PASCAGOULA, MS - Affordable housing projects throughout Pascagoula are vital to bringing Jackson County's workforce back to the area since Hurricane Katrina, city and business leaders reported Tuesday at the Gulf Coast Business Council's first meeting here. The city laid out its progress in building affordable housing using the slogan "Leading the Pack" in front of an audience of 100 business leaders and city officials meeting at Scranton's Restaurant.
"In our view, Pascagoula is really at the forefront of developing progressive, affordable and successful housing developments," said Brian Sanderson, president of the council, which was formed three years ago. The 254-member group, which has traditionally held its meetings in centrally located Harrison County, will begin holding annual meetings in the state's three coastal counties, Sanderson said. "Since we are a regional organization, we want to be visible in Harrison, Jackson and Hancock counties," he said.
Pascagoula Mayor Matthew Avara and business leaders gave overviews of Pascagoula housing developments, including the rehabilitation of Bay Towers, the Taylor Heights project and the Mississippi Cottage village planned for downtown. "The entire meeting tonight is about affordable housing and getting our workforce back in Jackson County," Avara said.
Avara said the Morrison Village and Taylor Heights apartment complexes going up at the site of the former Charles Warner Homes on Old Mobile Highway is a project that the community can see unfolding day-by-day. "Everyday it continues to blossom and continues to grow," Avara said.
Chris Monforton, CEO of Habitat for Humanity of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, said the organization is preparing to close on all 60 of the homes that were built in May during the weeklong Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project. Twenty of those homes are in Pascagoula. Habitat was a "fairly small" operation along the Mississippi Gulf Coast prior to Hurricane Katrina's landfall in 2005. At that time, it built only one or two homes per year on average in Jackson County, Monforton said.
Since the storm, Habitat has built more than 200 homes in the three coastal counties, Monforton said. "We are not the solution," Monforton said. "We are part of the answer." Avara said entities like the Gulf Coast Business Council that bring business leaders together also are part of the answer to the growing need for more affordable housing. "There are so many voices and so many opportunities to bring new ideas to the table," Avara said.
Source: GulfLive.com