Waiting for a Miracle
Thousands Living in FEMA Trailers Have No Certain Home for the Future

by Keith Burton GCN 12/26/06

Its been 16 months since Hurricane Katrina and still nearly 87,000 people are living in nearly 31,000 small, cramped FEMA trailers. The majority live in some 23,244 small travel trailers, most on private lots in front of their homes that are still only slabs. The remainder are in small mobile homes in scattered but crowded trailer parks.

For all of these people, and the families they represent, getting into a permanent home will likely take a miracle.

Most of the people living in FEMA trailers in front of their homes have the hope that they will be able to rebuild. Many are the survivors that found they either had no insurance after the hurricane, or still hoping the new build height requirements and regulations will be modified that will enable them to rebuild.

For those folks living in the FEMA trailer parks, they are residents who for the most part, do not own property. Most are poor who worked in low-paying service jobs. Work that at current housing costs, doesn't pay enough to rent a home or apartment in these post-Katrina days. They are Katrina survivors that lived in the numerous and cheap apartments and rental housing built on cheaper low-lying land that were lost in the hurricane and have no where else to live. For them, affordable permanent housing on the Coast remains impossible to find.

It's Raining Trailers In Pascagoula

I took some pictures today to show you the trailers in our area. I do a terrible job trying to take pictures and drive at the same time. I have pretty good shots of the interior of the car, don't I? So bear with me please. Many of you will know the areas mentioned. There is Cherokee off Ingalls Avenue, Washington Avenue, a block from the beach and the Lake Avenue area.

Sometimes I feel so alone driving the routes I take as there are very few cars on the road. No scenic beauty anymore. I can almost touch the heartache that fills the air and the silence is deafening. Like a one man cheering squad I make my rounds through their neighborhoods thinking that maybe somehow they know someone really cares that they have to live this way.

Cherokee

Cherokee

Cherokee

Washington Avenue was very upscale, many physicians and attorneys made their homes there. The homes from the beach washed into the homes on Washington and totally obliterated them, adding insult to injury. Many of the homes have now been bulldozed and what was once beautiful is now a desert.

Washington Avenue

Washington Avenue

Washington Avenue

Washington Avenue

As if I hadn't seen enough, I decided to ride through Lake Avenue. It wasn't too bad but remember I have been living in this awhile now and a person can somehow get used to it. It happens. There are only a few pics so I decided to put a house that you might find interesting knowing it is over six months since the storm.

Lake Avenue

Lake Avenue

Lake Avenue

There wasn't much to see in these pics except trailers but try to imagine what it would be like living this way after once having beautiful things. It is true that it can all disappear when you least expect it, Mississippi sure didn't.