Delta Dawning

Gulf Coast Efforts Look Beyond Recovery Toward Lasting Renewal

Sustainable Affordable Housing

In Mississippi, three coastal counties have become a laboratory for new types of affordable housing that could not only shelter displaced residents but also enhance the housing stock, economies, and natural environments of communities statewide. The prospect of building innovative kinds of affordable housing typifies the promise of going beyond “rebuilding” toward “reshaping” the Gulf Coast into something better than ever.

The most devastated areas of Mississippi are its coastal counties of Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson, where the storm surge ruined stately waterfront homes as well as modest rental units. Generally, though, high levels of poverty and low levels of home ownership characterize the counties. A substantial share of the destroyed homes in Mississippi were also built before 1980 and thus did not adhere to updated building safety codes that stipulate higher foundations and more wind-resistant walls and roofs.

The prospect of building innovative kinds of affordable housing typifies the promise of going beyond “rebuilding” toward “reshaping” the Gulf Coast into something better than ever.

“As in New Orleans, the challenge of recovering from the hurricane has been exacerbated by the fact that some of the poorest communities were also some of the hardest hit,” said Jack Riley, who launched the study of affordable housing in Mississippi as associate director of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment.

His RAND colleagues estimated that 81,000 homes — more than half the housing stock in the coastal Mississippi counties — were exposed to either wind or flooding or both. Because households with income levels below the U.S. median occupied about a third of these homes, the team suggested that 27,000 affordable housing units might need to be rebuilt within the three counties alone.

Housing is defined as “affordable,” said Riley, when a family does not need to spend more than 30 percent of its income on rent or on mortgage payments, insurance, and property taxes. RAND has proposed three additional guidelines for the Gulf Coast: There should be an adequate supply of affordable housing across multiple income levels; new affordable housing units should meet sustainable building and design standards; and affordable housing should be located within a reasonable distance of suitable employment opportunities.

RAND researchers have presented Mississippi elected officials with a menu of options to pursue these guidelines. To oversee housing recovery efforts, for example, Mississippi could create a new state entity that would set spending priorities, educate residents about rebuilding, and coordinate housing redevelopment with other regional planning goals. The oversight and coordination would accelerate the rebuilding.

To increase the supply of affordable housing, Mississippi could create housing trust funds (possibly infused with cash from retail, tourism, gambling, or oil revenues); encourage employers to offer housing assistance to employees; give developers incentives to build more affordable units; adopt zoning codes that favor mixed-use development; work with community land trusts or nonprofit groups to manage long-term affordable rental units; and offer low-interest mortgages to qualified low-income homeowners.

AP PHOTO/ROGELIO SOLIS   Mississippi State Senator Billy Hewes III (R-Gulfport) stands before a coalition of lawmakers, architects, contractors, public officials, and public safety experts at the capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, on January 19, 2006, calling for stronger building code legislation to help communities weather future natural disasters.

To make affordable housing safer, Mississippi could mandate tougher minimum building codes in hurricane-prone areas. The state could also develop safety codes specifically for modular housing, and modular-housing factories could be opened in communities that need lots of rebuilding — and employment.

To sustain affordability for the long term, Mississippi could target the notoriously high maintenance and utility costs of cheaply built, energy-inefficient affordable housing units. The state could offer incentives for builders, lenders, and insurers to construct, finance, and reduce premiums for homes that use less water and energy.

And to promote greater local involvement in rebuilding efforts, Mississippi could launch a program for training affordable-housing contractors; hire and train more building code officials; and incorporate community feedback into state and local housing decisions. Mississippi communities will benefit greatly if the local workforce can play a larger role in rebuilding, and the efforts will be more successful if supported by community groups.

“From the earliest days after Hurricane Katrina, it was obvious that housing for displaced coast residents would be the dominant issue for a long time,” said Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. “I certainly welcome specific recommendations that enhance the strategic rebuilding and renewal plan that is under way.”

In October 2006, the governor announced that the National Association of Realtors and the Mississippi Association of Realtors had donated money to help RAND extend its study of housing needs along the Mississippi coast. The study will compare the damage done across various housing submarkets; assess which ones are likely to rebuild on their own or with existing assistance programs; and identify what further initiatives might offer the greatest promise for assisting those Mississippians, particularly renters in search of affordable housing, for whom the available programs and resources are inadequate.

“The state of Mississippi and the cities and counties along the Gulf Coast have a huge opportunity to create dynamic, diverse, and economically vibrant communities,” said Penick enthusiastically. “Affordable housing will be critical to rebuilding the economy in coastal Mississippi. If these efforts succeed along the coast, they could also be used to reduce the affordable-housing gap in other areas of the region that weren’t so affected by Katrina.”

Student Displacement and Trauma

A RAND study of Louisiana public schools in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has found that the storms displaced nearly 200,000 students — more than a quarter of the state’s pre-storm enrollment. More than 81 percent of the displaced students came from the most populous parishes in the heavily hit areas: Orleans and Jefferson parishes in the east (from Hurricane Katrina) and Calcasieu Parish in the west (from Hurricane Rita).

Figure 3 — More Than Half of Displaced Louisiana Students Did Not Return to Their Original Schools During 2005–06

SOURCE: Student Displacement in Louisiana After the Hurricanes of 2005: Experiences of Public Schools and Their Students, 2006. NOTE: Pie chart accounts for the 172,108 displaced Louisiana public school students for whom consistent records were available.

The displacement persisted throughout the entire 2005–06 school year, with 55 percent of the displaced students ending the year outside their original schools (see Figure 3). The students who remained displaced were disproportionately minority students and those who had been achieving poorly prior to the storms.

But even among those students who have returned to their original schools, “a substantial amount of schooling was lost, and the effects of the storms linger,” said John Pane, a RAND education researcher. From a survey of Louisiana school principals, he has discovered that the displaced students, both those who have returned and those who have enrolled elsewhere in the state, exhibit several common symptoms of trauma. The displaced students are more likely than others to engage in fighting, arguing, bullying, eating alone, playing in isolation, and violating school rules; and less likely to engage in school clubs, activities, social events, or sports teams.

“Principals frequently reported that displaced students were more likely than preexisting students to need mental health counseling,” noted Pane. “It will be necessary over the coming years to help these students recover and to prevent any further damage from untreated mental health problems or continued loss of schooling.”

More than a year after the hurricanes, some school mental health professionals in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas still perceive a need for mental health care for their students, while others think the students have settled into their new schools and are adjusting well. In either case, the majority of the professionals interviewed by RAND have expressed a limited ability to implement mental health programs for their students because of shortages in funding and in trained staff.

To help both the students and the schools, RAND has designed a tool kit, or guidebook, that school administrators can use to find mental health programs for students exposed to traumatic events, such as violence or natural disasters. The tool kit compares 24 programs that have been used by schools across the country and in nations beset by ongoing wars and acts of terrorism. The kit outlines which programs serve which student needs. It also describes the time, training, and other resources needed by school officials to implement each program and discusses potential sources of funding for implementation.

AP PHOTO/GERALD HERBERT   Marvinique Gray, 6, arrives for first grade as children return to the Alice Harte Elementary School in the Algiers section of New Orleans on December 14, 2005, for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

“Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, schools were in a unique position to help displaced students but had limited information about how to help,” said Lisa Jaycox, a RAND behavioral scientist who spearheaded the kit’s development. “It is essential that schools know what is out there so that they can choose the program that best fits their students’ needs and for which they have the appropriate resources.”

Among the programs described in the kit are the Friends & New Places program, used by the Dallas Independent School District to help 1,000 students displaced by Hurricane Katrina; the UCLA Trauma/Grief Program for Adolescents, a program used in New York City schools following the terrorist attacks of September 2001 and in schools in postwar Bosnia; and Cognitive-Behavior Intervention for Trauma in Schools, a program designed by RAND, UCLA, and the Los Angeles Unified School District to treat students exposed to any form of trauma.

“Exposure to traumatic events can lead to anxiety and depression and cause some students to act out in school, at home, and among their peers,” said Jaycox. “These programs, which have been developed specifically for use in schools, can reduce emotional and behavioral problems while also fostering resilience for future events.”