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Biloxi's Recovery Shows Divide
"At night, you can see the casino lights up in the sky," said Shirley Salik, 72, who lives in a FEMA camper. "But that's another world."
(By Peter Whoriskey -- The Washington Post)
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Like many of the residents struggling to rebuild in eastern Biloxi, Salik said she opposes spending housing aid for the port.
"Whatever turns their crank," she said when asked about the proposal. "You know, really, there's still a lot of people around here who need help."
All along the road Salik lives on, Hoxie Street, people are struggling to get back into their homes. And while city officials have blamed the slow recovery on new FEMA guidelines that call for elevating houses by as much as 12 feet off the ground -- an expensive and sometimes impractical requirement -- those rules do not affect everyone, and most said their primary challenge is financial.
Daniel Beavers, 52, a surveyor, is rebuilding his house himself because his insurance payout and a state grant fell well short of what he has needed.
Emily Sponsler, a bartender, and her 11-year-old son are living in a FEMA trailer while they wait for their landlord to gather enough money to rebuild the house they once rented for $625 a month.
Earl Parrish, 72, a retired pipe fitter, and his wife, Betty, are still living in their grandson's home in Ocean Springs, the next town over, trying to put their Hoxie Street house back together on a limited budget.
They received about $50,000 from the housing grant program, but it was not nearly enough to complete the job. Katrina flooded their house with about six feet of water.
They have put in their own savings, and a Lutheran church group handled a lot of the labor. But their home is not quite ready for them to move in -- it has no furniture.
Like his neighbors, Earl Parrish opposes redirecting the housing aid to the port. But he seemed to regret making a complaint.
"We're grateful for what we got -- don't misunderstand," he said. "But the people around here were just working folks who didn't have much. You see all these empty lots around here? These are people who just can't afford to come back."
