Online poll: Should Katrina homebuilding monies be diverted to expand the Port of Gulfport?

[intheflow]

Mississippi Governor Barbour wants to take the Community Block Grant monies intended for housing to be used for expanding the port in Gulfport! :grr: They're trying to argue that without port expansion, there will be job losses and so the need for housing will be moot. SUCH a bogus argument when there are still between 65,000 people still living in FEMA trailers on the Mississippi Coast. The difference between the monies that were taken out before is that those monies went directly to strengthening social safety nets, not into expanding commercialism.

The poll is at the link below. Please DU it!

Katrina funds: Balancing jobs/housing difficult

Gov. Haley Barbour is taking political heat for the Mississippi Development Authority wanting to divert $600,000 in federal Katrina grant money away from housing needs to expand the port at Gulfport.

snip...

It's not as if the Katrina funds haven't been swapped around before.

State lawmakers decided last session to take a wait-and-see approach on using $45 million in Katrina money to shore up Medicaid. If the Katrina money wasn't there, lawmakers would have raised taxes on hospitals.

Nobody complained when Barbour engineered using $30 million in federal Katrina grants to help lower the Coast's insurance premiums for the wind pool, the insurer of last resort, forestalling higher rates, and possible premium hikes statewide.

snip...

*Edited to correct number of families still living in FEMA trailers in Mississippi.

[monktonman]

1. What good is a job if you dont have a place to live? n/t

[annabanana]

2. From what I understand there's already a labor shortage in NO

BECAUSE people who would fill those jobs have no place to live...

(Am I wrong?)

[SacredCow]

4. Essentially correct.....

There is a big need for what I'll call "unskilled" workers (hotel maids, dishwashers, etc...). There are some places available to live (not many), but they couldn't afford it on the unskilled workers' salary, anyway. There are cases of some folks packing themselves into houses or apartments like sardines to make the economics of it feasable.

[intheflow]

5. Same in Mississippi.

McDonald's can't find enough help. The Beau Rivage Casino needs workers. Of course neither of those corporate giants are willing to build affordable housing for workers. :puke:

BTW, I love your Dogbert tagline image. I used to have the strip that image came from blown up large and posted by my cubical door, back in the days when I worked in the corporate world. You can see why I couldn't stay working in the corporate world! LOL

[SacredCow]

8. LOL.... same here!

The only good that came out of my one position with a large company is that I gained an appreciation of Dilbert cartoons. Before, I had only worked for small companies, and they just weren't all that funny to me.

Glad to be back in a medium-sized business!

[Shakespeare]

3. Ah, the return of trickle-down economics.

Didn't work then, and it won't work now. And to suggest it in this particular circumstance is a slap in the face to those still trying to rebuild down there.

Oh, and fuck Haley Barbour. And not in a good way.

[4_TN_TITANS]

20. Trickle On Economics...

This is just a ruse to put the money in contractors pockets - AS ALWAYS.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. K&R for the Katrina survivors

Haley's a tool.

[babylonsister]

7. RECOMMEND FOR OUTRAGE! nt

[me b zola]

9. done

:grr:

[KamaAina]

10. Meanwhile, Louisiana is diverting some of *its* CDBG money to Entergy

the private ("investor-owned") electric and gas utility. :eyes:

http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/04/entergy_to_receive_220_million.html

Entergy signed a contract with the state Office of Community Development to receive $171 million in federal Community Development Block Grant money. That amount has been verified by the New Orleans City Council as storm related. The Louisiana Recovery Authority allocated up to $200 million in CDBG funds to the utility for storm related costs and Entergy New Orleans will continue to submit its expenses until the $200 million threshold is reached, it said Thursday.

Ouch. Why don't they just rename the program "Corporate Dividend Block Grants"? :P

[intheflow]

14. So much for Red vs. Blue states.

:grr:

[Senator]

11. K&R

[Devlzown]

12. We don't need to allow that shit.

Those FEMA trailers are falling apart and it's just a matter of time until they start condemning them. That money was intended for housing and that's what it should be used for, not as a handout to Haley Bubba's campaign contributor's. They will find money for the port, but if that money is not used for housing then all those people in FEMA trailers are going to be in a bind.

[intheflow]

17. I know.

I can't believe how almost none of the federal money has gone to building public housing, when so many people in the trailers were renters pre-storm. Those trailers are death traps even if they manage to stay together. With the money we're spending at war, the SeaBees could be building housing... energy efficient housing out of the flood zones and wetlands. If only the government had the will to rebuild housing! :grr:

[robinlynne]

13. why not just give the money to dick cheney. why bother with formalities?

[uppityperson]

15. k&r& voted

[HeeBGBz]

16. Fat rat bastard

Just another rip off of the people in favor of corporate crap.

The only things being built around here are casinos and condos that no one can live in. This makes me sick.

I'm leaving Biloxi at the end of October and going back to Missouri. I'm tired of struggling and paying jacked up prices for everything. I love this place, but it's lost so much and I don't like the direction the powers-that-be are taking it. The regular folks are getting screwed big time.

k&r

[intheflow]

22. I'm sorry to hear you're moving again.

:-( Is your son going to move back with you, too?

[Swamp Rat]

18. No - 74.9% of 427 votes

:hi:

:kick:

[uppityperson]

19. kick

[Selatius]

21. HALEY BARBOUR CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF.

I'm living now in Starkville, MS, but before that I was living on the coast before and after Katrina, and many people are still living in FEMA trailers down there, and the motherfucker wants to divert reconstruction money away from homebuilding. The only thing that makes it worse is that Mississippians voted for the fucker in the first place.