Katrina: Housing notes

In their goofy "Fact Sheet" [1] the White House issued today about how marvy they've handled Katrina reconstruction, they include something not within spitting distance of a "fact": "The Administration Has Provided A Total Of $16.7 Billion In Federal Funds As Part Of The Largest Housing Recovery Program In U.S. History."

Doesn't that sound like $16.7 billion has been spent? Not really. That was the amount set aside. As I noted below, as of March, only $1 billion of it had been spent, almost all in Mississippi; then when the world found out what was going on, HUD spent but another $3.8 of it.

Meanwhile, let's remember what Katrina housing "recovery" has actually looked like. Remember the formaldahyde trailers? The government-issued campers contaminated with a carcinogen? Reported the Washington Post [2] a couple of weeks back, "Concerns about formaldehyde contamination have existed for more than a year, but FEMA was slow to react, and when it did, downplayed the health risk. But lawsuits, environmental groups and warnings by independent experts and doctors have pushed FEMA to seriously re-evaluate the risks."

Funny that didn't make it on the "Fact Sheet." Nor the fact that some of the rotten things were found being resold [3] on the open market. Nor the fact that it took a federal judge [4] to keep the Bush administration from denying rental aid to tens of thousands. The judge called the application process both unconstiutional, and "Kafkaesque."

Not all aid applications processes were that unmanageable, of course. Just ask the developers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama [5]—a city hundreds of miles inland—who managed to get hold of tax breaks through provided for under the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 to build luxury condos next to the Crimson Tide's football stadium "with granite countertops, king-size bathtubs and 'Bama decor, including crimson couches and Bear Bryant wall art."