NYT Stands With Mississippi

by Leigh Graham · 2009-09-23 13:27:00 UTC
Topics: show more

Last April, we featured a campaign here called "I Stand With Mississippi," started by the MS Center for Justice, to protest Governor Barbour's plan to decline federal stimulus funds.  Yesterday, the NY Times stood with Mississippi - expending editorial capital on the almost four-year fight by social justice advocates to compel the MS government to to appropriately and fairly spend federal disaster recovery funds on affordable housing for affected low-income populations.

The STEPS Coalition, an umbrella group of MS-based advocates such as the MS Center for Justice, is named in the editorial for a report it released at the anniversary of Katrina, documenting the state's poor performance in rebuilding destroyed affordable housing relative to its post-storm projections and compared to Louisiana.  We've documented here the most egregious example of Barbour's misplaced priorities - taking $600M allocated for housing redevelopment and using it to expand the port of Gulfport. Only 20% of all the money meant for low-income households has been spent on them; 50% has gone to wealthier homeowners.

Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation, and a state with poverty and inequality so dire that even Louisiana, hardly a progressive bright spot on the map, easily surpasses them in affordable housing recovery.  This post is sort of meta... it seeks to highlight the on-going progress and battle the STEPS Coalition and others are waging to bring all affordable housing back on-line to the thousands of state residents still displaced - in trailers and out-of-state.  But it also highlights the coverage this struggle is finally getting - national attention it's long deserved.  It's like someone on the NYT editorial staff finally had a chance to read that random Katrina report someone recommended last month.

Show your support for housing and social justice advocates in Mississippi: Check out the MS Center for Justice, the MS NAACP, and the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center, the STEPS Coalition, and their allies. There is a tremendous amount of social justice work happening and a tremendous progressive community in the U.S. South.  Get involved today.

(Photo of farmers' market at Point Cadet Plaza in Ocean Springs, MS, a few weeks before Katrina hit in August 2005; Taken by Ken Roberts Photography)

Leigh Graham
PREVIOUS STORY:
Record Levels of Homelessness in Rhode Island
NEXT STORY:
Sallie Mae Blinks!

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.