Housing Section Introduction:

On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm surge covered a large section of southern Louisiana, and caused levee failure to several levee systems around the New Orleans area. As a result, an immense number of southern Louisiana homes were damaged and destroyed by wind and flood. On September 24, 2005, Hurricane Rita struck the southern Louisiana coastline. The storm surge, in excess of 13 feet, covered many of the western coastal Parishes of Louisiana. Rita traveled northeasterly through western Louisiana causing hurricane force winds in excess of 75 miles per hour. While wind and flooding caused additional damage to homes in the eastern Parishes, entire coastal communities in the western Parishes were destroyed.     
 
The President’s Office of Gulf Coast Rebuilding estimates 127,969 owner-occupied homes received major or sever damage, while 210,069 received minor damage. Of the owner-occupied homes, 25,183 (19.7%) were without insurance. It is also estimated that 133,367 rental units sustained major or sever damage, of which 126,568 (94.9%) were not insured. Approximately 1,700 homes have suffered repetitive damages, representing about one-third of repetitively damaged homes in the country.

The Greater New Orleans Community Development Center estimates that 119,770 (88.7%) of the damaged or destroyed owner-occupied units served low to moderate income households. The impact on the poor in New Orleans was particularly devastating, where the 2000 Census reports only a 46.5% homeownership rate, and a poverty rate of 27.9 percent. The Congressional Research Service calculates that the poverty rate in the flooded and damaged areas of Louisiana was 21.4%.

During the Louisiana Planning Day, held on January, 21, 2006, 37 open house meetings were held throughout the gulf coast impacted communities, and at out of state locations assessable to over 80 percent of evacuees, 98% of respondents strongly agreed they should build back differently to address issues of poverty concentration, hurricane/flood risk and environmental protection. 85% strongly agreed that zoning and land use plans should guide rebuilding. And, 75% strongly agreed that rebuilding and reinvestment should first be focuses on low-risk areas.

The guiding principles established by the LRA for rebuilding are to build Safer, Stronger, and Smarter. Rebuilding safer is about making sure that Louisiana is not vulnerable to future disasters. Building stronger is about targeting investments that lead to job growth and an improved quality of life for all people. Building smarter is about supporting a system of neighborhoods and communities through infrastructure investment that provides the best service at the lowest cost.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and The American Planning Association (APA) recommends creating infrastructure that supports recovery by restoring confidence, enhancing quality of life, and withstanding future disasters. Clearly, there is a need to establish parameters and policies that guide development in smart ways, which encourage growth in safe areas, concentrate growth in areas already supported by infrastructure, and which lead to better livable environments.

Not only did the hurricane greatly impact the supply of affordable housing, it also affected the capacity of local governments and the non-profit sector to respond. Many of the employees were among the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the hurricanes. Compounding this, many of the non-profits and PHA’s are consumed by addressing damages to offices and existing housing projects.

Many Communities still require additional information on flood elevations, damages, and options available to the before sound decisions can be made on development projects. The uncertainties, along with the overwhelming attention emergency response has required, and the need for tools and resources to build capacity and plan projects, have limited the identification of well planned projects with site control and resources in many of the Long-Term Community Recovery Parrish Plans.

One of the key recommendations for the State of Louisiana’s recovery is to adopt a Statewide Growth Management Act, which advances the principles of Smart Growth. In response, the following recommendations provide a framework for a Statewide Housing Strategy based on:

1. A Statewide Smart Growth Management framework that focuses immediate investment into safe “immediate investment areas”, neighborhood level planning, and long term comprehensive Smart Growth planning to build sustainable communities;

2. A Statewide Housing Trust Fund with dedicated funding sources to provide the tools and resources needed to support local housing strategies and programs, and provide capacity building, technical assistance, and predevelopment funding for increasing housing production capacity of the non-profit housing sector;

3. Helping homeowners rebuild, and assisting residents who are not homeowners to recover through local coordination of housing programs, case management, and supportive services under comprehensive Housing Resource Centers; and

4. Encouraging mixed-income development with affordable housing to people at a range of incomes, and wrap around supportive services to people with special needs.

We are therefore providing three documents which provide strategies, programs, and tools to build capacity and address local housing needs. These tools will provide local communities and housing providers with resources, strategies, and tools for developing the programs and projects that will help the State of Louisiana address its short-term and long term housing and community development needs. 

The first tool is a matrix of housing strategies and corresponding programs, tools and financial programs to address some of the key needs identified during the planning process. It is not a complete list of all strategies that could be developed, but provides a solid starting point.

The second tool is a document titled Building Blocks, which provides a statewide housing strategy, and a wide range of tools and programmatic approaches to address a wide spectrum of housing needs and goals. The guide identifies programmatic approaches which State and local governments can select from to address housing strategies based on state or local goals and objectives. The programs and approaches are provided in a pattern book type format, referred to as “Building Blocks”.

Click here to access the Building Blocks document

The third tool is a strategic timeline for implementing the statewide housing strategy recommendations in the Building Blocks document. It provides timelines for key activities to implementation.

Click here for the Strategic Housing Implementation Timeline

Each of these documents are made available here for State and local governments, planners, policy makers, and housing providers to use immediately. As the website is further developed, it is our intent to continue working with our Louisiana Speaks Partners to expand and populate the tool box, and to link strategies to tools and programmatic solutions through active website links that make it easy for local governments and housing providers to find the tools and programs that address local goals and needs.