What Louisiana has to look forward to: a look back at last year's Charley:
The hurricane began that slide, destroying hundreds of modest homes and apartments along both sides of the Peace River as it enters Charlotte Harbor, and almost all of Punta Gorda's public housing. Then as the apartments were slowly restored -- a process made more costly and time-consuming because of a shortage of contractors and workers -- landlords found that they could substantially increase their rents in the very tight market.
As a result, the low-income working people most likely to have been displaced by the hurricane are now most likely to be displaced by the recovery, too.
The Washington Monthly comments: "The basic problem is that some of the places ravaged by Charley didn't rebuild their low-income housing because — not to put too fine a point on it — they didn't especially want their low-income residents back."
No comments:
Post a Comment