New Homeless Shelter Will Provide Job Training

A new transitional workforce housing center on the Gulf Coast is taking the first step into solving the homelessness issue on the Coast. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

The new homeless housing center will be built using $2 million dollars from Mississippi’s federally funded disaster recovery package, and will be part of the 6,000 affordable housing units being built through recovery funds on the Gulf Coast. The Coast lost all of its homeless shelters during Katrina but certainly not its homeless population says Gerald Blessey, Gulf Coast Housing Director,

“The homeless have suffered like everybody up and down the socioeconomic scales. We feel like this is an integral part of recovery, and rebuilding and renewal of a community that recognizes ]the needs of people at every level of the spectrum.”

The transitional workforce housing center will be located in Gulfport and provide dormitory style housing for 60 men. But Lee Youngblood with the Mississippi Development Authority, says this is not just a homeless shelter,

“This project is unique because it is a place where one can transition into the workforce, to get out of a potential bad situation where they might not have a home. At the same time learn a job skill and be able to acquire training that is going to assist them for the rest of their life, or help them provide a living for them and their family for the rest of their life.”

Once the residents obtain full time employment they will be charged a fee not to exceed $55 dollars a week before they can transition into more permanent affordable housing. The center is expected to be completed by next summer.