—

well, New York City is great to visit, but if you give me the option 

to move there, I will not do it, I want to stay where I live in my 

State. 

But, you know, you have made a good point. I think this panel, 

us having the ability to come here and get this elevated even within the Congress, I think it is a good thing because people need 

help. So we are happy to be here. 

The other thing I wanted to stress to you is please, if you see 

things, do not assume we know. If there are things that are going 

right and you want to tell us about it so we can utilize it in other 

disasters to help people, that is great. But if there are things going 

wrong, do not assume that the members will know. You should contact your Congressman, call us. I just wanted to stress that. A lot 

of people say I know you know this has been going on with the 

housing, but we do not necessarily always know. So that will be 

helpful. 

And with that, I will go to our ranking member. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I want to 

take this opportunity one more time to thank you for organizing 

this hearing and bringing us here to the Gulf Coast. I have learned 

more in 2 days than I could have ever learned in Washington, D.C. 

And again, I think we are going to have to be the advocates for getting other Members to come so that they can see firsthand and 

hear firsthand. 

To all of you here on this panel, I want to say a word of thanks 

to all of you. You are the helping professions, you are doing the 

kind of work that people need so desperately and without the kind 

of organizations that you represent, the kind of advocacy that you 

represent, a lot of people would simply be dropped off of 

everybody’s agenda. So I really appreciate who you are and what 

you do. 

For the veterans, I want to tell you, I did not realize until yesterday that I had not heard from the Veterans’ Administration about 

what kind of help they were giving to veterans who were the victims of Katrina. In addition to my conversations with the VA, I 

have seen again we have got to put some attention, Mr. Chairman, 

on the contractors who have the responsibility for the trailers. It 

is outrageous that they do not have trailers designed for the handicapped. It is outrageous that you would have to cut the doors and 

build the ramps. These people are making a lot of money and it 

seems to me it should have been well designed in the contract and 

has not been. Mr. Chairman, we are going to have to see what we 

can do to alter and amend those contracts to make sure that they 

have special provisions for the handicapped in them. 

The other thing that I just did not realize until you brought it 

to my attention was the fact that when you move somebody, who 

pays for the transportation, who pays for the gasoline, who pays for 

the pots and pans and the other stuff. It is one thing to talk about 

providing for a trailer, but there is nothing in it. And if you have 

lost everything, what are you supposed to do. I get it—I get it and 

I am going to work with my chairman and my members to do everything I possibly can to deal with those issues. 

55

I also realize that in our anxiety and in our attempt to do something about getting some assistance to those who perhaps did not 

have flood insurance, I think, Mr. Chairman, we tried to do something about using this as an opportunity to provide quality housing, low income housing on an ongoing basis, I really did not think 

about what was being done at the time we have been trying to address these issues about all the money that was going to be needed 

for the replacement of housing for public housing. That is a lot of 

money that needs to be dealt with. So we are going to have to really take a look at the budgets for HUD, to talk about where the 

money is going to come from for replacing all of these units. 

To the faith-based community that has been represented by you 

people here, I have a special appreciation for what you shared with 

us. Many of us are deeply rooted in our faith, many of us do not 

talk about it, many of us grew up in Sunday School, 11:00 service 

and then we had to go back at 6:00 just like you do. We know the 

church. I want to tell you, we depend a lot on the church, and right 

after Katrina, while I was not in Mississippi, I was in Louisiana 

and I went to Alexandria, Lafayette, New Iberia, Opelousas, all 

these places, and I saw the church-based community, the faithbased community, responding without anybody asking them to, 

without having any money from government. They opened their 

shelters on their own. As far as I am concerned, many of them far 

outdid what the Red Cross was doing. And even for those Red 

Cross shelters that were being run, I saw the faith-based community bring the meals in every day to feed people in the shelters. In 

one of the cities that I was in, they had one of the biggest shelters, 

over 3,000 people that were being fed by the faith-based community 

every day. 

So we do appreciate you. And I do not want you to think that 

you are not at the table, you are at the table in more ways than 

one, but I wanted to leave you with this. You have a Governor here 

who supports, through public policy along with the President, the 

faith-based initiative. I do not want you to lose sight of that. I want 

you to make him perform because this has been a big platform of 

this Administration and I want those who are in the faith-based 

community to engage your Governor and elected officials about 

faith-based initiatives so that you can make sure you have the 

technical assistance to respond to requests for proposals that will 

help in many of these areas. 

Enterprise, you are doing exactly what is needed to be on top of 

contractors. Most people, even if they had the money, do not know 

how to maneuver the complications of getting the contracting done 

without getting ripped off and I commend you for that. 

It seems to me that Habitat for Humanity ought to be getting together with Rev. Williams. You told me and told us you need some 

property on high ground. They have got 20 acres and it seems to 

me there ought to be some networking here to talk about how to 

utilize it because what Rev. Williams needs is some developers and 

she needs somebody to help put together all of those entities, a 

combination of Section 108, CDBG, HOME funds, etc., developers 

to get together to talk about how to utilize that property for the 

benefit of low income housing, how to make it work for the church. 

56

We goofed on CDBG. We are big supporters of CDBG but somehow after it left us I believe—that is what staff is telling us—somebody manipulated something in order to redirect CDBG away from 

those entities that would normally have it come directly to the cities and to give the State and this authority that you guys are alluding to, the power to be in control; and Mr. Cleaver, who is on 

this panel, has been talking a lot about that yesterday and today, 

and it is on our radar screen and I know that Mr. Cleaver is going 

to take some leadership and I am also, Mr. Chairman, and others, 

to see what we can do about addressing the concerns for the way 

that CDBG money has been fashioned for Katrina rather than the 

traditional way that it is dealt with, you know, normally as CDBG 

is allocated to the cities and all of the oversight, etc. Mr. Taylor 

certainly is going to have to take a leadership in taking a look at 

this to make sure that you are taken care of properly. 

Let me just say to Ms. Nicks, as an attorney, you come here with 

the kind of knowledge and expertise that is so desperately needed 

by many of our communities, who do not know how to respond to 

requests for proposals, who do not know how to navigate the system and deal with Section 108, CDBG, etc. I do not know how you 

handle your profession and your career and you have to make a living, but I am hopeful that everybody sitting around this table, that 

you will get together. All of the agencies that are concerned about 

the poor, about the handicapped, about the minorities, etc., would 

form a coalition. You will have a lot of power—churches and faithbased communities working with non-profits, etc., form a coalition 

and identify where you are going to go to work and how you are 

going to use your funds, and allocate some of those dollars to someone that you can place on line for you to help get some of this work 

done. You have indicated that you are willing to use your time and 

effort for the least of these. You cannot do that without some kind 

of funding, and I think a collection of these organizations could 

help to provide the ability for you to do this so that you ought to 

focus on how to access some of the dollars that are already in the 

pipeline. 

We are going to spend some time on FEMA to do some of the 

work that you have been trying to do that I do not think even takes 

legislation in dealing with the handicapped, etc. But there is other 

work that has to be done to ensure that there are ongoing efforts 

to provide low income housing and the kind of work that really is 

going to have to be targeted and attention paid to and someone is 

going to have to be funded to do it. 

Let me just close by saying you have got a great advocate. I want 

to tell you that Congressman Taylor is a hands-on Congressman, 

who was out here on the streets, in the trenches helping to feed 

people, helping to guide, helping to direct. He does not wait for 

anybody to tell him what he can do, he empowers himself and he 

just goes out there despite whatever obstacles there are to get rid 

of them and to get it done. Work with him—work with him and 

help him to understand how he can be even more effective in the 

work that he must do. 

You have educated us here today and we leave here with a long 

list of things that we think we can be helpful with. And I want you 

to know that we are not adverse at all to churches and the faithVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:47 Oct 18, 2006 Jkt 027793 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\DOCS\27793.TXT HFIN PsN: TERRIE
57

based community. Some people talk a lot about their faith and you 

see a lot of politicians sometimes talking about how much they love 

God, etc. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And those 

who talk the talk, they have to then walk the walk, all right? 

Mr. CLEAVER. Amen. 

Ms. WATERS. All right. So you may not hear some of us ranting 

and raving about it, but we do the work and I want you to use your 

power now because there is a lot of talk in Washington about the 

faith-based community and I want you to use your power and get 

together in the faith-based community and interact with those who 

are talking about it a lot and make sure that in their talking, in 

their prayers, that they bring the bacon home. Okay? 

Thank you very much. 

[Applause.] 

Chairman NEY. We thank Ranking Member Waters for her time 

and attention to all these issues. And I thank the Congressman for 

hosting us here in your community. We will hear from you. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. Well, again, I want to thank my colleagues. I want to thank this panel. You have not quite covered the 

waterfront, but you have covered almost everything. I am sure everyone in this room can share their own stories of what they went 

through and what they have done to help out. I want to thank each 

of your groups. 

Mr. Davis, a quick story. We lost a National Guardsman the 

night of the storm on a search and rescue mission. I attended his 

funeral the Monday after the storm. Somehow, in the aftermath of 

the storm, this boy was lost. His funeral was a week to the day 

from the storm up in Purvis. And one of the things I remember 

from passing out MRE’s is people would come to me and say do you 

have any baby formula. Of course we did not, all we had was 

MRE,s at the time. So when I attended the soldier’s funeral in 

Purvis, I stopped by the Wal-Mart and picked up as much baby formula as I could afford. I remember going to Enunciation Church—

now this a week to the day from the storm. Tuesday, Wednesday, 

Thursday after the storm, people were begging for baby formula. A 

week to the day from the storm at Enunciation Church, I show up 

and said I have baby formula, expecting everybody to go great 

stuff. They showed me literally rooms of baby formula that had 

been donated by this time. 

So of course, the faith-based community is wonderful and we cannot thank them enough. But our Nation has to be there also. There 

is a place for both. In the immediate response, you just about have 

to order people to be there, get them away from their families. 

In the case of the Paralyzed Veterans, please do not take any offense to my absence, I got caught up in the hallway. And what is 

going to make you even madder and what is going to make you, 

Mr. Clark, even madder, if you went to Purvis today to the FEMA 

staging area where the trailers come in, I guarantee you there are 

between 600 and 800 ADA travel trailers and ADA capable mobile 

homes. And it makes my blood boil to know that they are there, 

sitting there while people in south Mississippi need them. 

And again, I am not on this committee, they were kind enough 

to let me sit in today and show them around, but that is a snafu 

that has somehow got to get fixed for our veterans, for our people 

58

with disabilities. It is just unacceptable that in this great country, 

that resource is sitting up there, the taxpayers have paid for that 

resource, but it has not been delivered to the people who can use 

it. That has got to get fixed, I blame Bechtel, I blame FEMA. That 

has got to get fixed and it has got to get fixed right now. So again, 

we are all aware of that, there really are ADA travel trailers, they 

just have not been delivered to the right folks. 

Mr. Russo, I hope you have listened to Reverend Williams, because once again, one of the things FEMA was talking about is 

finding a site where we can put trailers. Since you are offering, we 

sure as heck want to take you and your congregation up on that 

good offer and make sure that that is taken care of. 

But for all of you, thank you for everything you have done since 

the day of the storm; thank you for being here today; and on behalf 

of the people of south Mississippi, let me thank you for what you 

and your groups have done to help your fellow Mississippians. 

[Applause.] 

Chairman NEY. The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, let me first say 

to you how much I appreciate the opportunity and privilege to 

come, as a member of this committee, to really come and witness 

and listen and understand more fully, first of all the devastation 

that Katrina has reaped. But also the impact of the pain and the 

human suffering. 

And Mr. Chairman, I must say, and also to our ranking member, 

that had we not come on this visit and had we not conducted this 

field hearing, I would have wondered about some of the President’s 

observations. I listened very carefully to his statements recently 

and I am wondering, and as I listened to all of you with regard to 

the issues, the fact that you are helping the most vulnerable restore their lives, helping them recover and helping them move forward; I am just wondering if those issues, he understands and 

knows as he goes back to the White House. Had we not come here, 

quite frankly, I would not be able to explain what I have learned 

and I would also not be able to more fully discuss with the White 

House some of the pain and suffering and impact that you all are 

addressing each and every day. So I really appreciate being able to 

personally see this and understand it more fully. 

I wanted to just mention a couple of things, with regard first of 

all to this issue of rental housing. I do not know how we are going 

to address it, Mr. Chairman, but when you have a community that 

has paid $500 to $700 for rent and now is required to pay $1,500, 

something is wrong, something is wrong. And I know they are 

going to say it is market forces working. But this is an emergency 

and this is a disaster and sometimes we have to figure out ways 

to allow market forces to work but also to make sure that the people are taken care of and making sure the people can afford to live 

in communities where they have grown up, and especially during 

and after such a disaster. 

I am not sure how this committee can weigh in on this issue. I 

remember that at one of our hearings in Washington, D.C., I asked 

about the rent gouging issue, which I had heard, but I believe the 

response was there cannot be rent gouging because we just will not 

pay but ‘‘X’’ amount of dollars in terms of HUD. So I am not sure 

59

how landlords are getting away with this, but this is something we 

are going to have to figure out. 

Also, earlier we heard from HUD, from Mr. Williams, that for the 

first time the homeless were receiving some form of HUD housing 

assistance. And I wanted to ask him in terms of the percentages 

of individuals here in Gulfport or in the Gulf region, how many 

people now were receiving that type of housing assistance who 

were homeless. But I want to close by just asking any of you if you 

have a handle on that, because you service and work with and help 

the homeless each and every day. Are you familiar with how they 

are being integrated now into the system in terms of the provision 

of HUD assistance for homeless individuals who, prior to Katrina, 

had not had those services and funds available to them? Anyone 

can answer that question if you know the answer, if you have had 

any experience with that. 

[No response.] 

Ms. LEE. If not, Mr. Chairman, I hope that as part of this record, 

we could ask HUD to let us know how this is working, how many 

individuals who, prior to Katrina, were homeless and how many 

now are receiving the assistance that they deserve but did not receive before Katrina. 

Chairman NEY. We will pose that question to HUD and give the 

response to you and all members. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. And in closing let me just say 

once again I want to thank you for your service, your sacrifices, 

your commitment to the least of these, and your commitment to 

make sure that this recovery process is equitable in that process, 

the real issue of equal opportunity, equitable development and the 

issues of poverty are addressed in a very comprehensive fashion as 

we move forward. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again. 

Chairman NEY. The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think, Mr. Chairman, it is appropriate at this point to quote Dr. 

King, ‘‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’’ An injustice as it relates to persons who are handicapped is a threat to 

justice for every one of us in this room, because but for the grace 

of God, it could be any one of us in this room. And I assure you 

that we want to correct this problem with the trailers that you 

have called to our attention. 

I also want to say to the NAACP President, having been one for 

more than 10 years or approximately 10 years myself, Mr. President, there is some great work to be done because I have read reports and accounts of persons being discriminated against as they 

have been seeking housing. I understand from these accounts that 

persons will call in and if they sound a certain way, they are told—

sound like they are part of one ethnic group—they are told that no 

housing is available. And then right afterward, another person 

calls, housing is available with a free TV. 

Now friends, we have come too far in this country to allow this 

hurricane, this natural disaster, to permit this kind of ugly behavior to manifest itself. 

60

Mr. President, you have got great work to do. I salute all of you 

and I beg that each of you take up the cause of justice, because 

again, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. The gentlelady from California. 

Ms. WATSON. I am Diane Watson from California, I sit on the 

International Relations Committee, so I want to thank the Chair 

and the ranking member for allowing me to sit in for two of the 

most informative visits that I have been on since I have been in 

Congress. We travel the world on our committee and this time last 

year, we went into the region where they had the tsunami. I did 

not see any more disaster there than we found here along the Gulf 

Coast. 

And what is troublesome to me is that we are spending billions 

and billions of dollars, 10-, 11-, 12,000 miles away, and we are not 

making the necessary investment here in our own homeland. There 

are several problems that we are able to identify because we came 

here and we listened, we heard and we saw. And number one is, 

we must work, Mr. Chairman, to pull the Emergency Management 

Agency out from under Homeland Security. 

FEMA was created to be able to handle and expedite emergencies. Now you are waiting 5 months for housing? The urgent 

need passed 4 months ago. And so whatever the bureaucracy is 

that is keeping the mission blocked, FEMA’s mission, then we need 

to move it out of the way. And I think what has happened, we are 

concentrating on homeland security but the homeland seems to be 

thousands of miles away. So when we get back to Washington, we 

need to make that very strong suggestion. 

I also, Mr. Eide, with your Enterprise Corporation of the Delta, 

I think you have got all the elements that we would need as a prototype. And I would hope that you would give us an outline of how 

you do it here in Mississippi and send it to the Chair, because my 

colleague, Ms. Lee, has been talking about psychological counseling. People who experience these disasters are traumatized and 

I know we have adopted a family in Los Angeles, because we have 

over 8,000 evacuees within the City of Los Angeles, a lot of them 

in my district. So we adopted one family and the brother came back 

here to assess the damage to the property and had a nervous 

breakdown and was taken to Texas. And we finally—he became 

withdrawn and depressed and he still is that way. So the counseling services that you mentioned are very much needed as a 

package when we talk about enterprise. So thank you so much, and 

if you could outline and send it in, we would appreciate it. 

And then a question to Derrick Johnson and Shantrell Nicks. As 

I listened to your testimony, did I hear a tinge of racism? You 

know, I am really bothered by the fact someone told you to talk to 

the President. Well, a few days ago, you could have found him over 

in Louisiana because he has said publicly that things are going—

we are making progress. Well, I do not think he is well informed 

because I have not seen the kind of progress that we should have 

been making 5 months later. 

So I would like each one of you to elaborate again on just what 

you found in the process of trying to set some programs and restore 

61

people’s lives in housing. Shantrell, I was interested in what you 

said and then if you could just make a comment, Mr. Johnson. 

Ms. NICKS. In reference to—my major concern is the insurance 

companies not being regulated or not being forced to respond to 

people being insured, people receiving adequate payment for their 

loss. 

The other thing is in reference to the incident at the site on 

Menge Avenue where the FEMA trailers are being delivered from, 

it was very hostile. I am African-American and the person that I 

was speaking to was a Caucasian male. 

Mr. TAYLOR. They are rude to everybody. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. I want you to feel better, they are rude to everybody. 

Ms. NICKS. I could not believe it. I mean I was just simply trying 

to ascertain where was the office, do you have some type of list for 

handicapped people. And they would not answer any question other 

than speak to the President, speak to George Bush, he is my boss. 

Ms. WATSON. Would you mind—and I will leave my card with 

you—sending me the identifying information on this person, where 

this person was located, his name and so on? I would like to ask 

the committee to write him a letter and we need to inform them 

what is happening in the field. We need to inform our colleagues. 

Ms. NICKS. Ms. Watson, I do not have the name, I have a location and the corporation. 

Ms. WATSON. All right, that is good enough. 

And Mr. Johnson, if you would like to make a comment. 

Mr. JOHNSON. In talking about racism, one of the things we 

found was immediately following the hurricane, that the response 

in the African-American communities was not as rapid as other 

communities. But we further learned that the response in poor 

communities, black or white, was not as rapid as it should have 

been. In every site we set up to distribute food and other items, at 

no time did we find poor whites—working class poor whites and Vietnamese communities, particularly Biloxi, the very first day when 

people were lined up for food, it was the whole area, because they 

were completely left out. What you find in the area is shrimpers 

and casino workers and retired individuals. As we moved around, 

in every area where we set up, we found the same situation. It is 

one in which working class Mississippians and black Mississippians are left out. And the affluent are often catered to more often 

with subsidies that were intended for working class minorities and 

low income. 

For example, in the HUD waivers moving forward, there were requests and HUD waived or suspended a requirement for replacing 

low and moderate income building units that were damaged or demolished after the hurricane. That would disproportionately affect 

African-Americans but it would disproportionately affect low income individuals. And that is a waiver that HUD provided. 

In the actual legislation, there was a waiver to use CDBG funds 

at 70 percent for low and moderate income individuals, it went 

through legislation and it was reduced to 50 percent and there was 

some discretionary language there for the head of HUD to lower it 

a little bit lower. 

62

That is where we will find the discrimination. Not only by race, 

but by working class individuals in this area. Mississippi is a poor 

State and one of the things we are finding is those who vote for 

certain groups of individuals oftentimes are left out. And you will 

find on the Mississippi Gulf Coast individuals who either do not 

vote or vote mostly for a particular party of individuals, you will 

find them with fewer resources. 

The fear with the Executive Branch administering all the CDBG 

funds with no oversight is those who do not vote or those who do 

not vote for a particular party will be left out. This past Monday, 

we had a convening before the Governor of field experts to talk 

about legislation for our legislature. One of the things that we are 

seeking to do is track where money goes from the CDBG fund by 

census tract so we can see who is actually getting the money, who 

is benefitting, to ensure that there is some equity in how the funds 

are distributed. 

We introduced approximately 12 pieces of legislation for oversight with our State legislature. I do not know if that is going to 

get passed. That is why it is imperative for this body to also track. 

Because we may find out that the Vietnamese community is being 

left out, black people are being left out and just working class 

white folks are being left out. 

Ms. WATSON. Your representative Gene Taylor, the representative from this area, is very knowledgeable and sympathetic to what 

is going on. He calls this an equal opportunity disaster, but what 

we are learning is that the Emergency Management Agency is not 

addressing it as an equal opportunity need for resources. And that 

is very, very troubling to me. I think FEMA has really messed up 

and we need to do something about it. 

And I am sure with the good graces of the Chair, who has shown 

a great amount of compassion as we have gone through the streets 

in New Orleans and we went along the Gulf Coast earlier this 

morning, I am sure that he will take the lead. 

And I just want to say in closing that we really appreciate all 

of you coming and expressing your views on not only Katrina but 

the aftermath and the way we are doing our job. Please do not 

hesitate to write us, e-mail us, fax us, or call us. And particularly 

Mr. Taylor, because he understands what needs to be done. Let 

him know. We are out here in the field, but there have only been 

55 Members of Congress, 345 Members make the decisions, and 

they ought to come down here and see for themselves. I had no 

idea the handicapped, and maybe the mentally ill, the disabled 

were not being specifically cared for. I had no idea—well, we heard 

some rumors about the insurance companies and the way they are 

defining what is covered by flood insurance and what is wind 

borne. And I think it is absolutely ridiculous, but we do not know 

these things until we come here and hear it from you. So do not 

fail to write us. 

I like what the faith-based community is doing, they come on 

board immediately, you do not have to ask them, they are there. 

And so what we need is for you to keep us informed. In my area, 

we suffer from earthquakes, we suffer from drought, we suffer from 

fires and we had to really put the pressure on our own Governor 

when we had a major fire in my area, to come down and observe. 

63

They just did not—they ignored the area, and we had hundreds of 

thousands of dollars worth of damage. But until people come and 

see, they do not get impacted the same way. 

So I thank all of you for being here today, for informing us. Trust 

us, we are going to take this information back to Congress and I 

hope we can improve on our housing needs plus overall on our disaster response. 

Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman, for letting me sit in. 

Chairman NEY. I thank the gentlelady. 

Also, Mr. Green, without objection, submitted for the record some 

additional material by Mr. Rodger Clark. 

And to close today, our distinguished member from Missouri, Mr. 

Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank all of you for 

coming, particularly Dr. Brenda Matthews, who lives here in this 

community but was a principal in our community in Kansas City 

before coming back to her birthplace. I appreciate the opportunity 

to just share with you—I too would like to commend the faith community, you do what you are supposed to do. It is a little weird to 

say thank you to a group that is doing what they are supposed to 

do. That is what we do. 

I am not so sure that we ought to be at the table with the government. Jesus not only would not go to the table, he turned it 

over. But I do think we have to be what we are, and that is what 

you have been doing. 

Let me heighten your paranoia about CDBG. In the National 

Housing Act of 1937, Sections 8 and 9 and the Cranston-Gonzalez 

Act, Fair Housing Act, not only are we supposed to do housing for 

the homeless but for AIDS victims as well. That is not being mentioned. 

Now I want to go further. The $11.5 billion that we approved, as 

Congressman Taylor mentioned, is a 60/40 break. Each Governor 

will get the money and I know there is a representative from the 

Governor’s Office, I am not mad at you, I think that was a big mistake, it was a colossal mistake, it was something that we did not 

do when the legislation was approved. 

The reason it was a mistake—and every man in the country, I 

do not care if he is a Democrat or a Republican—opposes this. I 

used to be the President of the National Council of Black Mayors, 

the Governor of Louisiana is a Democrat, the Governor of Mississippi is a Republican, neither of them should be dealing with the 

money. 

First of all, in the legislation, not that we passed but in the regulations, 5 percent of those dollars will be taken off for administrative costs and that is millions of dollars. So that is 5 percent in 

Louisiana and 5 percent in Mississippi. Now in addition to that, in 

reading the regulations, there is no requirement for public hearing. 

I do not believe that we ought to deviate from the Federal regulations from HUD on these dollars. The public ought to be able to 

say what they want to do with those dollars. And the reason we 

do not want Governors to have it is because the local communities, 

the Mayor, the man who just left, he knows better what needs to 

be done in this community than the Governor. I am not mad at the 

Governor, I do not know him. This is an issue of trying to make 

64

sure that we get the maximum out of the dollars that we spend. 

These are taxpayer dollars and we ought to have this community 

involved in how those dollars are going to be spent. 

Now finally, having gone through this legislation—and let me explain this. I know this is going to make you not want to be involved 

with Members of Congress, but when we voted on this, this was in 

a Defense bill. It has nothing to do with defense, but this was in 

the Defense bill, it was the last day, and as my colleague mentioned, at 4:00 a.m. in the morning. We did not have a chance to 

read this. In fact, I am not even sure that it was written. Somebody 

stop me if I say something that is not right. I am not sure it was 

written. So what happened, the bureaucrats put this stuff together. 

We approved the money, the bureaucrats put it together. 

And in my estimation as a former mayor, this is not the way you 

deal with rehabilitating a community in a way that the public is 

involved in and in a way that is done quickly. And so my hope is 

that—I mean you are right to be concerned, Mr. President, State 

president of the NAACP, you are right to be concerned about 

CDBG. Now the State legislature does not do oversight, all grants 

over $25,000 are required to be audited, but in terms of the Mississippi legislature having oversight over these dollars, there is 

none, zero, zilch, nada. 

And so it means that frankly the money will be spent and unlike 

if it came to the city, the city council is held responsible for those 

dollars, or whatever it is called here, whatever the municipal bodies call it. 

I think there ought to be some concern by this committee in 

Washington. I do not know if it is too late for us to try to do anything or not. But if we cannot, at least I want the local community 

to understand the full gravity of the situation. And that is exactly 

what is going on. And I hope that you can rally the people and 

challenge what is going on so that it can accrue to the best interests of this community. 

I appreciate all of you coming. I hate to leave on a negative note, 

but I want you to be paranoid. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. Without objection, the record will be 

left open for 30 days in case members of the committee would like 

to pose additional questions. 

Again, on behalf of the U.S. Housing Subcommittee, we thank 

you and God bless you for what you are doing for a lot of people 

down here who have had the toughest trauma of their lives. Thank 

you. 

[Whereupon at 1:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(65)

A P P E N D I X

January 14, 2006

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