Chipping Away At Affordable Housing Crisis One Development At a Time

Proposed Plan for Bethel Estates in Pass Christian

A new housing development in Pass Christian is hoping to make a small difference in the ongoing affordable housing crisis plaguing the Mississippi Gulf Coast. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

State officials and community leaders came together yesterday to break ground on the brand new Bethel Estates affordable housing development in Pass Christian, a project developed by the nonprofit group Back Bay Mission. Bethel Estates will provide 32 units of single family and duplex housing for families making 80% or below Area Median Income. Sharon Prestemon, the executive director of Back Bay Mission says the Coast is still in desperate need of affordable housing,

“People come to us often needing assistance with rental assistance or mortgage, or other needs because they are having to make difficult choices every day. Between paying their rent, or paying their mortgage, or paying their utilities or buying food for their families. It is certainly true that there is still an affordable housing crisis here.”

Hurricane Katrina wiped out a large portion of the housing stock on the Coast, and those units that have been rebuilt are now subject to much higher insurance rates, which as a result have made home prices and rental rates skyrocket. The Bethel Estates development is being funded in part by a $2.3 million dollar grant from the Mississippi Development Authority. Gulf Coast Housing Director Gerald Blessey says Bethel Estates is one more way to try and tackle the affordability issue,

“So the cost is down, the mortgage is down, for people moving into those units. Homeownership is something we really want to promote, and this is a great project, Bethel Estates, to promote it.”

Pass Christian Mayor Chipper McDermott, sees the new housing development as just one more step towards recovery,

“It is going to allow people to come back to this town. Everyday that’s what we do; we fight to get the people back in this town so we can get back to our normal lives where we were before the hurricane.”

Construction on Bethel Estates is expected to be completed by early 2010.