Katrina Cottages Running into Rough Weather

Plans to provide small cottages, as homes offering long-term shelter for those residents of the Gulf Coast who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina, seem to be running into rough weather in Mississippi. The problem is not the hurricanes themselves, but the umpteen obstacles that seem to be cropping up daily, from fear of real estate value plummeting to a technicality on the part of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

The plan for the Katrina Cottage was the brainchild of a designer based out of New York. The Katrina Cottage was, in effect, a small cottage that could offer permanent shelter to Katrina victims. Mississippi officials were enthusiastic to the point of requesting federal funding when they first came to know of the plan.

Their point was simple: if it is possible to construct a long-lasting cottage that could afford shelter against a hurricane, go for it instead of opting for a trailer. That the cottage was attractively built in a Southern vernacular style and had a steep metal roof with a deep front porch were additional advantages.

However, after the initial enthusiasm to get the Katrina Cottage, the Mississippi officials seem to be developing cold feet, especially after the cottages, now called the Mississippi Cottage, have starting making an appearance on the coast.

The first problem is that the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency does not provide the cottage owner/prospective cottage owner with the land to house it in; it offers only the cottage. Added to this basic problem, cities on the coast have introduced fresh sets of rules that ensure residents who desperately need these cottages do not get them.

The fears of the local officials are manifold. According to them, there is the probability of these cottages becoming permanent entities in the neighborhoods that have been affected by Katrina. At the base of this fear is the fear of a depreciation in real estate value should these cottages remain permanently.

It is easy to understand the reason local officials are concerned. The cottages, ranging from 400 square feet to 850 square feet, come at minimal cost. It takes just $34,000 to construct one such cottage. When you compare that to the cost of real estate in these cities, the price tag would most definitely count.

A national pilot program is underway currently to estimate the effectiveness of the Mississippi Cottages as emergency housing options compared to the standard trailers. Over 900 families have occupied such cottages so far on the coast of Mississippi.

Despite these numbers, and the fact that a number of families are actually ready to move in, government officials seem hesitant to state that the cottages are a step in the right direction.

Says Jim Thriffiley, a member of the City Council of Bay St. Louis, “The Mississippi cottage is a trailer - except that instead of coming in through the side, you come in through the front. We don't want the stigma of these homes in our community.” In line with Thriffiley’s thinking, the bay St. Louis City Council has actually approved only 69 applications for these cottages and rejected a large number.

The moot point is whether these cottages are actually transitional shelters or are designed to be long-term solutions to the problem of housing. This is a slightly gray area. Mike Womack, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, says the cottage can function both ways in principle.

As part of the pilot program, the cottages are constructed elsewhere and wheeled in to the designated location, where they are temporarily attached to concrete blocks. This leaves the wheels hanging in air. Besides, the cottages also do not come under the purview of flood elevation regulations.

On the other hand, Womack says the structures can also end up as long-term shelters for the hurricane-threatened. They have a warranty period of 30 years, and the initial idea of the agency officials was to get people to buy the cottages. Once that was done, people could then have the option of elevating them so they were in compliance with the basic flood requirements.

Opposition to the cottages has been stiff in Bay St. Louis, despite a promise by state government officials to take the cottages away by 2009. At Bay St. Louis, there have been strong arguments about the cottages. City Council officials like Thriffiley are trying hard to ensure the trailers do not end up as permanent fixtures on what was once prime property in the city.

The current situation about the cottages has been especially hard for Mississippi, considering that the state officials actually asked for federal funding when the idea first surfaced. Congress actually okayed a $280 million national pilot program, even though the federal emergency management agency (FEMA) does not have the authority to make payments for ‘permanent housing’.

The reception to the Katrina Cottage has been different in different states. However, in Mississippi, there is no clarity about how its future is going to shape up.