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The housing challenge facing communities in the Gulf is immense, with tens of thousands of families displaced, their former homes destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The situation is especially difficult for families whose neighborhoods were completely devastated by the floods from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Some communities were extremely poor and had all the problems associated with concentrated poverty—high crime, lack of opportunity, inadequate public services, and bad schools. As became painfully evident in the aftermath of the storms, many residents lacked the resources to evacuate and now remain stranded in temporary housing or in other parts of the country. Nearly all these low-income residents were renters, and a substantial number lived in federally subsidized public housing—among the most distressed properties in the nation.
This section summarizes research that documents the scale of the current housing challenge and that suggests possible strategies and tools for tackling this challenge. More specifically, we have grouped these research resources into four categories. The first category includes publications that focus specifically on Gulf Coast communities and the impacts of Katrina and Rita. The second provides information about the potential benefits of building mixed-income communities as an alternative to concentrated poverty. The third category consists of studies that offer lessons from nationwide experience with the federal HOPE VI program, which funds the demolition and replacement of distressed public housing developments. And finally, the fourth category of studies focuses on specific tools that may be of interest to housing policymakers and practitioners in the Gulf Coast. |
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