WLOX-TV - The News for South Mississippi: Barbour, Others Stress Coast Housing Needs At MPA Gathering: "Gov. Haley Barbour and members of his recovery commission gave a positive face Friday to the efforts of government, faith-based organizations, businesses and individuals in rebuilding the Mississippi Gulf Coast but spotlighted housing as the region's most pressing need.
'Housing. Housing. Housing. Housing is such an integral factor,'' said Joe Cloyd of the Mississippi Development Authority as he joined others on a panel at the Mississippi Press Association's annual meeting in identifying housing as the major constraint to the recovery effort on the coast.
Barbour told the meeting of newspaper editors and publishers at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Biloxi that 'housing is going to be the long pole in the tent of recovery.''
Hurricane Katrina destroyed 70,000 homes and left 65,000 others with significant damage in the six counties that make up the state's coastal region, said Anthony Topazi, president and CEO of Mississippi Power Co., who also was a vice chairman of the recovery commission.
Those losses are significant, Barbour said, because 2,800 is the maximum number of houses ever built in Mississippi in one year.
'Even if we triple that it would take 10 years,'' Barbour said. 'We want to do it in five years.''"
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2 comments:
"destroyed 70,000 homes and left 65,000 others with significant damage"
And our governor is thinking 'about' 16,000 qualify for the grant program... You know the big great fantastic grant program that they said would save us all when it was first conceived?
I don't undestand, he knows the number of homes damaged.I pray the "about 16,000" doesn't go any lower.
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