Peoples Caravan visits Biloxi Mississippi : Houston Indymedia

One of our fellow caravan riders, a resident of Gulfport, Mississippi, was able to explain how little effort has been put forth by the government to help displaced residents of the area. Driving through the city, we saw housing units that are just now (almost two years after the storm!) being renovated. A number of neighborhoods have just totally been abandoned – in some areas, all that’s left of homes is the foundation.

Another hardship placed on the community has been the renovation and relocation of the casinos in the area. Casinos are a big industry. Along the Mississippi coast, we counted at least six casinos and dozens of billboard advertisements for them. Before the storm hit, casinos could only be built on water, but when they were all destroyed during the hurricane, new laws allowed them to relocate onto land. Casinos pushed to be allowed to move further and further onto land, where they would be taking over neighborhoods and displacing poor Biloxi residents. Fortunately, casinos are still being limited to staying close to water.

Our Biloxi stop included a pretty laid back Subway sandwich lunch at the John Beck community park and a small presentation by the Coastal Women for Change. The group began in January 2006 in response to the lack of work being done by city officials to help its residents. Coastal Women for Change has since been pushing to get Biloxi residents working together to rebuild and restore their community.

Executive director Sharon Hanshaw gave us a quick rundown of some of the hardships the community has faced as well as some of the projects the Coastal Women has taken on. She along with two other representatives of the group explained that one of their biggest focuses right now is providing child care for working families and mentoring and educational services for their city’s youth. Their working on getting a community space to serve as a childcare and educational center and connecting with retired teachers to help out.

Biloxi’s a long way from fully recovering and there’s still a huge number of displaced residents, but we got a pretty positive feel from the Coastal ladies – they’ve got a lot of energy and seem optimistic about working as a community to get their city back on track.

For more information about the Coastal Women for Change and their work in Biloxi, visit http://www.cwcbiloxi.org .

Borught us together in the pavillion in John Beck park to let us know about the struggles taking place in Biloxi for a just reconstruction and introduced other ladies from Biloxi who are organizing as well. Sharon joined the caravan with other from Biloxi to Selma and Atlanta

Taking a break
by Gislaine (w/ RoB on photos) Monday, Jul. 02, 2007 at 5:22 PM