Housing

Even prior to the landfall of hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike, Louisiana faced a major lack of affordable housing, especially for those families and individuals at the bottom of the economic ladder. This problem led to extensive homelessness and a large segment of the population living on the brink of homelessness as they attempted to recover from these catastrophic events.

The impacts the hurricanes only served to make what was once considered a mere housing shortage develop into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis.

Extremely hard hit by the hurricanes, Katrina especially, was Louisiana's housing stock. Hundreds of thousands of Louisiana residents were left homeless after the storms, their houses destroyed or left temporarily uninhabitable. The pre-existing lack of housing stock, along with the impact of Mother Nature, left Louisianians scrambling for housing options.

That disaster was followed by a second housing disaster -- the inability of the state and federal government to successfully execute numerous housing case management programs designed to add additional housing stock to the state and transition those families who rely on transitional governmental housing into self-sufficiency in order to be able to break their reliance on governmental support before the end of the housing programs.

No matter how the blame is spread, the fact is that thousands of families in Louisiana still rely on government housing assistance nearly four years after the landfall of Katrina and Rita. And, while some progress has been made in recent months, available affordable housing in Louisiana is still not nearly at the levels needed to serve the population that will soon be transitioned out of government assistance programs and lose any type of government housing assistance.

But those are not the only housing issues facing Louisianians trying to recover. Many did not have homeowners' insurance prior to the hurricanes because they simply could not afford it. Thus, when their homes were destroyed or suffered major damage, they were unable to come up with the funds to repair the damages. Additionally, many state and federal home repair programs would not allow uninhabitable homes located in a flood zone to be repaired without the owner acquiring flood insurance, but the government would not sell the homeowner flood insurance to an uninhibited home. That type of run-around and other similar frustrations turned many people toward simply trying to do things themselves instead of utilizing governmental assistance which they considered overburdensome.

Another key area affecting housing post-destruction includes fraudulent contracts who took money only to never return or who did unsatisfactory work that had to be redone, costing the homeowner thousands more.

All of these issues and more can be found in the Recovery Corps' series entitled Broken Homes:First-Hand Accounts of Living Through Louisiana's Housing Crisis.

Key Recovery Corps positions related to housing:

• Implement tenant protections such as rent stabilization, eviction protections, and right of first refusal requirements to moderate further increases in market rents, prevent the eviction of lease compliant renters from their current homes and apartments, and enable groups of tenants to acquire and cooperatively manage properties that the current owners want to sell
• Local governments, working in partnership with non-profit organizations like the Recovery Corps, can help ensure that housing discrimination does not bar families from homes, apartments, and neighborhoods of their choice by focusing on effective fair housing enforcement
• Prohibit discrimination based on source of income
• Update zoning codes to permit auxiliary rental units to yield a small but meaningful increase in the availability of affordable rentals in the near term
• Reform building codes to encourage low-cost designs and technologies that are safe and reduce costs.
• Create an inclusionary zoning program in hot markets where a high volume of new housing is being produced to significantly expand the stock of affordable housing in mixed-income communities
• Establish an Employer Assisted Housing program that includes a strong rental component and offers local income tax incentives to participating employers
• Acquire land for land banking and/or community trusts to help residents bring neighborhoods back to life
• Target selected neighborhoods for comprehensive, resident-driven redevelopment
• Provide funding for the acquisition of vacant homes that would in turn be made available as affordable rental housing in the near term
• Provide Low Income Housing Tax Credits to opportunity-rich neighborhoods and supportive housing developments to produce affordable rental housing units in healthy, opportunity-rich communities and to projects that will produce supportive housing for the elderly or for families with special needs
• Create a statewide cooperative insurance pool for affordable rental property owners