Biloxi HOPE VI Redevelopment
At the time of Hurricane Katrina,
the HOPE VI development in Biloxi, Miss., was about 30 days away from initial
completion.
“It was 90% complete, and we had people living there already,” says Bobby Hensley, executive director of the Biloxi Housing Authority. “The weekend Katrina hit we had another 15 or so apartments scheduled to be moved into.”
The work that had been done was completely destroyed. The seniors building had just been framed out. After the storm, only the slab remained. On the completed buildings, water rose as high as the ceilings on the first floor. Residents were moved out, and the construction process had to start over.
Hensley says some components, such as the community building, had to be scrapped the second time around. With money from the insurance companies, the state and federal governments, and the housing authority, the team managed to put the $60 million deal back together.
In 2007, Cadet Point, the 76-unit seniors building, was completed. “We were the first new housing to open up after the storm on the peninsula area of the city,” says Hensley.
Following that came the 196-unit Bayview Place, which includes public housing and low-income housing tax credit units, and Bayview Oaks, 39 for-sale homes. Unfortunately, because insurance became so costly for homeowners after Katrina, only about half of the homes sold. The rest were turned into rentals.
In addition to the HOPE VI redevelopment, the housing authority, which lost approximately 80% of its public housing stock, continues to grow to meet the need. At the time of Katrina, the housing authority was serving approximately 600 families. Today, it serves around 1,800.
According to Hensley, since
Biloxi is an older city, many people had been living in homes older generations
had built and didn’t have the resources to rebuild or pay the costly insurance.
“So they found themselves in need of affordable housing,” he says. “We have
expanded and tried to meet that need.”