Gulf Coast Housing Needed But So Are Jobs

GULFPORT, MS - Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP, is right to be concerned about housing on the Gulf Coast. But the aim of his ire, refurbishing the Port of Gulfport and Gov. Haley Barbour, for spearheading diverting federal Katrina funds for it, is misdirected. Johnson's group was among a coalition that filed a lawsuit last week in federal court in Washington against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development challenging its OK of $600 million for the port.

"Though the storm did not intentionally discriminate, the damage did reveal the impact of decades-long discrimination against poor, African-American people who were already living in substandard housing," Johnson said. "For the first time in our state's history, we have the resources to right this wrong. It is a matter of priorities."

But Johnson and those supporting the lawsuit, including Mississippi Center for Justice, Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, are missing the point. It's not Barbour, or the Mississippi Development Authority, that is delaying construction of affordable housing, or even diminishing funds for that purpose.

The port money is only a slice of the $5.481 billion that Congress appropriated to Mississippi. Recreating jobs lost from the hurricane is a legitimate use of the funds. About 6,000 families are still living in temporary housing on the Coast more than three years after the storm.

That's deplorable. As the lawsuit also decries, it's the waivers of the requirement that money be spent for housing for low-income people that is the real issue, though, not the port.

The port expansion is projected to create more than 6,000 jobs. The construction could take decades to complete, creating ongoing construction jobs. And, when it's finished, it will keep the port competitive with others, ensuring future employment.

Without the port expansion, the head of the local longshoreman's union noted, current and future jobs are lost. What good is building housing if the jobs are gone? Put another way, why object to job creation that will put paychecks in people's pockets, especially during a recession?