This is a terrible time to demolish public housing
August 17, 2006
Editorial
The Sun Herald
With thousands of South Mississippians still displaced by Hurricane Katrina, now is a terrible time for a government agency to toss as many as 400 families out of public housing.
Yet that is just what the Mississippi Regional Housing Authority VIII intends to do, by selling the L.C. Jones property in Gulfport and transferring the W.M. Ladnier property in Gulfport and Charles Warner in Pascagoula to the nonprofit South Mississippi Housing and Development Corporation.
The housing authority has told its tenants that it can no longer maintain the properties as public housing because of a lack of insurance proceeds and funding from HUD. But rather than ask HUD for more funding, the authority has asked HUD for permission to proceed with the sale and transfers.
The Jones property may or may not be redeveloped as affordable housing. The Ladnier and Warner properties will be, but in stages.
In the meantime, what are the hundreds of families now living in those housing units supposed to do?
The housing authority suggests that its soon-to-be-former-tenants use vouchers to obtain substitute accommodations. Duh! Are the folks at Region VIII really that out of touch with the shortage of shelter in Harrison and Jackson counties?
This is no time to demolish usable housing anywhere in South Mississippi and this effort must be stopped.