Katrina Dried Up Rental Market

[intheflow]

http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/2007/05/rentals.html

...among tens of thousands of renters in the hurricane zone who lost their homes to the storm and whose prospects of finding new ones are generally far worse than residents who owned their homes.

(...)

“Rental Katrina victims are essentially the most powerless group of all in trying to fashion a recovery,” says Reilly Morse, an attorney with Mississippi Center for Justice, which advocates for racial and economic justice along the coast. “They have to depend entirely on landowners and land developers to make something happen.”

The loss was staggering. In a state where nearly 30 percent of the residents are renters, 72,116 renter-occupied units were damaged or destroyed by Katrina, according to Gov. Haley Barbour’s office.

(...)

In late April, Gov. Barbour announced a new plan to bolster rental housing in the hurricane zone. Some $263 million in forgivable loans would be offered to owners of rental properties with four units or less. At $30,000 a unit, the state expects 5,000 rental housing units could be built or repaired under the program, and rented to tenants who meet certain income limits. But the program has yet to win final approval and it remains unclear if and when it could start.

(more)

72,116 rental units gone, but under Barbour's plan, CDBG grants will only go toward 5,000 units. :banghead:

Worse, the idea behind using CDBG monies came from the grass roots to help mom-and-pop landlords (duplex owners, etc.) who lost their livelihood, but under Barbour's proposal, CDBG monies could go to developers who are already making money hand-over-fist. :grr:

[HeeBGBz]

1. I got lucky

I got word from a friend and then I had to convince the mgrs that I made 3 times the rent per month before they rented to me.

Now, I lost my primary job and hope I can come up with something that will pay me before the end of the month.

[intheflow]

5. I think of you everytime I work on rental issues.

Has your waitress job officially ended? Are you taking that part-time kennel job?

[HeeBGBz]

9. Yeah, waitress job is gone

I'm picking up some extra hours at the kennel. Still looking for something to bring in extra cash.

[intheflow]

18. I'll keep my ears open.

:hug:

[earth mom]

2. Why give forgivable loans aka as FREE MONEY to landlords?!

Why not build houses with Habitat for Humanity and let people own their own friggen homes that they built themselves through sweat equity?! How many homes would 263 MILLION DOLLARS build?! :banghead:

[BadAssTeddyBear]

3. So they look like the good guys.

But in the end the Rich get Richer.

[intheflow]

4. As I said in the OP...

initially this was proposed by the grass roots to help small landlords--folks who owned duplexes or a house next door to their own, folks who lost their own housing along with their only income source. Many of these small landlords are now paying mortgages on two or more slabs. By investing in helping these small landlords to rebuild, the money would be put into providing rental housing plus provide some local economic redevelopment.

Not to mention that Habitat has some of its own issues down here. For instance, there are liens on the homes that normal Habitat builds don't require of the homeowners. They are building on wetlands. They are facing opposition from other residents who don't want what they perceive to be low-income housing in their neighborhoods out of the flood zone. By investing in rebuilding by small, local landlords, they'd be building on existing building sites, not destroying wetlands or building in neighborhoods where they're not wanted.

It's a very complex situation down here, not easily fixed by normal, non-disaster area solutions.

[Ghost in the Machine]

7. "How many homes would 263 MILLION DOLLARS build?!"

5260 at an average cost of $50,000/house....

I think that's a lowball guesstimate on my part... I don't know anything about real estate prices in N.O.L.A. ...

[intheflow]

17. You can buy a shotgun house in MIssissippi for about $40K, about the size

of a FEMA trailer. If you want a real family-sized house, you can get a modular for about $60-70K. And that's after you pay off your pre-existing mortgage.

[frustrated_lefty]

8. Because

it's easier to give a 40k SBA grant and demand monthly payments starting this June?

My children are safe and alive, which is all I prayed for during Katrina. It's hard to ask for more when you've been so fortunate as to receive so very much.

[earth mom]

11. It's common knowledge that people want to go back to NOLA but they don't have homes to go to

whether they own them or not. In the film "When the Levees Broke" several people emphatically stated that the majority of people want to go "home" to NOLA but there's nowhere to live and obviously little is being done in NOLA for housing for the poor or working class.

Also, the OP stated those were "forgivable" loans meaning they are forgiven, or not paid back, so I don't get your point about payments....?

[frustrated_lefty]

13. Re: forgiveable loans

My point is basically this. It's approaching the 2 year mark post-Katrina. The loans mentioned in the OP haven't even been approved. By now, most people have HAD to take some assistance to get back on their feet, and that assistance primarily came through the Small Business Association. The SBA loans are NOT forgiveable, and payments start on them one year to the day after they've been received. Of course, there are those who received grants from FEMA which do not have to be paid back...but, then, FEMA is now in the process of trying to demand many of those grants be returned because they retroactively decided many of the recipients shouldn't have received the awards.

Talk of the remote possibility of forgivable loans at this late date is like the punchline to a bad joke.

-fl

[earth mom]

14. Sounds like FEMA is engaging in even more criminal behavior.

:grr:

[intheflow]

15. The other thing about the SBA loans is

that if you hold a mortgage on your pre-Katrina home, the SBA loan has to first go to repaying off that mortgage. So homeowners are still left with not enough money to rebuild a home. And of course the whole SBA loans and FEMA grants are dependent upon having been a property owner pre-Katrina, so once again, the renters (40% of Mississippi Coast's pre-Katrina population) continue to be SOL. :grr:

[KamaAina]

6. Meanwhile, down the road in New Orleans, thousands of units sit empty

in the city's public housing projects. Most of the projects consist of two-story buildings, so it wouldn't take much work to make at least the second-floor units habitable.

Yet the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) has fiercely resisted any and all attempts by pre-K public housing tenants to reoccupy these projects. Could this have anything to do with the fact that HANO is in federal receivership and is being operated by HUD and Alphonso "This city will never again be as poor or as black as it was" Jackson?!

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/8745.php

New Orleans, August 12-If you wanted to see what was wrong with New Orleans these days, you had to look no further than the C.J. Peete Public Housing Project in the Central City District late this afternoon on the 2400 block of Washington Avenue.

There two armed Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) police officers stood on the grounds of the empty project barring the way of African American tenants returning to their homes. With the officers was HANO Director of Security Mitchel Dusset, who was aiming a video camera at people gathered on the sidewalk....

The C.J. Peete housing units did not flood after Katrina. But the residents were forced to evacuate, and have not been allowed to go back to their homes. The buildings along Washington Avenue are structurally sound....

Shortly before this former resident Dolores Watson had told me that HANO had cut the electrical wires in the apartments. "We didn't see them around when I lived here," she sniffed at the HANO cops. Watson resided at C.J. Peete for over 30 years. "This was the only project they didn't secure after the hurricane," she asserted. "Why? I've been back in my apartment. There's no mold, no mildew."

But of course, the M$M gave this blanket 24/7 coverage, so you already knew about it. :sarcasm:

[intheflow]

10. They sold affordable housing complexes to developers in Mississippi.

They evicted people from apartments that had minimal damage so that they could tear them down and build new, shiny units. The old units have not been torn down, nothing new and shiny going up yet. And a really tight rental market just got tighter. Recovery in both NOLA and Mississippi has been a giant clusterfuck on so many levels.

[aquart]

12. And yet....

<http://mynolatrip07.wordpress.com/>

A friend sent me this link today. If you need to feel a glimmer of hope, look here.

[Sapphire Blue]

16. Surge in homeless hits New Orleans (posted on 3/28)

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Sapphire%20Blue/215